The Dark

When I go to bed at night in the winter, the room seems to be completely dark except for some faint light coming from a window with light-colored blinds. The illumination comes from the outdoor lights of people who live behind us. 

If I stay awake long enough, my eyes dilate and I see more and more light. But that first moment of mostly darkness made me think about how little people, especially in the industrialized world, spend in complete darkness. Even when we (or people who do because I don't) go camping we build fires, take flashlights and lanterns. My father had a Colman gas lantern that burned "white gas" and had two "mantels" that didn't burn despite looking like they were made of threads. You had to pump it up to get it started. Apparently, they still sell them.

In pre-industrial times, light was expensive to make. Candles were hand-made and firewood had to be sourced from nearby woods, if there were woods. Bedouin tribes in the Sahara Desert used olive oil or animal oils in lamps according to Google. That olive oil must have been expensive.

Humanity has long ached to expel the darkness. There could be something dangerous out in the dark. There's a science fiction/horror movie, Pitch Black, that uses the dark to enhance the terror. That's probably true for a lot of horror movies, I just watch so few of them.

I think about shepherds out on hillsides in ancient times. They may have built a fire for warmth and light but all they had to do was watch the sheep and the sky. Of course, the ancients watching the sky is where the constellations and a lot of star names come from. 

Think about before fire was discovered. humans and proto-humans had no light at night. It must have been so dark. So dark we today can hardly comprehend it. And that would be scary.

The dark makes some people uncomfortable; I can understand why. 

Does the dark make you uncomfortable? Or do you enjoy the dark? Let me know in the comments below.

Hollywood Inacuracies

SPOILERS for Die Hard and Raiders of the Lost Ark ahead.

Over the holidays I watched my favorite Christmas movie: Die Hard. There's a scene in that movie where the limousine driver, Argyle, punches one of the terrorists/robbers once and the guy is knocked unconscious. 

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, during the bar shoot-out scene, Marion hits a Nazi stooge with a big stick on the head and he's knocked unconscious despite wearing thick headgear. 

A lot of times in movies, people are knocked out too easily. And then they get up and are fine (if they are the hero). Knocking someone out requires a lot more violence than movies portray and getting knocked unconscious can do lasting perhaps permanent damage. 

Another Hollywood invention is the one-shot drop. The hero will shoot a bad guy once (sometimes with a small-caliber pistol) and the bad guy will drop dead. This rarely happens unless you get lucky and hit the brain. I once read about a police woman who was off duty and getting out of her car. A bad guy shot her in the heart. She lived long enough to draw her weapon and return fire, killing him. Unfortunately, she died. 

Yes, if you shoot someone in the brain with a sniper rifle, you will kill them with one shot. But if you aren't shooting a sniper rifle, you're odds of dropping someone with one shot are slim.

Can you think of more Hollywood inaccuracies, especially about violence? Let me know in the comments below.

Daylight Saving Time Needs to Go Away

This weekend, the U.S. and Canada (and maybe other countries) "spring ahead" to go into Daylight Saving Time (DST). (I know Europe and the UK are on a different schedule than the U.S.)

There have been numerous studies that show on the Monday after the change to DST there are more accidents and heart attacks. There is not a corresponding decrease in accidents and heart attacks after going off DST in the autumn. 

Then there's the bi-annual ritual of changing the time on your clocks. Which is annoying. At least our phones change automatically. There's parts of Arizona that don't observe DST and none of Hawaii. Since 2006, Indiana has observed DST statewide. Before that, there was a patch quilt of counties that did and did not follow DST. Also part of Indiana is in the Central Time Zone and part in the Eastern Time Zone so that made it especially confusing.

I think we should go on permanent DST. The only downside is it'll still be dark awfully late in the morning in the winter. I know this from experience. Congress enacted year-round DST from Jan 6, 1974, to April 27, 1975, to "conserve energy." It probably didn't conserve any energy and, boy, those winter mornings were dark.

British Columbia is going on permanent DST starting this weekend. One last time changing clocks.

Being permanently off DST would work, too, but a lot of people like those late daylight hours in the summer. I don't really care as long as I don't have to change a clock again for DST.

How do you feel about DST? Hate it or love it? Want to go permanently on DST or standard time? Let me know in the comments below.