>>>The 1000s of garage bands connected to the internet have yet to put a dent in the old guard.
I wouldn't say that. Radio is on the verge of death, and more and more young persons are listening to songs I've never heard of before - stuff they pulled off the internet. There's definitely a "dent" there.
And the biggest sign things have changed? MTV stopped playing videos. That model survived until the 2000s and then died, because it was killed-off by the instant access of Youtube. Another channel called "TheTube" tried to revive music television, but it went bankrupt in 2006.
The interactive nature of internet is slowly-but-surely killing off passive forms like TV and Radio.
>>>and central air-conditioning is responsible for the greatest share of household electricity use, I'd say that incandescents and cooling costs are intimately related. >>>
Not really. Related yes, but not "intimately". This past winter I tried an experiment (to save money) and rather than heat my second floor, I used nothing but waste heat from my lights and my computer and television.
It was still fucking cold.
The amount of waste heat produced by these products is sooooo small as to be negligible for residential customers. We're talking about three orders of magnitude difference. (1 versus 1000 kilowatthours each month).
>>> incandescents are not better lighting technology. They are older, simpler technology, fine.
Sometimes older, simpler is better. I and many others argued for years that the older XP with Service Pack 2 or 3 was a superior OS to the newer Vista. I considered Vista to be crap, even after I upgraded from 1/2 to 2 gigabytes, and still use XP-SP3 even today. ----- Well I have the same view in regards to Edison incandescent bulbs and CFLs. .
>>>you are purchasing a LIGHT bulb not a HEAT bulb.
CFLs generate a lot of heat too. They are better than incandescents, but still only about 5% efficiency (the other 95% is wasted as heat). So CFLs are also heat bulbs.
>>>>>I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness. >> >>How long does it take them to turn on and put out useful light?
Good question. The answer depends on the application. In the kitchen a dim light is not a big deal because it's bright enough to reach the frig in the middle of the night.
BUT above my basement steps I want full brightness *immediately* not four minutes later. Using one of these CFLs there would be a safety hazard. Unfortunately if the Legislature has its way, soon I won't have any choice but to get a CFL. That's wrong.
>>>So, CFLs are a bad choice for you so everyone else must stop buying them.
No more like: I'm tired of politicians trying to shove things down my throat. I will "go green" where it makes sense like with my hybrid car, or extra insulation on the house to keep the heat inside, but not where I have experienced one failure after another (like with CFLs).
What's that saying? If you keep doing the same thing over-and-over, and keep failing, then you're probably insane. Well I've tried CFLS and they have failed to work again and again, and I will no longer use them. I'm not insane.
And I object to the Legislature trying to FORCE me to use CFLs. I don't like them. I don't want them. They fail repeatedly. I want to continue using incandescents.
Well I did a quick google, and CFL manufacturers recommend not using CFLs in enclosed fixtures (or dimmable lights) unless the box specifically says you can.
So you may have been lucky with your generic CFLs, but I have not. I burned-out several CFLs in my kitchen and bathroom until I searched the net and discovered "heat" was probably the cause.
>>>Government and corporations simply ignored that and moved forward, That's a difference between "them" and "us."
Actually corporations would have enough sense to realize, "This won't work," and cancel the project ahead of time to save themselves cash. But since it was government paying the bill, the corporation didn't give a frak about wasting gov't money.
Maybe because the U.S. welfare/medicare system is already overburdened and therefore wants educated/professional people who will ADD funds to the system, not suck more out.
I'd also argue that the U.S. has enough people already. When the oil crisis hits in the 2020s (price rises about $200/barrel), we'll have a hard enough time feeding the 310 million persons we have now. We don't need more bodies to make the situation worse. I'm not saying we should completely stop immigration - just be selective in who we let in.
This is no different than how I only allow certain people into my home, not everyone who asks.
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE:
Let's just invite all 6 billion people to live here, even the deadbeats who have nothing to contribute. Let everyone enjoy the U.S.
>>>The Mexicans who do enter illegally aren't exactly "stealing" great jobs from American citizens
Just as I don't want to find some intruder walking around in my house without permission, neither do I want an intruder entering my country without permission. Pack them up, hand them a VISA application form, and send them home.
As for jobs, given the current ~10% unemployment rate, a lot of these businesses don't need to hire intruders from Mexico or Canada anymore. There are plenty of hungry or homeless Americans willing to pick crops or defeather chickens or whatever else it takes to earn money to survive.
Final thought - My Japanese and Chinese friends are not intruders. They applied for and got permission to come here (and eventually gain citizenship). I don't see why there should be an exception for any other group. .
>>>The real problem is that our legitimate businesses are legally shipping planeloads of cash overseas for crappy products and services.
True but when oil rises to $200/barrel during the next decade that problem will self-correct itself. It will no longer be affordable to ship goods all the way from China, and instead the factories will be built on this continent.
>>>That means my CFL will pay for itself in a only few months.
Assuming your CFL does not die within a few months, as many of mine have done. And don't give me a load of crap about "buying poor quality" or "maybe you have bad electric". It was the enclosed fixture causing the internal CFL componenent to literally dryout and die. Furthermore the old incandescents I had in there worked perfectly for YEARS.
This is nothing more than a WASTE of money. - Why should I settle for a netbook when I really need a full-sized laptop or desktop? - Why should I settle for Linux that won't play games or run Word, when a Windows or Mac works near-perfectly? - Why settle for an inferior CFL when the incandescent does the same job, and much much better?
I'm not the type of person to settle unless there's good reason to do so (my $15 DSL is not as fast as $30 DSL, but it still lets me watch online tv). Especially when the reward is so small (pennies), or the hassle too great (prematurely dead CFLs), to be worth it.... it's like worrying about a speck of dust in a mud-flooded basement. It makes zero sense.
Basically I'm not Californian. (just joking)
We should be focusing our efforts on the big energy users like heaters and air conditioners (measured in 1000s of kilowatthours), and not trivial crap like lightbulbs which clearly don't work as well as the old technology.
I don't like that word "assume". It's a bit like saying "If we assume all women are horny and instinctively want babies, then no virgins will exist past age 20." Of course we know that's not true.
Let's stay away from assuming/guessing.
As for my own assumptions, they are based upon my own observations in my own house. I wasted soooo much money on poorly-lit CFLs or heat-killed CFLs that it FAR exceeds the few pennies I might have saved. I would have saved more money sticking with incandescents. That's my opinion and I'm entitled to it, without some Legislature holding a gun to my head and saying, "Buy CFL or go to jail."
Something else I forgot to mention: You can't put CFLs in enclosed fixtures, or upside fixtures which trap heat, because the CFLs will die within just a few months.
CFLs don't like heat. Incandescents don't care.
>>>Why do I get the impression you concluded that long before fifteen years had passed
Well if you want to be anal, I reached the conclusion at about year 13. I thought CFLs were okay at first, but they seem to have degraded in ability, plus I moved into a home where CFLs don't really work (too many enclosed fixtures). .
>>>you haven't found a single CFL that performs well? It took me all of two trips to Home Depot
Oh that's all? Two trips and a few hours wasted. PASS. You think I'm supposed to pay around a hundred dollars (on gasoline driving back-and-forth, plus the actual bulb) trying different Brands/bulbs just to save a few pennies?!?!? What was it Ben Franklin said? "Penny wise and dollar foolish."
I repeat: Pass. I'll stick with the incandescents because they work.
>>>Maybe you should have tried a different brand then? I have CFLs in almost every fixture in the house.
Which brand?
In my experience ALL the brands (Philips, GE, Lights of America) have a warmup time, unless you buy one that don't have the instant on function. (Instead they sputter and flicker for 2-3 seconds.) I've tried to find the non-instant-on CFLs but they don't seem to be made anymore. Bottom Line: After ~15 years of CFL use I've reached the conclusion they simply are NOT an identical replacement for incandescents. There are too many flaws, like trying to use a netbook when what you really need is a full-sized laptop or desktop.
Unfortunately I cannot prove a negative, but if YOU would like to prove the positive that "Yes banning incandescents dropped EU power usage," and justify why this was good policy, then be my guest.:-)
Oh what a FUN society we live in where the corporations struggle for power, and the government does likewise. It makes living under the dictatorship of the Roman Empire look peaceful.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -Thomas Jefferson
Now that most of the European Union has effectively outlawed incadescents and replaced them with CFLs, has the EU power demand dropped?
Nope.
Giant. Waste. Of. Legislators' Time. It would have made more sense for them to mandate all homes meet PassivHaus standards, such that heating/cooling is virtually nothing. Figure 66% less heating/cooling energy use per home, or about 2000 kWh for my house, equals $180 saved each month.
>>>unless you insist on buying the cheapest POS you can find.
I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness. And no it wasn't just a bad set, because identical bulbs I bought a year later still exhibited the same behavior.
I was not aware Philips make crap products?
And then there's the expense. Why should I spend $3.50 per bulb when I can get an incandescent for around 25 cents. And the incandescents have not been stagnate. New laser-carved filments inside old incandescents can produce the same brightness as a 60 watt, but only use 40 watts.
So CFL v. old bulb == savings of about 25 watts * 1 hours a day (typical) * 30 days == 3 kWh saved off my 3000 kWh bill. Wow. Times 9 cents per kwH == 27 cents. Holy crap. Now I can buy one-third of a twinkie!
POINT:
Shouldn't our priorities be focused on more energy-expensive things like heating/cooling? If all new home standards were increased to "PassivHaus" standards, which bring heat/cooling to almost nothing, we'd save HUGE amount of energy.
I tried the whole CFL deal. For fifteen years. And now I'm switching back
Incandescents are the better technology due to simplicity (it's a resistor), cheapness (even poor people can afford them), ease-of-disposal (no need to empty the room like EPA recommends), cleanness (not reactive power), and does not interfere with radio waves (like radio, tv, wifi, et cetera). After fifteen years of testing CFLs, I've concluded they are inferior.
>>>>>I can find no part of the MA Constitution which grants government power to pass a mandatory "buy insurance or be fined $1500" law. >> >>Assuming you refer to car insurance, you have a third choice: Don't drive.
True. You're right, but I was actually talking about Mandatory Hospitalization Insurance. Buy it, or get fined by the MA legislature. So your solution to that is what? Stop living???
I am gathering support for another amendment to the Constitution. It will give the Supreme Court power to declare various laws constitutional or unconstitutional, but it will ALSO give the same power to the State Legislatures. When one-half of the States have declared a U.S. law unconstitutional, it will be nullified. (And then Congress may choose to rewrite the law and pass it again, as per usual procedure, or just let it die.)
I'd like to claim credit for the idea, but it actually goes back to Jefferson and his early 1800s-era Democrats.
>>>The Constitution is *a* constitution; not a contract.
Yes it is, and if you read the original words of the Founders they will call it a "contract". The U.S. Constitution is a contract between the 50 State Legislatures plus the central U.S. government, in the same way the Lisbon Treaty is a contract between the European Member States and the central EU government.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>The 1000s of garage bands connected to the internet have yet to put a dent in the old guard.
I wouldn't say that. Radio is on the verge of death, and more and more young persons are listening to songs I've never heard of before - stuff they pulled off the internet. There's definitely a "dent" there.
And the biggest sign things have changed? MTV stopped playing videos. That model survived until the 2000s and then died, because it was killed-off by the instant access of Youtube. Another channel called "TheTube" tried to revive music television, but it went bankrupt in 2006.
The interactive nature of internet is slowly-but-surely killing off passive forms like TV and Radio.
Thanks for backing me up.
For awhile there I felt like I was in a Green Party convention. ;-)
>>>and central air-conditioning is responsible for the greatest share of household electricity use, I'd say that incandescents and cooling costs are intimately related.
>>>
Not really. Related yes, but not "intimately". This past winter I tried an experiment (to save money) and rather than heat my second floor, I used nothing but waste heat from my lights and my computer and television.
It was still fucking cold.
The amount of waste heat produced by these products is sooooo small as to be negligible for residential customers. We're talking about three orders of magnitude difference. (1 versus 1000 kilowatthours each month).
>>> incandescents are not better lighting technology. They are older, simpler technology, fine.
Sometimes older, simpler is better. I and many others argued for years that the older XP with Service Pack 2 or 3 was a superior OS to the newer Vista. I considered Vista to be crap, even after I upgraded from 1/2 to 2 gigabytes, and still use XP-SP3 even today. ----- Well I have the same view in regards to Edison incandescent bulbs and CFLs.
.
>>>you are purchasing a LIGHT bulb not a HEAT bulb.
CFLs generate a lot of heat too. They are better than incandescents, but still only about 5% efficiency (the other 95% is wasted as heat). So CFLs are also heat bulbs.
>>>>>I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness.
>>
>>How long does it take them to turn on and put out useful light?
Good question. The answer depends on the application. In the kitchen a dim light is not a big deal because it's bright enough to reach the frig in the middle of the night.
BUT above my basement steps I want full brightness *immediately* not four minutes later. Using one of these CFLs there would be a safety hazard. Unfortunately if the Legislature has its way, soon I won't have any choice but to get a CFL. That's wrong.
>>>So, CFLs are a bad choice for you so everyone else must stop buying them.
No more like: I'm tired of politicians trying to shove things down my throat. I will "go green" where it makes sense like with my hybrid car, or extra insulation on the house to keep the heat inside, but not where I have experienced one failure after another (like with CFLs).
What's that saying? If you keep doing the same thing over-and-over, and keep failing, then you're probably insane. Well I've tried CFLS and they have failed to work again and again, and I will no longer use them. I'm not insane.
And I object to the Legislature trying to FORCE me to use CFLs. I don't like them. I don't want them. They fail repeatedly. I want to continue using incandescents.
Well I did a quick google, and CFL manufacturers recommend not using CFLs in enclosed fixtures (or dimmable lights) unless the box specifically says you can.
So you may have been lucky with your generic CFLs, but I have not. I burned-out several CFLs in my kitchen and bathroom until I searched the net and discovered "heat" was probably the cause.
>>>Government and corporations simply ignored that and moved forward, That's a difference between "them" and "us."
Actually corporations would have enough sense to realize, "This won't work," and cancel the project ahead of time to save themselves cash. But since it was government paying the bill, the corporation didn't give a frak about wasting gov't money.
Maybe because the U.S. welfare/medicare system is already overburdened and therefore wants educated/professional people who will ADD funds to the system, not suck more out.
I'd also argue that the U.S. has enough people already. When the oil crisis hits in the 2020s (price rises about $200/barrel), we'll have a hard enough time feeding the 310 million persons we have now. We don't need more bodies to make the situation worse. I'm not saying we should completely stop immigration - just be selective in who we let in.
This is no different than how I only allow certain people into my home, not everyone who asks.
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE:
Let's just invite all 6 billion people to live here, even the deadbeats who have nothing to contribute. Let everyone enjoy the U.S.
>>>The Mexicans who do enter illegally aren't exactly "stealing" great jobs from American citizens
Just as I don't want to find some intruder walking around in my house without permission, neither do I want an intruder entering my country without permission. Pack them up, hand them a VISA application form, and send them home.
As for jobs, given the current ~10% unemployment rate, a lot of these businesses don't need to hire intruders from Mexico or Canada anymore. There are plenty of hungry or homeless Americans willing to pick crops or defeather chickens or whatever else it takes to earn money to survive.
Final thought - My Japanese and Chinese friends are not intruders. They applied for and got permission to come here (and eventually gain citizenship). I don't see why there should be an exception for any other group.
.
>>>The real problem is that our legitimate businesses are legally shipping planeloads of cash overseas for crappy products and services.
True but when oil rises to $200/barrel during the next decade that problem will self-correct itself. It will no longer be affordable to ship goods all the way from China, and instead the factories will be built on this continent.
CORRECTED:
(60 watt equivalent bulb vs. bulb)
40W laser-produced incandescent: 40W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 3.7kWh
13W Compact fluorescent light: 13W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 1.2kWh
.
>>>That means my CFL will pay for itself in a only few months.
Assuming your CFL does not die within a few months, as many of mine have done. And don't give me a load of crap about "buying poor quality" or "maybe you have bad electric". It was the enclosed fixture causing the internal CFL componenent to literally dryout and die. Furthermore the old incandescents I had in there worked perfectly for YEARS.
This is nothing more than a WASTE of money.
- Why should I settle for a netbook when I really need a full-sized laptop or desktop?
- Why should I settle for Linux that won't play games or run Word, when a Windows or Mac works near-perfectly?
- Why settle for an inferior CFL when the incandescent does the same job, and much much better?
I'm not the type of person to settle unless there's good reason to do so (my $15 DSL is not as fast as $30 DSL, but it still lets me watch online tv). Especially when the reward is so small (pennies), or the hassle too great (prematurely dead CFLs), to be worth it.... it's like worrying about a speck of dust in a mud-flooded basement. It makes zero sense.
Basically I'm not Californian. (just joking)
We should be focusing our efforts on the big energy users like heaters and air conditioners (measured in 1000s of kilowatthours), and not trivial crap like lightbulbs which clearly don't work as well as the old technology.
I don't like that word "assume". It's a bit like saying "If we assume all women are horny and instinctively want babies, then no virgins will exist past age 20." Of course we know that's not true.
Let's stay away from assuming/guessing.
As for my own assumptions, they are based upon my own observations in my own house. I wasted soooo much money on poorly-lit CFLs or heat-killed CFLs that it FAR exceeds the few pennies I might have saved. I would have saved more money sticking with incandescents. That's my opinion and I'm entitled to it, without some Legislature holding a gun to my head and saying, "Buy CFL or go to jail."
Something else I forgot to mention: You can't put CFLs in enclosed fixtures, or upside fixtures which trap heat, because the CFLs will die within just a few months.
CFLs don't like heat. Incandescents don't care.
>>>Why do I get the impression you concluded that long before fifteen years had passed
Well if you want to be anal, I reached the conclusion at about year 13. I thought CFLs were okay at first, but they seem to have degraded in ability, plus I moved into a home where CFLs don't really work (too many enclosed fixtures).
.
>>>you haven't found a single CFL that performs well? It took me all of two trips to Home Depot
Oh that's all? Two trips and a few hours wasted. PASS. You think I'm supposed to pay around a hundred dollars (on gasoline driving back-and-forth, plus the actual bulb) trying different Brands/bulbs just to save a few pennies?!?!? What was it Ben Franklin said? "Penny wise and dollar foolish."
I repeat: Pass. I'll stick with the incandescents because they work.
>>>Maybe you should have tried a different brand then? I have CFLs in almost every fixture in the house.
Which brand?
In my experience ALL the brands (Philips, GE, Lights of America) have a warmup time, unless you buy one that don't have the instant on function. (Instead they sputter and flicker for 2-3 seconds.) I've tried to find the non-instant-on CFLs but they don't seem to be made anymore. Bottom Line: After ~15 years of CFL use I've reached the conclusion they simply are NOT an identical replacement for incandescents. There are too many flaws, like trying to use a netbook when what you really need is a full-sized laptop or desktop.
>>> "while electricity end-use consumption in EU-27 continued to grow"
Um. Problem. This demonstrates that switching to CFLs did NOT reduce electrical usage.
>>>>>Nope.
>>
>>Citation needed (sigh).
Unfortunately I cannot prove a negative, but if YOU would like to prove the positive that "Yes banning incandescents dropped EU power usage," and justify why this was good policy, then be my guest. :-)
Oh what a FUN society we live in where the corporations struggle for power, and the government does likewise. It makes living under the dictatorship of the Roman Empire look peaceful.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed
corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a
trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
-Thomas Jefferson
There are lots of "wikipedias" out there. There's one for Azureus. There's one for Puppy Linux. And I'm not sure, but I think Ubuntu has a wiki too.
It draws more people and pays the bill.
Just like how TLC is no longer a learning channel, but gets more viewers
Now that most of the European Union has effectively outlawed incadescents and replaced them with CFLs, has the EU power demand dropped?
Nope.
Giant. Waste. Of. Legislators' Time. It would have made more sense for them to mandate all homes meet PassivHaus standards, such that heating/cooling is virtually nothing. Figure 66% less heating/cooling energy use per home, or about 2000 kWh for my house, equals $180 saved each month.
>>>unless you insist on buying the cheapest POS you can find.
I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness. And no it wasn't just a bad set, because identical bulbs I bought a year later still exhibited the same behavior.
I was not aware Philips make crap products?
And then there's the expense. Why should I spend $3.50 per bulb when I can get an incandescent for around 25 cents. And the incandescents have not been stagnate. New laser-carved filments inside old incandescents can produce the same brightness as a 60 watt, but only use 40 watts.
So CFL v. old bulb == savings of about 25 watts * 1 hours a day (typical) * 30 days == 3 kWh saved off my 3000 kWh bill. Wow. Times 9 cents per kwH == 27 cents. Holy crap. Now I can buy one-third of a twinkie!
POINT:
Shouldn't our priorities be focused on more energy-expensive things like heating/cooling? If all new home standards were increased to "PassivHaus" standards, which bring heat/cooling to almost nothing, we'd save HUGE amount of energy.
I tried the whole CFL deal.
For fifteen years.
And now I'm switching back
Incandescents are the better technology due to simplicity (it's a resistor), cheapness (even poor people can afford them), ease-of-disposal (no need to empty the room like EPA recommends), cleanness (not reactive power), and does not interfere with radio waves (like radio, tv, wifi, et cetera). After fifteen years of testing CFLs, I've concluded they are inferior.
>>>>>I can find no part of the MA Constitution which grants government power to pass a mandatory "buy insurance or be fined $1500" law.
>>
>>Assuming you refer to car insurance, you have a third choice: Don't drive.
True. You're right, but I was actually talking about Mandatory Hospitalization Insurance. Buy it, or get fined by the MA legislature. So your solution to that is what? Stop living???
Do something useful? Okay.
I am gathering support for another amendment to the Constitution. It will give the Supreme Court power to declare various laws constitutional or unconstitutional, but it will ALSO give the same power to the State Legislatures. When one-half of the States have declared a U.S. law unconstitutional, it will be nullified. (And then Congress may choose to rewrite the law and pass it again, as per usual procedure, or just let it die.)
I'd like to claim credit for the idea, but it actually goes back to Jefferson and his early 1800s-era Democrats.
>>>The Constitution is *a* constitution; not a contract.
Yes it is, and if you read the original words of the Founders they will call it a "contract". The U.S. Constitution is a contract between the 50 State Legislatures plus the central U.S. government, in the same way the Lisbon Treaty is a contract between the European Member States and the central EU government.
No. Some people simply refuse to listen. My father is one of them.