On 7/31/2017 3:53 PM, whit3rd wrote:
On Monday, July 31, 2017 at 12:59:50 PM UTC-7, Leon wrote:

I was once told be a lighting salesman that the failing tubes can cause
a ballast to go bad. Cheaper to replace all tubes, maybe.

Replacing all tubes, if it's at all difficult to reach the fixture, is certainly
a good idea (won't save much money trying to get the last ten percent
of life out of a tube that's turning dark). The 'cause a ballast to go bad'
is probably obsolete, the old iron ballasts would sometimes overheat when
a tube went out.

The reason, is that the tube going out could result in accidental rectification of
the current (and magnetize/saturate/overheat the ballast).

New (electronic) ballasts don't do that.

BELL LAB PROVES EXISTENCE OF DARK SUCKERS!
For years it has been believed that electric bulbs emitted light.
However, recent information from Bell Labs has proven otherwise.
Electric bulbs don't emit light; they suck dark. Thus they now call
these bulbs dark suckers. The dark sucker theory, according to a
spokesman from the Labs, proves the existence of dark, that dark has
mass heavier than that of light, and that dark is faster than light.

The basis of the dark sucker theory is that electric bulbs suck dark.
Take for example the dark suckers in the room where you are. There is
less dark right next to them than there is elsewhere. The larger the
dark sucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark. Dark suckers in a
parking lot have a much greater capacity than the ones in this room.

As with all things, dark suckers don't last forever. Once they are full
of dark, they can no longer suck. This is proven by the black spot on a
full dark sucker. A new candle has a white wick. You will notice that
after the first use, the wick turns black, representing all the dark
which has been sucked into it. If you hold a pencil next to the wick of
an operating candle, the tip will turn black because it got in the path
of the dark flowing into the candle. Unfortunately, these primitive dark
suckers have a very limited range.

There are also portable dark suckers. The bulbs in these can't handle
all of the dark by themselves, and must be aided by a dark storage unit.
When the dark storage unit is full, it must be either emptied or
replaced before the portable dark sucker can operate again.

Dark has mass. When dark goes into a dark sucker, friction from this
mass generates heat. Thus it is not wise to touch an operating dark
sucker. Candles present a special problem, as the dark must travel in
the solid wick instead of through glass. This generates a great amount
of heat. Thus it can be very dangerous to touch an operating candle.

Dark is also heavier than light. If you swim deeper and deeper, you
notice it gets darker and darker. When you reach a depth of
approximately fifty feet, you are in total darkness. This is because the
heavier dark sinks to the bottom of the lake and the ligher light floats
to the top.

The immense power of dark can be utilized to a man's advantage. We can
collect the dark that has settled to the bottom of lakes and push it
through turbines, which generates electricity and helps push it to the
ocean where it may be safely stored. Prior to turbines, it was much more
difficult to get dark from rivers and lakes to the ocean. The Indians
recognized this problem and tried to solve it. When on a river in a
canoe traveling in the same direction as the flow of dark, they paddled
slowly, so as not to stop the flow of dark, but when they traveled
against the flow of dark, they paddled quickly so as to help push the
dark along its way.

Finally, we must prove that dark is faster than light. If you stand in
an illuminated room in front of a closed, dark closet, then slowly open
the door, you would see the light slowly enter the closet, but since the
dark is so fast, you would not be able to see the dark leave the closet.

In conclusion, Bell Labs stated that dark suckers make all our lives
much easier. So the next time you look at an electric light bulb,
remember that it is indeed a dark sucker.