Month: March 2016

Today about 2/3 of the world changed their clocks forward one hour in a stupid effort to save daylight. Supposedly we do this to save energy but I’d like to see a comprehensive study that proves that. I doubt it saves anything.

One thing I see different this year is the increased talk of abandoning Daylight Saving Time (DST). Good! California has legislation introduced to eliminate it as well as Missouri. Several states like Arizona don’t follow DST at all. Others are a bit of a mess like Indiana.

Lets just end this practice Benjamin Franklin proposed as a joke. You want more daylight get your butt up earlier in the summer (northern hemisphere).

Oddly I’ve noticed increased discussion of eliminating time zones as well. Put everyone on the same clock. Well that’s also stupid in my opinion. The notion of local time has always been based on the sun, that is when the sun crossed the local meridian it was local noon. Why on earth would we want New York, Los Angeles and Bejing all at the same time? It would make no sense locally.

But wait, we already do keep time the same across the earth. Its called Universal Time or Coordinated Universal Time to be exact (UTC). Computers use this internally and transparently convert it for humans.

Time, dates and calendars are complicated. Why add the useless additional complication of DST. Lets get rid of it.

As a kid I remember being handed a fresh Polaroid film picture and waiting about a minute before peeling it apart to see the image. It was amazing! Fast forward many years and the digital revolution all but erased that era from my mind. I didn’t know the film still existed until Okie-Tex 2015 when a photographer (sorry I forgot his name) walked up and took our picture:

I was pretty amazed this film technology still existed. I was told that Fujifilm has been making instant peel film for years. That print I carried home from Okie-Tex has sat on my desk for months. A fun reminder of the trip and a photographic style almost extinct.

A few days ago I read that Fujifilm is discontinuing production of the Polaroid compatible peel type film. Perhaps I should get a pack or two before its gone. When my dad passed away I got the Polaroid Model 180 he used for years. Might be fun to surprise people with ‘instant’ film some time.