Not-so intelligent machines

Intelligent machines? hmmmmm.

For example, those clocks that will automatically change when Daylight Savings time changes. However, they never got the word that we changed the DATE to do this. They still are automatically changing on the old date. (This MAC, on the other hand, gets its messages from someplace else, because it changed it's time stamp at the new, correct date.)

We finally had to throw out our daughter's alarm clock, because it refused to let us adjust to the correct time. For several weeks it showed the wrong time -- and then suddenly changed. Pretty useless when you are using the clock to help the child learn how to tell time and when to get up in the morning/ go to sleep at night.

This past Monday, (April 7th) I glanced at the clock in the children's room of the library, noticed that it was 12 noon, felt hungry, so I left the Information Desk and went back to my office to eat lunch. When I finished, I happened to look at the clock on my computer and -- yikes -- it was only 11:35 am.

I was convinced that some of the teens had pulled a late April Fool's joke on me. Until the head of circulation pointed out that several other clocks were an hour off.

When Daylight Savings day came, we had put all of the library clocks ahead, not knowing that some of the newer clocks were semi-intelligent. These newer clocks had simply jumped another hour forward on Monday -- the day they had been programed to do it.

Well, at least these clocks allow us to do our own time changing on the correct days. And now we know to watch out for things to happen to these clocks on the old Daylight Savings time days. (cue music from Twilight Zone)

-wendieO