{"id":158,"date":"2016-04-05T07:44:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T11:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/?p=158"},"modified":"2016-04-26T11:48:47","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T15:48:47","slug":"porch-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/porch-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Porch Light"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image
Image courtesy pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My porch light, no lights–both of them–are possessed. \u00a0\u00a0They each have a chip–the silicon kind–not the nick\/dent kind. \u00a0\u00a0The eleven page manual describes the various options and switches along with a nomenclature. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(Yep, the diagram actually was entitled <\/span>nomenclature-<\/span><\/i>-which I thought was a bit over the top, presumptuous even.) We\u2019re talking about a porch light here–not a nuclear power plant. \u00a0Aren\u2019t nomenclatures associated with complex notions like biology and chemistry? \u00a0You know that class in college that 98% of freshmen flunk? \u00a0Calling a picture with arrows and a legend a <\/span>nomenclature<\/span><\/i> is like calling a system analyst an <\/span>architect<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0\u00a0Right? \u00a0\u00a0Just where is the building, bridge, house, shed or outhouse built by any system analyst? \u00a0\u00a0\u201cOh, but our designs are<\/span> blueprints<\/span><\/i> for complex systems,\u201d the industry argues. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I think they– the IT industry–need to think up their own names for their own people and quit borrowing and mucking up perfectly good words with their obscure parallels. \u00a0Or they can just call a spade and spade and let it go at that. \u00a0I can say this because I once was a system analyst and I designed my share of systems–complex ones–but I was never by any stretch of the imagination, an architect.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Back to the porch lights. \u00a0\u00a0There are switches–many of them. \u00a0\u00a0All I wanted was an on\/off switch. \u00a0You know the binary thing–1 and 0. \u00a0It\u2019s on. \u00a0It\u2019s off. \u00a0You want the light on, switch up. \u00a0\u00a0You want the light off, switch down. \u00a0Both of the lights at the same time–on, off–easy peasy. \u00a0\u00a0But the system <\/span>architect <\/span><\/i>designed this very complex array of switches that allows the porch lights to come on at dawn and off at dusk, or vice versa. \u00a0\u00a0And the determination of dawn and dusk apparently has nothing to do with the actual rising or setting of the sun. \u00a0And there\u2019s no internal clock in those little chips–so you can\u2019t <\/span>set <\/span><\/i>the time, day and night, and have the lights come on or off based on the clock. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The porch lights just come on or turn off arbitrarily. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s spooky, really. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the<\/span> motion-sensitive <\/span><\/i>feature. \u00a0For this to work, the switch in the house (that governs the porch lights) would have to be <\/span>on<\/span><\/i>, all the time, right? \u00a0And then, in theory, \u00a0if someone or something came into the designated range of the porch light, IF it was night (and dark)–then the light would come on. \u00a0\u00a0Right? Nope. \u00a0Not true. \u00a0Not so. \u00a0False. \u00a0\u00a0Those little suckers have a mind of their own. You can dance a jig and wave your arms two inches from the lamp and nothing happens. \u00a0Nothing. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But turn your back and the damn light comes on–slowly. \u00a0\u00a0I mean slowly. \u00a0\u00a0And don\u2019t tell me it\u2019s the energy-saving light bulb causing the slow progression from dark to light. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not, because I don\u2019t have energy-saving light bulbs in the lamps. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a ghost or something. \u00a0And I think she or he is pissed. \u00a0\u00a0I would be too if someone drew a picture of me and entitled it <\/span>nomenclature<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Glenda Kotchish<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 April 5, 2016<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My porch light, no lights–both of them–are possessed. \u00a0\u00a0They each have a chip–the silicon kind–not the nick\/dent kind. \u00a0\u00a0The eleven page manual describes the various options and switches along with a nomenclature. \u00a0 (Yep, the diagram actually was entitled nomenclature–which I thought was a bit over the top, presumptuous even.) We\u2019re talking about a porch … Continue reading Porch Light<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[33,37,36,34,35],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay-more-or-less","tag-essay","tag-ghost","tag-it","tag-satire","tag-system-analyst"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}