The problem is not the short initial flicker but the considerable delay (several minutes on many models) for them to reach full brightness.
And all the praise about LEDs comes with the caveat that they often won't fit standard lamp bases/sockets just yet - though they are quite excellent for the use described by TFA.
In other words, neither technology can replace lightbulbs in all applications, which is exactly why one may consider outlawing these a bad idea at this point in time. (Left to the market, the savings alone should ensure their replacement wherever it is easy or at least worth the hassle.)
Anyhow, given how the start of this thread got modded (hours after having sparked such a long and informative discussion) though simply summarizing justified issues as reported by hyperlinked reputable sources, probably one must not mention the few genuine shortcomings of CFLs around here.
If I were a hippie;-) I'd cite lava lamps and illuminated blocks of salt, but suffice it to wish you you best of luck with an LED in your oven and a CFL in your fridge or snow-covered yard.
Oh, and the latter (unlike lightbulbs) even at room temperature do take significantly longer to reach full brightness than the "one second" you postulate.
Sounds like a plan (best described in/. style)...
1. ban something (pick short-lived widespread household consumable to maximize effect)
2. while there is only one alternative (with unwelcome side effects) available, let alone affordable
3. proclaim "what you replace them with is your own choice" (select from 2.)
4. (whose) profit?!
Note that the EU is just banning incandescend bulbs, NOT mandating fluorescent ones.
It mandates that classic lightbulbs be phased out before equivalent, affordable LED replacements are ready for prime time. As in Australia, this does amount to triggering their large-scale replacement with fluorescent ones, and all the calculations and public pronouncements have been precisely to this effect.
lightbulbs to force their replacement with fluorescent tubes containing hazardous mercury (and which are ill-suited for many applications that require instant operation or even harness their heat), rather than leapfrogging directly to LEDs etc.
...on a planet as ancient and rusty as its business models?
After all, the gullies were probably caused by "sue-one's-own-customers", cease&desist letters, subpoenas and other dry phenomena.;-)
And the planet's red color is presumably from gigatons of decaying hardware generations rendered obsolete by ever-changing DRMs that brought down the Martian culture and civilization...
Then again, lawmakers should never have allowed such ambiguity to persist for litigants in costly court cases to figure out the validity of countless doubtful patents where none should have been granted in the first place.
Sounds like decision-making will become less questionable by the openness OSS introduces at several levels: source, formats and price (not necessarily zero, but leaving little room for overspending to factor in kickbacks), to name a few.
In a perfect world, politicians would now start campaigning and competing to advocate and introduce whatever affordable and sufficiently functional software keeps existing hardware usable even longer, minimizes public spending and allows for the biggest tax cut.;-)
It would have been terrible for future generations' access to public records if further decades of material had to be stored in proprietary, DRM-encumbered crypto bottles on closed-source systems which can't be kept alive without the consent of their corporate overlords, and if these could get schools to indoctrinate kids to obey them.
Now all they have to make clear (to prevent monopolies from being built by other means) is that there should be no such thing as software patents...
Having had to test a lot of 6-60-months-old hardware in recent years, it has become hard not to find at least one flavor of Linux that fully supports any given system among as small a selection as just the live boot CDs for Ubuntu, Knoppix and SuSE gleaned from a month's magazine covers.
Personally, I think we should be pursuing next generation nuclear power instead - there are nuclear reactor designs in production that don't use or create weapons-grade nuclear materials.
Has the thought occurred to you that sadly for too many of this world's nations, the requirement of nuclear power plants to handle fissible material at some point that might just as well be put to military (ab)use... could have been a major motivation for funding and/or allowing such endeavors (unlike the more recent -AKA reasoned- sealed and safer "nuclear batteries" of late) under the convenient guise of "energy independence"?
The term "netbook" hasn't been associated with Psion for as long as I can remember. I first heard the term "netbook" when it became an accepted generic term for halfway between a laptop and a thin client a few years back.
Which is quite exactly when Psion, and no-one else but them for quite a while (believing tiny laptops with full keyboards couldn't thrive outside Japan - remember how most people had to import the Zaurus themselves?!), did market precisely a device "halfway between a laptop and a thin client" (or PDA).
2003 - Netbook Pro is released (doesn't seem to be for sale anymore, it was a 'clamshell PDA')
2008 - Claimed genericization of the term netbook by Asus and others.
The half-a-decade without anything to continue that line in between is the saddest part of all:
With its rock-solid system and well thought-out functionality, a Psion 5mx with built-in bluetooth (they did have working prototypes already AFAIK), an upgraded touchscreen (black&white ePaper would do), processor and memory (preventing catastrophic loss when both types of battery run out after lasting weeks) would be a great device even today.
...uninhabited, and sunny some of them are too.;-)
Admittedly the energy harvest per square meter of solar cells won't be as much as in space, but arrays built in a literally more down-to-earth way are probably just a little more accessible:-) for construction and maintenance, and don't require the "no-small-feat" type of accomplishment to find a way of beaming down the power without creating a death ray that will fry the neighbors at the first malfunction. (<theory=conspiracy>Or wait a minute, maybe that's the hidden agenda here...</theory>;-))
And no, to exclude further Star Trek solutions (besides inverting the polarity or remodulating something;-)), AFAIK the likes of Circuit City don't stock superconducting nanotethers for space elevators that will double as a power line either.
Is debris from that collision heading even remotely to Hubble's orbit (otherwise, any future manned spaceflight/EVA at its altitude would be precluded by unacceptable risk), or is this just an excuse for putting elsewhere the money and other resources set aside to fly this mission?
They are not doing this, the ones who had them searched, seized and accused (apparently in an attempt at rather sweeping application of the respective statutes) do, and with an axe to grind have brought this spectrial upon everyone involved in the first place.
It is in the public interest (of the people in whose name the judgement is to be rendered) that criminal proceedings be as public as possible. What greater favour could the accused do to this cause than to help educate potential perpetrators about the legal limits, by organising the broadcast of what might become their own conviction (or acquittal, for that matter - in which case it is every bit as important for everyone to know which of their freedoms have not been restrained by ambiguous rules).
TPB was rumoured to be a tracker (automagically compiled index), not a host to infringing material last time I checked.
Just ponder for a moment on what it might also mean for references and hyperlinks set by everyone else in the country (including search engines of all sorts) if they were convicted...
Contracts are legally binding but if the terms of the contract are outlandish, the contract can be deemed null and void by a court.
In Legalese the term will probably be "unconscionable" instead, which probably isn't exactly a less harsh way for the court to say it that no one in their right mind would knowingly sign such a thing.
...helped make sure that our own planet's civilizations have the type of bomb that places their lifetimes at the lower end of all estimates:
Assuming the average communicating civilization has a lifetime of 1,000 years, ten times longer than Earth has been broadcasting, and has a signal horizon of 1,000 light-years, you need a minimum of over 300 communicating civilizations in the Milky Way to ensure that you'll see one of them.
Distilling your idea: Setup cell phone towers in prisons. The phones will connect to these towers since they are the strongest. Make these towers "dead" cells".
Better yet, eavesdrop on these!
Catch criminals on either end of the line talking crime most of the time...
Jamming, OTOH, in any location just keeps victims or witnesses of crime from reporting it or calling for help.
...as is always the case when fighting overbroad, draconian measures that "could have far-reaching and troubling implications":
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
glipper rather than klipper
on
Ubuntu Kung Fu
·
· Score: 1
I'd become quite fond of enhanced cut-&-paste (multiple) clipboard capabilities under Windows. Again, UKF to the rescue: Tip 306 let me know of an open source (KDE) clipboard enhancement known as Klipper (it's in the Ubuntu Repositories), which scratches this itch most satisfactorily.
For Ubuntu's GNOME (since that's not Kubuntu Kung Fu), of course the choice should be glipperinstead to avoid some KDE overhead, especially now that it's in the official repositories too, and easily installable through apt-get or the Synaptic Package Manager.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is not the short initial flicker but the considerable delay (several minutes on many models) for them to reach full brightness.
And all the praise about LEDs comes with the caveat that they often won't fit standard lamp bases/sockets just yet - though they are quite excellent for the use described by TFA.
In other words, neither technology can replace lightbulbs in all applications, which is exactly why one may consider outlawing these a bad idea at this point in time. (Left to the market, the savings alone should ensure their replacement wherever it is easy or at least worth the hassle.)
Anyhow, given how the start of this thread got modded (hours after having sparked such a long and informative discussion) though simply summarizing justified issues as reported by hyperlinked reputable sources, probably one must not mention the few genuine shortcomings of CFLs around here.
If I were a hippie ;-) I'd cite lava lamps and illuminated blocks of salt, but suffice it to wish you you best of luck with an LED in your oven and a CFL in your fridge or snow-covered yard.
Oh, and the latter (unlike lightbulbs) even at room temperature do take significantly longer to reach full brightness than the "one second" you postulate.
Sounds like a plan (best described in /. style)...
1. ban something (pick short-lived widespread household consumable to maximize effect)
2. while there is only one alternative (with unwelcome side effects) available, let alone affordable
3. proclaim "what you replace them with is your own choice" (select from 2.)
4. (whose) profit?!
It mandates that classic lightbulbs be phased out before equivalent, affordable LED replacements are ready for prime time. As in Australia, this does amount to triggering their large-scale replacement with fluorescent ones, and all the calculations and public pronouncements have been precisely to this effect.
Driving up volume, cost down, in a buy-one-donate-one, OLPC kind of way...
lightbulbs to force their replacement with fluorescent tubes containing hazardous mercury (and which are ill-suited for many applications that require instant operation or even harness their heat), rather than leapfrogging directly to LEDs etc.
...on a planet as ancient and rusty as its business models?
;-)
After all, the gullies were probably caused by "sue-one's-own-customers", cease&desist letters, subpoenas and other dry phenomena.
And the planet's red color is presumably from gigatons of decaying hardware generations rendered obsolete by ever-changing DRMs that brought down the Martian culture and civilization...
Patents in this field were controversial enough, actually by Gates' own admission, even before Bilski.
Then again, lawmakers should never have allowed such ambiguity to persist for litigants in costly court cases to figure out the validity of countless doubtful patents where none should have been granted in the first place.
Sounds like decision-making will become less questionable by the openness OSS introduces at several levels: source, formats and price (not necessarily zero, but leaving little room for overspending to factor in kickbacks), to name a few.
In a perfect world, politicians would now start campaigning and competing to advocate and introduce whatever affordable and sufficiently functional software keeps existing hardware usable even longer, minimizes public spending and allows for the biggest tax cut.;-)
It would have been terrible for future generations' access to public records if further decades of material had to be stored in proprietary, DRM-encumbered crypto bottles on closed-source systems which can't be kept alive without the consent of their corporate overlords, and if these could get schools to indoctrinate kids to obey them.
Now all they have to make clear (to prevent monopolies from being built by other means) is that there should be no such thing as software patents...
Heading for Antarctica, they probably mean R'lyeh.
(No, not exactly this site's corporate overlord...)
Or was it just Colonel Jack O'Neil suffering yet another spell ADHD in his icy chair?
Debris from (almost) space all over The Mountains of Madness...
;-)
If they've awakened what old H.P. thinks they did, climate is going to be the least of this world's worries.
Having had to test a lot of 6-60-months-old hardware in recent years, it has become hard not to find at least one flavor of Linux that fully supports any given system among as small a selection as just the live boot CDs for Ubuntu, Knoppix and SuSE gleaned from a month's magazine covers.
Has the thought occurred to you that sadly for too many of this world's nations, the requirement of nuclear power plants to handle fissible material at some point that might just as well be put to military (ab)use... could have been a major motivation for funding and/or allowing such endeavors (unlike the more recent -AKA reasoned- sealed and safer "nuclear batteries" of late) under the convenient guise of "energy independence"?
Which is quite exactly when Psion, and no-one else but them for quite a while (believing tiny laptops with full keyboards couldn't thrive outside Japan - remember how most people had to import the Zaurus themselves?!), did market precisely a device "halfway between a laptop and a thin client" (or PDA).
The half-a-decade without anything to continue that line in between is the saddest part of all:
With its rock-solid system and well thought-out functionality, a Psion 5mx with built-in bluetooth (they did have working prototypes already AFAIK), an upgraded touchscreen (black&white ePaper would do), processor and memory (preventing catastrophic loss when both types of battery run out after lasting weeks) would be a great device even today.
...uninhabited, and sunny some of them are too. ;-)
:-) for construction and maintenance, and don't require the "no-small-feat" type of accomplishment to find a way of beaming down the power without creating a death ray that will fry the neighbors at the first malfunction. (<theory=conspiracy>Or wait a minute, maybe that's the hidden agenda here...</theory> ;-))
;-)), AFAIK the likes of Circuit City don't stock superconducting nanotethers for space elevators that will double as a power line either.
Admittedly the energy harvest per square meter of solar cells won't be as much as in space, but arrays built in a literally more down-to-earth way are probably just a little more accessible
And no, to exclude further Star Trek solutions (besides inverting the polarity or remodulating something
Is debris from that collision heading even remotely to Hubble's orbit (otherwise, any future manned spaceflight/EVA at its altitude would be precluded by unacceptable risk), or is this just an excuse for putting elsewhere the money and other resources set aside to fly this mission?
They are not doing this, the ones who had them searched, seized and accused (apparently in an attempt at rather sweeping application of the respective statutes) do, and with an axe to grind have brought this spectrial upon everyone involved in the first place.
It is in the public interest (of the people in whose name the judgement is to be rendered) that criminal proceedings be as public as possible. What greater favour could the accused do to this cause than to help educate potential perpetrators about the legal limits, by organising the broadcast of what might become their own conviction (or acquittal, for that matter - in which case it is every bit as important for everyone to know which of their freedoms have not been restrained by ambiguous rules).
TPB was rumoured to be a tracker (automagically compiled index), not a host to infringing material last time I checked.
Just ponder for a moment on what it might also mean for references and hyperlinks set by everyone else in the country (including search engines of all sorts) if they were convicted...
In Legalese the term will probably be "unconscionable" instead, which probably isn't exactly a less harsh way for the court to say it that no one in their right mind would knowingly sign such a thing.
Nothing of the kind is reported to have happened to schools that received a visit by Richard Stallman.
If they've evolved to the point of getting their own Fermis and Oppenheimers, I'm not surprised.
Now factor in nukes to turn that figure into a fraction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi#The_Manhattan_Project
He was a Nobel laureate for physics, not for peace...
Better yet, eavesdrop on these!
Catch criminals on either end of the line talking crime most of the time...
Jamming, OTOH, in any location just keeps victims or witnesses of crime from reporting it or calling for help.
For Ubuntu's GNOME (since that's not Kubuntu Kung Fu), of course the choice should be glipper instead to avoid some KDE overhead, especially now that it's in the official repositories too, and easily installable through apt-get or the Synaptic Package Manager.