Octopus Overlords

grumpy wrote:I've also see some weird behaviors around sophisticated switches, like electronic dimmers and X10 stuff, but that's all weirder than "does not work".

Just found one of the weird ones. It's special.

Strike one -- it's in a ceiling fan, but it's not a fan rated CFL.
Strike two -- it's switched by a really expensive electronic dimmer (prior owner was happy to overpay for geek toys).
Strike three -- the electrician mis-wired it, it's source -> light -> switch, rather than the vastly safer source -> switch -> light.

If I touch the glass twist, the bulb will start to flicker a half dozen or so times a second. If I'm actually passing current, it's negligible. Neat trick, just wish I understood what was happening.

grumpy wrote:If I touch the glass twist, the bulb will start to flicker a half dozen or so times a second. If I'm actually passing current, it's negligible. Neat trick, just wish I understood what was happening.

It's easy to understand. You are a witch and therefore you must burn.

This morning I remembered the bulb exchange at the farmers market. First I got out our five remaining unused incandescent bulbs from storage. Then I went through the house and removed all of the incandescents still in service. I found 12 in seldom-used fixtures and lamps. That was a lot more than I expected.

So I carefully packed my 17 light bulbs into a reusable shopping bag (O what a good boy am I!), remembered my proof of residency, and hoofed it the half mile to the market. A friendly young lady explained sympathetically that there is a limit of five bulbs. Merde! It didn't say that in the newspaper article. Then the unfriendly fat guy who actually handles the exchange explained that it's five bulbs per household, not per person, so my wife couldn't make a separate swap. I was a little pissed now; I'd spent about 30 minutes on this because nobody had explained the limitations (besides the newspaper promos, I'd asked about it in person two weeks previous). But OK, whatever, free is free. I thanked him for the five bulbs and said I'd see him next week with five more. Oh no, said he, it's a one-shot deal. That's why he wrote down my address. He was pissed too because he didn't believe that the five dustiest, darkest bulbs from my collection really still worked. (They did, they were just the closest to burning out).

So I trundled home my five new CFLs and 12 old bulbs, and spent another half hour restoring incandescent bulbs to the fixtures I'd taken them from. I'm not going to throw away perfectly good light bulbs after all. Net gain was five more CFLs to join the dozen or so that I already had in storage. Oh, and I did end up replacing three incandescents with CFLs while I was swapping bulbs around, so there was a tiny net energy savings. But I've still got a dozen old bulbs to burn through before I'm no longer a sociopath.

I write because they were giving out CFL2 bulbs. These are news to me. They are smaller than first-generation CFLs and use 75% less mercury. They fit one lamp whose harp had been too small to accommodate a CFL. I thought Yellowking might like to know that.

Ironrod wrote:But I've still got a dozen old bulbs to burn through before I'm no longer a sociopath.

I've read that childless people are sociopaths, too. So you've got a long way to go. Good luck!

The Preacher wrote:

Ironrod wrote:But I've still got a dozen old bulbs to burn through before I'm no longer a sociopath.

I've read that childless people are sociopaths, too. So you've got a long way to go. Good luck!

Child-free, not childless. I don't know how many bastards I contributed to society. At least one.

Ironrod wrote:

The Preacher wrote:

Ironrod wrote:But I've still got a dozen old bulbs to burn through before I'm no longer a sociopath.

I've read that childless people are sociopaths, too. So you've got a long way to go. Good luck!

Child-free, not childless. I don't know how many bastards I contributed to society. At least one.

Unless you're at replacement value, you don't love society.

The Preacher wrote:Unless you're at replacement value, you don't love society.

I'm fairly confident that Ironrod has little love for society, whether he had children or not.

And unless you want two threads on this topic, maybe it's a good idea to leave other threads in other threads.

I got replacement light bulbs. That ought to count for something.

Society promised me free light bulbs, and then backpedaled. Sweet revenge will come when I throw their burnt-out CFLs in the trash!

Ironrod wrote:I got replacement light bulbs. That ought to count for something.

Society promised me free light bulbs, and then backpedaled. Sweet revenge will come when I throw their burnt-out CFLs in the trash!

But I note you failed to achieve replacement value either in procreation or with your sociopathic incandescent lightbulbs. You monster.

LED lights have killed at least one.

The Meal wrote:LED lights have killed at least one.

With all due respect to her family, you're going to get a few broken eggs. Just as Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge, the first man to die in a plane crash.

Isgrimnur wrote:

The Meal wrote:LED lights have killed at least one.

With all due respect to her family, you're going to get a few broken eggs. Just as Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge, the first man to die in a plane crash.

From the LED article:

"It's the same as if the power is out," said Dave Hansen, a traffic engineer with the Green Bay Department of Public Works. "If there's any question, you err on the side of caution."

I've been around enough people to know that for some, erring on the side of caution is about as likely as spontaneous combustion.

Isgrimnur wrote:I've been around enough people to know that for some, erring on the side of caution is about as likely as spontaneous combustion.

Amen brudder.

Oh, that is sweet. Why aren't you venting untold dollars into the atmosphere as waste heat year round so I don't have to pay attention for 5 seconds every once in awhile during the winter.

Now, I'm not saying a solution doesn't need to be found. Perhaps this is a real problem. Perhaps. The unbelievable gall of blaming a traffic accident on lights that are no longer energy inefficient (or at least a whole lot less so) just smacks of rationalization and unwillingness for accept responsibility for your actions.

I mean, who the fuck approaches an intersection, is unable to determine whether the light is green or red, and thinks driving through at full speed is the best possible solution given the situation?

GreenGoo wrote:I mean, who the fuck approaches an intersection, is unable to determine whether the light is green or red, and thinks driving through at full speed is the best possible solution given the situation?

More people than you or I would like to believe, I would imagine.

Zaxxon wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:I mean, who the fuck approaches an intersection, is unable to determine whether the light is green or red, and thinks driving through at full speed is the best possible solution given the situation?

More people than you or I would like to believe, I would imagine.

Darwin needs to remove them from the gene pool, without taking more sensible ones with them.

Some of the new generation LEDs that are mega bright also get mega hot. Like hot enough for the flashlight to come with a heatsink installed. So simply substitute one of these new hot mothers with a weak heatsink for one or a few of the lights, and BAM the LED stoplight snow problem is solved (some power savings lost, as I think the high power ones use more juice)! Also, one could place a pseudo lens of some chemical that would release sufficient heat as it froze and still remain transparent to help clean off the lights. Of course I have no idea if any of these ideas are feasible, but now that the problem has been identified it's an opportunity for some enterprising fellow to figure out a solution.

Why not just install a heater in the traffic light housing, and then connect it to a thermocouple to switch it on or off as temperature dictates? Much less wasteful, but more costly for folks with traffic lights installed in ice-prone climates.

The Meal wrote:Why not just install a heater in the traffic light housing, and then connect it to a thermocouple to switch it on or off as temperature dictates? Much less wasteful, but more costly for folks with traffic lights installed in ice-prone climates.

Thermocouples? That techology is decades (centuries probably?) old! Don't even think about trying to tie old school thought with new school LED's. Heretic.

How much would something like that add to the price of a light housing? Like, 2 bucks? Depending on the heater of course. How much does a small coil of copper wire go for these days? Maybe combine it with a photo sensor, so that the light has to be cold AND covered before the heater kicks in? That might keep it from being on 24/7 during the winter. The time the heater would be required has to be a very small percentage.

What would that take? 3 bucks per? Ok, not cheap across a zillion traffic lights, but not cripplingly expensive either, I wouldn't think.

$3 bucks!

More like $1000 bucks. First someone has to plan to get a crew out there to do it for every light in the town. Then they need a minimum of 4 union guys to install it. Then there’s all the wear and tear on the trucks used. Then they need to pay the police to watch them install in for minimum 4 hours.

The Meal wrote:Why not just install a heater in the traffic light housing, and then connect it to a thermocouple to switch it on or off as temperature dictates? Much less wasteful, but more costly for folks with traffic lights installed in ice-prone climates.

We get substantial snow, ice, blowing snow, blowing ice here and I don't recall every hearing about this problem. Maybe we still have non-LED lights. Maybe newer lighting housings are more snow resistant. Not sure.


FWIW, here's what it looked like in Milwaukee:

And here comes a new breed of super-efficient lightbulbs and this time without mercury.

RTI's technology, which was funded in part by the Department of Energy's Solid-State Lighting program, centers around advancements in the nanoscale properties of materials to create high-performance, nanofiber-based reflectors and photoluminescent nanofibers (PLN). When the two nanoscale technologies are combined, a high-efficiency lighting device is produced that is capable of generating in excess of 55 lumens of light output per electrical watt consumed. This efficiency is more than five times greater than that of traditional incandescent bulbs.

Nifty, I hope they can scale it up into commercial products pronto. Even better, it seems the color balance of these bulbs looks very good,

Additionally, RTI's technology produces an aesthetically pleasing light with better color rendering properties than is typically found in CFLs. The technology has demonstrated color rendering indices in excess of 90 for warm white, neutral white, and cool white illumination sources.

I've been plenty happy with the color rendering of our current CFLs since they have improved the soft white ones, but admit it could still be better. In particular for photography and art uses this could be grand.

...just when you thought this horse was finally dead, along come the tea baggers.

PEOPLE CONCERNED about ideological overkill in the new Tea Party-infused Congress should look no further than the bizarre crusade on behalf of energy-wasting lightbulbs. Acting in the name of “consumer freedom,’’ three Republicans — Representative Joe Barton of Texas, who apologized to BP during the gulf oil spill, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, and Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming — want to repeal efficiency standards that effectively begin the phase-out of inefficient incandescent light bulbs next year.

It matters not to certain Republicans that the standards represent a bipartisan success, passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law in 2007 by President Bush. Nor does it matter that the chief lobbying arm of American light-bulb manufacturers, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, opposes the repeal, saying the standards are already inspiring a new generation of more efficient incandescent and halogen bulbs that, along with compact fluorescents, will create “a wide variety of light bulb options for consumers.’’ Nor does it matter that a poll last month found that 71 percent of budget- and energy-conscious Americans have already begun replacing old-fashioned incandescents with the new bulbs, and that 84 percent of them say they are “satisfied’’ or “very satisfied.’’

Instead, at a Senate hearing earlier this month, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky berated Kathleen Hogan, the Energy Department’s assistant secretary for energy efficiency. After Hogan explained that fully implemented light bulb standards could save the nation nearly $6 billion in 2015, Paul complained that energy conservation is so Draconian, “I can’t buy a toilet that works.’’ He went on to rail that the Obama administration favors “a woman’s right to an abortion but you don’t favor a woman’s or a man’s right to choose what kind of light bulb.’’ Such ranting should make light bulbs go off in the minds of other Republicans, lest this incandescence of ignorance blows up in the party’s face.

Actually, ""He went on to rail that the Obama administration favors “a woman’s right to an abortion but you don’t favor a woman’s or a man’s right to choose what kind of light bulb.’’"

.. is kind of funny.

I have the right to stab myself in the hand with a steak knife but I don't have the right to fill up with leaded gasoline. OMG!!!! Time to take to the streets!!!11

LawBeefaroni wrote:I have the right to stab myself in the hand with a steak knife but I don't have the right to fill up with leaded gasoline. OMG!!!! Time to take to the streets!!!11

It's still funny.

Mr Paul's inability to find a toilet that's up to his challenge makes me wonder if he should rethink his red-meat diet.

Brett was tea-party before tea-partying was cool.

Ale

South Carolina rages against the dying of the light.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina lawmakers are taking a stand in favor of states' lights.

With incandescent bulbs being phased out under federal law in favor of energy-efficient compact fluorescents, legislators want to exempt South Carolina from the measure, saying Washington has no business telling the state how to light its closets and countertops.

The proposed state law, called the Incandescent Light Bulb Freedom Act, "allows South Carolina to say to the federal government we are going to exercise our rights," said Republican state Rep. Bill Sandifer, a co-sponsor.

Kraken wrote:South Carolina rages against the dying of the light.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina lawmakers are taking a stand in favor of states' lights.

With incandescent bulbs being phased out under federal law in favor of energy-efficient compact fluorescents, legislators want to exempt South Carolina from the measure, saying Washington has no business telling the state how to light its closets and countertops.

The proposed state law, called the Incandescent Light Bulb Freedom Act, "allows South Carolina to say to the federal government we are going to exercise our rights," said Republican state Rep. Bill Sandifer, a co-sponsor.

"South Carolina lawmakers have a long history of going against the federal government. In the past year they have taken up bills to stall federal health care legislation and create their own currency. Before that, of course, came slavery, states' rights, secession and the Civil War, as well as a century of foot-dragging on segregation, seat belts, drunken driving and the drinking age."



Like the jump from lightbulbs to slavery/segregation from the writer. Glad the AP doesn't mention the trail of tears or land run everytime Oklahoma is in the news.

I'd like them more if they worked wherever I screwed them in. But some lamps just don't work with them. And I have a lot of freaking lamps in my house because the geniuses who lived there before me apparently didn't believe in overhead light fixtures.

No outrage since the 100W left in 2012 and the the 75W left last year? Well, now the mfg and import of 60W and 40W are banned. You can still get them until supplies are exhausted.

Of course, there are still plenty of loopholes.

(ii) Exclusions.--The term `general service incandescent lamp' does not include the following incandescent lamps:
``(I) An appliance lamp.
``(II) A black light lamp.
``(III) A bug lamp.
``(IV) A colored lamp.
``(V) An infrared lamp.
``(VI) A left-hand thread lamp.
``(VII) A marine lamp.
``(VIII) A marine signal service lamp.
``(IX) A mine service lamp.
``(X) A plant light lamp.
``(XI) A reflector lamp.
``(XII) A rough service lamp.
``(XIII) A shatter-resistant lamp (including a shatter-proof lamp and a shatter-protected lamp).
``(XIV) A sign service lamp.
``(XV) A silver bowl lamp.
``(XVI) A showcase lamp.
``(XVII) A 3-way incandescent lamp.
``(XVIII) A traffic signal lamp.
``(XIX) A vibration service lamp.
``(XX) A G shape lamp (as defined in ANSI C78.20-2003 and C79.1-2002 with a diameter of 5 inches or more.
``(XXI) A T shape lamp (as defined in ANSI C78.20-2003 and C79.1-2002) and that uses not more than 40 watts or has a length of more than 10 inches.
``(XXII) A B, BA, CA, F, G16-1/2, G-25, G30, S, or M-14 lamp (as defined in ANSI C79.1-2002 and ANSI C78.20-2003) of 40 watts or less.'';

I saw a report a few days ago that US household electrical consumption has fallen to 2001 levels and is expected to fall another 1% this year, even as Americans have more electrical gadgets than ever before.

According to the Energy Department, widespread use of LED bulbs could save output equivalent to that of 44 large power plants by 2027.

So there.

I still need old type 100w bulbs. I have a water pump under my front porch and in the winter it needs a bulb shining right on it for heat so it doesn't freeze and burst. What am I to do?

Daehawk wrote:I still need old type 100w bulbs. I have a water pump under my front porch and in the winter it needs a bulb shining right on it for heat so it doesn't freeze and burst. What am I to do?

It's called insulation.

Zarathud wrote:

Daehawk wrote:I still need old type 100w bulbs. I have a water pump under my front porch and in the winter it needs a bulb shining right on it for heat so it doesn't freeze and burst. What am I to do?

It's called insulation.

Or "(V) An infrared lamp."

Heat cable - which I guess is like a reaaaaaaly long inefficient 100W light bulb.