Dark Suckers
If anyone remembers the old internet joke theory known as the “Dark Sucker Theory“, the one in which light bulbs do not emit light but instead suck dark, they might be surprised to learn that this piece of silly internet humor is pretty well-aged. In a New York Times article on Daylight Savings Time, a reference to a letter written by Ben Franklin notes an 18th-century jokester’s “insistence that opening the shutters to greet the dawn lets out the darkness rather than bringing in the light.” The article itself reports more evidence that the provision in the generally-awful Energy Policy Act of 2005 that changed the dates for Daylight Savings Time has probably increased overall electricity usage. No surprises there.