{"id":130,"date":"2007-05-15T10:03:59","date_gmt":"2007-05-15T15:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/?p=130"},"modified":"2019-12-13T17:38:37","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T22:38:37","slug":"can-i-get-that-without-the-blinky-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/?p=130","title":{"rendered":"Can I get that without the blinky lights?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems that every sort of electronic device you get nowadays has to have some sort of ridiculously annoying blinky light.<\/p>\n

The set of Bluetooth stereo headphones<\/a> that I recently bought have an annoying blue light on the “M” button on each earpiece. While you’re playing stereo audio through them, the two lights slowly fade in and out. It’s really quite annoying to walk into a dark room with the headphones on and have a weird blue glow playing off the walls because of it. (It seems that there must be a rule out that somewhere that every Bluetooth device has to have a blue LED somewhere, or it’s not really Bluetooth(tm).)<\/p>\n

Then there’s the V740 ExpressCard<\/a> that I got recently for EVDO Rev.A Internet access. The improved upstream and latency on it is great, but I wish that someone would have written on the box: “Warning, this product includes a blinky LED whose sole purpose is to annoy the operator.”<\/p>\n

Specifically, there’s bright LED<\/a> (low quality camera – sorry) on the card that blinks several times per second while in use. The LED doesn’t provide any sort of indication of data rate, what type of service you are using; just that you’re connected (in other words, nothing useful). Apparently, Novatel thought it important enough to remind you that you’re still online with an annoying bright light right by your laptop keyboard (where most ExpressCard ports are) that strobes a couple times per second. Great idea, there, Novatel…<\/p>\n

Then, there’s a PNY USB flash memory stick I bought recently that also<\/em> blinks many times per second while it’s in use (bright red, this time). This, of course, really sucks if you use it for ReadyBoost, pretty much forcing you to plug it into the back of your computer (to the eternal annoyance of anyone sitting across from you at a table).<\/p>\n

Even my laptop (an XPS M1710) is adorned with flashy LEDs, though at least these are programmable (and can be disabled if desired), making them at least somewhat redeemable.<\/p>\n

Ironically, my cell phone is about the least intrusive gadget I use in terms of annoying blinky lights. I think that is saying something about the unfortunate state of affairs with modern electronic gadgets and the obsession with blinky lights nowadays…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems that every sort of electronic device you get nowadays has to have some sort of ridiculously annoying blinky light. The set of Bluetooth stereo headphones that I recently bought have an annoying blue light on the “M” button on each earpiece. While you’re playing stereo audio through them, the two lights slowly fade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":590,"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nynaeve.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}