So the other night I was watching some piss poor sci-fi show and laughing at the silly looking “futuristic technologies” in the program. I said to myself “Why does every set designer seem to think that if something is futuristic technology, it has to be covered with meaningless glowing and winking lights?” Then I shut the TV off leaving myself in darkness.  That's when I realized something…

Across the room I could see the following things glowing: the xbox power button, the LED on the wireless controller, the red LED's on the wireless receiver, the blinking green LEDs on the wireless adapter that lets my xbox access my LAN, the red LED on the TV, a red powerstrip LED, the illuminated cable-box panel with clock and lights, and the illuminated VCR panel with winking amber dashes on it.

I wandered, in darkness, through the dining room where I could see a couple baseboard nightlights, and two glowing LED's on the old Macintosh which was temporarily set up on the dining room table. Then I entered my study… where the computers were.

There were two laptops and two desktops running. All of the monitors were powered off but one, and that one was showing a seemingly meaningless stream of numbers scrolling by as it worked on a math problem for me. I could see 2 glowing red optical mice, 2 green speaker LED's and one bright blue speaker light, green and amber LED's on subwoofers, powerstrips, laptop power supplies, keyboards, laptops, ethernet ports, power buttons, and monitors. Finally on top of one of the PC's was the cable modem and wireless router, both bedecked in winking lights.

It occurred to me that maybe the whole sci-fi blinking-lights thing wasn't so crazy after all. I was literally surrounded by illuminated point sources in various colors and shapes… and I could only imagine what a person from the 1800's might think if wandering the rooms of my home. Looks like I'm living in science fiction.

Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap, will ya? We've all got our switches, lights, and knobs to deal with, Striker. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights… blinking and beeping and flashing… they're flashing and they're beeping. I can't stand it anymore! They're blinking and beeping and flashing!! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug!?

Thank you Buck Murdock. Anyway this strikes me as an interesting meme. A meme that only works at night. Wait for darkness, then turn out all your lights. Walk around your home and make a note of everything you can see that is glowing. You may be surprised to find you've got quite a long list before you are done… cellphone chargers, toys, whatever.

Achtung! Alles lookenspeepers! Das computenmachine ist nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben! Ist easy snappen der springenwerk, blowen fusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken! Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dumbkopfen! Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das hants in das pockets, relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!