A couple of years ago I replaced a large proportion of the light bulbs in my house with CF bulbs. Almost immediately I noticed the savings on my power bill. I justified the higher cost and almost ridiculous disposal issues by the long term savings I was going to get. After all these things are supposed to last a crazy long time (up to 10 years - it says so right on the package). I eventually replaced nearly all the bulbs in my house.
Well as of now I'm officially changing my mind on that decision. The reason? These things are dying right and left. It seems that for 3 - 4 times the money I'm getting bulbs that are lasting 1/3 the time. In fact the vanity mirror and flood types are only lasting 10 - 14 months on average for me. That is far less than the incandescents they replaced. So much for long life. Now I've got a pile of crazy mercury filled dead bulbs that I'm probably going to have to pay to dispose of. So much for saving the environment.
I think this is another case where the consumer is being sold snake oil.
The Kindle is a new e-book reader from Amazon. I decline to link to it here because it's so lame. Yes... this is an editorial, not a review.
For $400 you get a small e-paper reader with a built in cell phone connection to download books, newspapers and blogs (and possibly email). The first thing about the device that is so ridiculous is how badly the device is designed. It's like they just haphazardly threw buttons and scroll wheels all over it. In this day of the iPhone - you just can't have poor design like this.
The second issue is the price of the device and content. At $400 the device is retailing for far more than the BOM cost. The OLPC XO is only $200 and includes both a color screen and an e-paper display. And the $400 Asus eePC is a full Windows running notebook. The electronic content at $10/book for new releases is cheaper than full priced hardcover books, but the DRM limitations offset that to some extent. The price is OK, but definitely not game-changing. Then there's the $1 per blog subscription cost. Of course blogs are free, but I suppose the idea here is to offset the cellular download cost. Somehow bloggers also get a cut of this price, so it's more than just data costs obviously.
My final peeve is that there is a mini-usb port AND a charging jack. Why can't current devices standardize on freaking USB for charging? Two of the wires in USB are for power, so why include a separate power brick and jack?
Overall - I just can't get past the poor hardware design and hardware cost to even begin thinking about any benefits to this thing. Let's wait for the Apple iRead with multitouch.
You think mobile data plans in the US are crazy expensive? Check out this rant about Rogers in Canada. Wow.
We'll tests are starting to show that Comcast is indeed messing with BitTorrent traffic. Since there are at least some legitimate uses of BitTorrent it will be interesting to see how this progresses. I doubt your day to day MP3 pirate will bring a lawsuit against them, but perhaps some company who's business is hurt by this will.
I have also heard rumors of Comcast terminating VPN connections regularly. When contacted they claim that using your connection for business use (work) is against the service agreement.
Lina posts a new press release.
I've looked at these guys before. They claim "LINA enables Linux binaries to run with native look and feel on Windows, Mac, and Linux, without recompiling." The next paragraph indicates that they are "Linux command line and server applications". Wow, command apps with the native look and feel... Count me unimpressed.
Looks like Adobe is taking a page from Microsoft's product book and now has at least six inscrutable product versions. Not only is the product bundling tremendously confusing, but the pricing seems really over the top. It will now be even more absurd when they claim that each time a kid pirates a copy of their CS Master Suite, they're losing $2499 (the math doesn't work when the money was never there to begin with).
Now Microsoft is extending their wildly popular multi - SKU strategy to the Halo franchise. That's just great. Where do they come up with this stuff? My guess: They hired some marketing big-wig from McDonalds. "Would you like to super size that?"
I don't know if you live near Seattle, but here CFLs are subsidized by Seattle City Light.
At Home Depot a four pack of N:Vision 14W (supposedly equivalent to 60W incandescent) is less than $4. The N:Vision bulbs were also highly rated for light quality by the New York Times and Popular Mechanics.
I can't speak to their durability, though. I haven't had any problems but I just put them in about four months ago.
Also, Ikea will dispose of CFLs for free.
I have managed to pick some up in the past with a PSE coupon.
As for durability I think I understand part of the problem. I had two more fail just yesterday. We had a bit of a wind storm and the power flickered a few times. It seems the CF electronics are not very tolerant of voltage spikes. Unfortunately I live far enough out that our power quality is not very good.
Good to know about Ikea.
High temperatures (like inside an enclosed fixture)
and frequent switching will also reduce CFL lifetime.
I've had one CFL die on me; judging by the smell,
one of the tantalum caps failed.
I just wanted to comment that Ian was bothered by the slow warm up time of CF bulbs, but I actually like it. You don't get blinded by a late night WC call or snack run.
I sort of agree that the CF movement is probably another way for light bulb companies to charge you more for light bulbs, and to get you to replace them all while feeling good about it. I haven't noticed a short life though. The main problem for me is that a lot of our lamps have shades that sit on top of the bulb, and those don't work well with the spiral bulbs.
Seems to me that the only worthwhile thing is to move to LED bulbs which are still expensive now. But at least they're a well tested solution.
The whole recycling thing is still such a pain. At 4.40 a gallon gas, even a drive to Ikea (a long way for me) will add significantly to the cost of these bulbs. If the power company where serious about wanting you to use these they would also provide the recycling. I should be able to just leave them in a box under my electrical meter and have them pick them up on the next reading.
Also, if you have to drive somewhere to recycle CFLs, at what point is driving causing more pollution than simply throwing out the CFLs?
On the other hand, it's estimated that even though CFLs contain mercury, their improved efficiency prevents an even greater amount of mercury from being produced in the process of creating electricity.
Don't get me started on Priuses... :-P
They are having a 'hazardous recycle' day in my town next month. The price to recycle CFC Bulbs: 50 cents each! Not that I would do it, but how can they expect people not to just throw these out in the trash when they make it so difficult and expensive to get rid of them?
LEDs are less energy efficient than fluorescents
in the typical light bulb brightness range.
I think they also tend to be larger than
a regular light bulb.
They are more efficient in low brightness
applications, like flashlights.
What happens when the power company networks
your electrical meter so they can read it remotely?
European WEEE legislation requires manufacturers
to bear the cost of electronic waste disposal;
presumably, they pass the cost on to their customers at time of purchase.
I wonder if the city's analyzed the cost of
people throwing CFLs in the landfill?
The Home Depot launches national CFL bulb recycling initiative:
http://www6.homedepot.com/ecooptions/stage/pdf/cfl_recycle.pdf
I have another GE bulb which seems to be dying.
None of my numerous Globe brand bulbs have failed,
which is perhaps ironic given that Globe had to recall
some non-UL compliant bulbs in 2004.