Posted On: Tuesday - June 9th 2026 6:38PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity
This post is truly in Peak Stupidity's wheelhouse. We've written before that just because you can create a new product or system based on fast software and cheap, tiny sensors, doesn't mean people want it. Our example in a post from over 9 years back was automatic windshield wipers.
Well, light bulbs aren't just light bulbs anymore, even though I do still have a couple of hundred incandescents, bought at a quarter a piece during the Bush Administration. Yes, I'm almost sure they go back that far or maybe max 2 years later, as it was some proclamation by Bush about doing away with these bulbs that had me making a number of trips to the Big Box home improvement store for cases of them.
Even as a curmudgeon, I still must admit that light bulbs have been greatly improved. They're done with the stupid curly-cue types and on to the LEDs. We tried to do an inflation estimate, but, note the title here - Light Bulb price inflation Deflation - this one's a doozy. You really have to make value estimates based on lumen-life-hours or equivalent-watt-life-hours* to evaluate the value.
I came to the Big Box store the other day for many bulbs. The fixtures in the one place take about 10 different styles, standard threaded screw-in bulbs, two prong ones, little candle-lookng things... They all do turn on when you put them in, at least.
You get almost NO help now at these stores, so I couldn't find one type, but, since I'd made the trip, I looked at these colored bulbs. Years ago, my kid and I got bulbs of 4 colors and put them in one fixture on which the switch allows 2 on, the other 2 on, all on, or off. Now it's been about a year since 2 of them burned out, so memory-jogged, there we go.
Sure, they said "Smart Bulbs", on the box but, they use "smart" with anything now. Smart sells! (Sex sells too, and sex still beats smart.) It looked like there might be a switch right on these to change colors, who knows?
I brought them home, took one out, and stuck it into the fixture. It burned white. No, that couldn't be the whole of this smart bulb technology. Now, let me say that this is NOT, I repeat, NOT, supposed to be a Polish joke, but I had to pull out the directions to operate the light bulb.
The directions said - you may have even seen this coming - that I needed to scan the QR code, then log into the web portal to get colored light, basically to OPERATE these light bulbs. I'm not even Polish! I'm just a country curmudgeon... who said to himself right there, "Back to the store you go!" And, back they went.
Smart bulbs, dumb people. I resemble that remark. The stupidity on my part was in thinking that anything new and improved I bought might be a good thing. I get it, though, that these might be the coolest thing ever for the younger generations. Sure, scan the code, get on the portal, enter some shit, call the help desk, enter the chat ... pretty soon we'll all be making jokes: How many Zoomers does it take to turn on a light bulb?
PS: Also, I think we should change Polish jokes to Somalian jokes and while we're at it, light bulb jokes to web portal jokes.
* Lumens are the SI units of light flux. Using lumens, though, doesn't mean enough to the average consumer to help rate these. The new bulbs are so efficient in converting that electrical energy to light vs some light and lots of heat, that we use ratings in "watts". They aren't the real wattage use of the bulbs. The rating is based on the wattage of the old bulbs that would give us equivalent light in lumens.
This works, as we all have a pretty good idea how bright an old 100 W incandescent is, or a 75 W, 60, 40, etc.
Comments:
Moderator
Wednesday - June 10th 2026 6:06AM MST
PS: Good morning, Possumman.
The first time I saw one of those QR codes (2-D bar code, basically) stuck onto a table at a restaurant was in Summer of '20, the PanicFest time. It was very important that we all didn't touch stuff that other people were touching, so they told us, hence get rid of the paper/plastic menus.
I imagine 2 years later, nobody felt like, or even know how to, go get paper ones printed out again, oh, and they didn't want to pay for that anymore. I'll give them that these make menu and price changes (the latter being very important these days) far easier to do.
Long ago, gas stations went to electronic price signage, obviating the need for some guy with a long stick with a suction cup (really hard on your neck and back) to pull down some plastic numbers and put other ones up. I might ask the one non-Indian guy at an Amoco station I know if he can just type in a price on the what used to be a cash register, point-of-sale computer, and it appears on the sign. That's probably the case.
Convenience for the employees aside, I'd have done the same as you did. (I might have first asked if "we can have paper menus" - you didn't mention that. Sometimes they do.)
The first time I saw one of those QR codes (2-D bar code, basically) stuck onto a table at a restaurant was in Summer of '20, the PanicFest time. It was very important that we all didn't touch stuff that other people were touching, so they told us, hence get rid of the paper/plastic menus.
I imagine 2 years later, nobody felt like, or even know how to, go get paper ones printed out again, oh, and they didn't want to pay for that anymore. I'll give them that these make menu and price changes (the latter being very important these days) far easier to do.
Long ago, gas stations went to electronic price signage, obviating the need for some guy with a long stick with a suction cup (really hard on your neck and back) to pull down some plastic numbers and put other ones up. I might ask the one non-Indian guy at an Amoco station I know if he can just type in a price on the what used to be a cash register, point-of-sale computer, and it appears on the sign. That's probably the case.
Convenience for the employees aside, I'd have done the same as you did. (I might have first asked if "we can have paper menus" - you didn't mention that. Sometimes they do.)
The Alarmist
Wednesday - June 10th 2026 12:53AM MST
PS
They are actually Dumb Bulbs. They do not emit light at wavelengths that are beneficial to human health, something that the old “energy wasteful” incadescent lights did.
One of the few nice things about being a gentleman of a certain age is that I can simply refuse to have apps or scan QR codes. Yep, I’m a dinosaur… a relatively untracked dinosaur.
🕉
They are actually Dumb Bulbs. They do not emit light at wavelengths that are beneficial to human health, something that the old “energy wasteful” incadescent lights did.
One of the few nice things about being a gentleman of a certain age is that I can simply refuse to have apps or scan QR codes. Yep, I’m a dinosaur… a relatively untracked dinosaur.
🕉
Possumman
Tuesday - June 9th 2026 8:10PM MST
PS. Take your QR code and shove it... To twist a phrase. Don't want to deal with those things especially not to see a menu in a restaurant. Took my then 90 year old mother and other family members to a LARGE local brewery/restaurant-Mom can't read a menu on my phone-- I can barely do it. We got up and left and spent my money at a local sit down pricey restaurant with real menus! Smart bulbs, refrigerators and other appliances solve a problem no one asked to be solved!
Oh, yeah, I refuse almost all apps. I'm not sure what's so hard about going to a website, instead of the app. There's one for work that's apparently VERY helpful, with lots of good info, but I just don't... care enough, I guess.
"Yep, I’m a dinosaur… a relatively untracked dinosaur." They will only know what you were up to when they dig up your bones ... I like it!