Hacking the Fluorescent Light
DynaSoar writes "MSNBC reports on an elegant hack performed on the common fluorescent tube. By mixing phosphorescent material with the usual white fluorescent material, American Environmental Products has developed a tube that continues to glow when shut off. Originally intended for submarines, and then used in places where terrorists could disrupt services, they are also perfect for power outages, providing some light so you don't have to thrash around in the dark looking for your candles and flashlights. Since the 'hack' is inside the tube, they can also be removed from their fixtures and carried around, as well as provide light even if they're shattered."
OMG, all they need to do is put a hard-shield around the glass tube ;P
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
how do you turn these lights off.
While this is a great product, I can see people like my granny going nuts over this. She can't handle the TV anymore (called me because it wouldn't work - I guess it has to be plugged in!), the telephone (has no idea how voicemail works, thinks that I am my answering machine). When lightbulbs exist that won't turn off, that might just be over the top.
Are you kidding? I think if they make it commercially available I'll replace every light in the house with these!
Glow in the dark lightbulbs is one of the best ideas I've ever heard. Think about when you're leaving a room and someone has left before you and turns out a light. No big deal you can still see. And how about everything that the blurb mentions? So quick to dismiss all of that?
These things even glow when broken, which is just mega cool. Innovation at its best.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I am installing these in my fleet of nuclear subs right away! :P
Join the Empire! http://www.empirereborn.net/
I always wanted a light bulb that I couldn't turn off. I suppose I could just remove the switch and connect the wires, but this solution is so much simpler.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
What a bright idea!
I'll be here all night, ladies and gents!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Don't put it in the room where you sleep. Or for that matter your TV room.
And if you still live with your mom, that could possibly be the same room..
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Yes but it's great for preventing murder mysteries!
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
"Where's the door? how do I get out of here, it's all dark - Oh fuck, somebody unscrewed all those glow-in-the-dark lightbulbs!"
Problem: Domestically produced commodity items are no longer cost competetive in the marketplace. Increased competition from overseas manufacturing is producing insurmountable pricing pressure on commodity items. Company is approaching insolvency.
Solution: Minor cosmetic changes to commodity product manufacturing process. Re-write marketing material to reflect the change, emphasis on the 'terrorist' application. Increase sale price dramatically to reflect the new 'terrorist' application.
Results: Small increase in sales volume, substantial improvement of product margins. Financial insolvency averted.
Conclusions: Terrorist hysteria is an effective marketing tool. Properly exploited in the marketing literature, the terrorist hysteria can breath new financial life into any product that is no longer producing adaquate margins through traditional channels.
Future Risk Analysis: A fundamental shift in marketing strategy brings with it inherent market risks. The major risk of this conceptual change is that the public mindset will begin to discard the 'terrorist threat', rendering increased marketing efforts in this area ineffective. This risk is deemed minimal at this time, the majority of the expenditures required to maintain the public mindset are being undertaken by the federal government, with a virtually unlimited budget for this marketing effort. This paradigm shift by our company is essentially parasite marketing where our relatively small marketing budget is being used to leverage the expenditures of the federal government. This strategy should remain effective for a minimum of one election cycle, so we should see improvements in the bottom line for at least the next 10 quarters. The primary risk moving forward is that the federal government expenditures to promote terrorist hysteria are reduced, with a resultant loss of marketplace mindset for this strategy. This is a relatively small risk moving forward, and partially offset by hundreds of companies such as our own, all focussed on re-working marketing strategies to promote and extend the terrorist hysteria.
Recommendations: Marketing budget needs to be re-allocated. Television advertising should only be purchased on networks whose news organizations properly emphasize the terrorist threat. The same for print media advertising. The marketing department needs to re-allocate human resources, emphasis on 'product efficiency' needs to be lowered, with appropriate staffing reductions. A new team needs to be established to emphasize the 'security' aspect of the product. A 'threat analyst' should be hired, and put in charge of this new team, who will be responsible for producing white papers emphasizing the 'security' aspect of the product, with particular detail on the 'terrorist' aspect.
(You may need to check with a British person/google for a definition.)
Sheesh! Those Japanese have a different word for Everything!
For example, I work in a bizzare housing complex near a Canadian public university.
This wouldn't be U of Toronto Scarborough Campus, would it? That whole place is a freaking bomb shelter.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
scotopic
What? What about SCO? They're suing the inventor of the lightbulb now?
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
You are likely to be eaten by a GRUE.
All of the electrons in your lamp's strontium phosphor have returned to their ground states.
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.