First, they came for our 100-watt bulbs

NEW YORK POST ^ | December 1, 2011 | CLAUDIA ROSETT

[george76]

Include me among those crazed Americans who can’t walk into Home Depot, Target or my local grocery store right now without wanting to grab a king-sized shopping cart and stuff it to the gunwales with 100-watt incandescent light bulbs.

Maybe it’s the sheer thrill of buying bulbs that in just a month, as of Jan. 1, 2012, will be banned for sale in America. What fun, in this incandescent twilight, to acquire legally what the federal government will soon treat as contraband. Or maybe it’s that gut sense that with the dollar teetering, those beloved old 100-watt bulbs will at least provide a decent store of value, even if all I do is use them to read by for the rest of my life.

First the 100-watt incandescents will vanish from the shelves. Then the 75-watt, the 60-watt and 40-watt...

Presumably, federal authorities will now be spending US tax dollars (excuse me — “creating jobs”) to deploy light-bulb cops.

For decades, America has been the world’s beacon of freedom. Yet here we are, wards of the nanny state, with politicians dictating that even that prime symbol of American ingenuity, Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb, shall be regulated into oblivion. All this has been ably exposed as an act of crony capitalism, designed to enrich manufacturers who prefer to sell pricier light bulbs that a lot of Americans, if free to choose, prefer not to buy.

[Reagan69]

Is it only the 100 W?

[BelleAl]

The bad thing about the “squigglies” is that I can’t throw them away. I have to make a trip to Lowes, put them in a plastic bag they provide, put it in a special bin they provide which I presume will be picked up by a special truck to dispose of. Don’t see much green savings here!

I hate these things.

[Daffynition]

HAHAHA! Nice one!

I have some ambergris around here somewhere, Ishmael.

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter’s in Rome. Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.

Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of harm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.

I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors’ trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing, more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.

Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the worst.

I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of the Frenchman’s two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma originate?

I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old city graveyard, for the foundations of a Lying-in Hospital.

I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boding out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale’s flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jeweled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great?

[BuffaloJack]

... the LED was as cool as it was before I screwed it in. This is a wonderful thing, as it won’t rot your lampshades any more!

Heat is not the cause of the lampshade rot or the yellowing of the plastic diffusers. UV causes this, not heat.

[The Great RJ]

I soon expect shady characters in back alleys to be hawking 100 watt bulbs as well as high flow toilets and cigarettes out of unmarked trucks. This ban on incandescent bulbs is the green equivalent of the prohibition on alcohol under the 18th Amendment and will produce the same reaction from a public that does not agree with this prohibition.

[ThePatriotsFlag]

Yep, got my “lifetime supply” up in the attic near the MRE boxes.

[Hot Tabasco]

First, they came for our 100-watt bulbs

Not true, they came for our toilets first and nobody did anything........

[trebb]

I predict forays into Mexico for 100 Watt bulbs...

They'll probably search vehicles more thoroughly for them than for drugs.

[native texan]

Hummm....I never knew that about UV...so I guess my lampshades are at risk anyway!

[bert]

If they have no 100 watters, buy 150 or 200 watters

[Dr. Thorne]

Yesterday, a 100 watt bulb popped in my office and I replaced from my stash, man. Don’t tell the narcs.

[Utah Binger]

Thanks for posting this. We replaced 40 60-90 watt Halogens in our museum with 26 LED 17 watt LED’s. The best thing in the beginning was that the air conditioning stopped constantly running and we were astounded when we got the bill. We are saving 250-300 per month. At this rate they will be quickly paid for. We paid about $40 each.

We sought the proper soft light. The ones we found are very even with no “hot” spots. This lighting is superb. Now we will see if the 50,000 hour guarantee is true. I’ll probably die first.

[BuffaloJack]

> Hummm....I never knew that about UV...so I guess my lampshades are at risk anyway!

The reason UV does this is that the distance between carbon atoms in most organic compounds (plastics, cotton, etc.) is the same as the wavelength of the UV. This causes the carbon-to-carbon bond to vibrate and sometimes break. This degrades the material on a molecular level. UV is tough on stuff.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[mkleesma]

“Include me among those crazed Americans who can’t walk into Home Depot, Target or my local grocery store right now without wanting to grab a king-sized shopping cart and stuff it to the gunwales with 100-watt incandescent light bulbs”

Last summer I did just that - Home Depot had 16-packs of 60W and 100W bulbs on sale for $1.99. I bought ten packs of each. That ought to keep me nicely incandescent for quite a few years.

Later that day, and all 4 skids of bulbs were gone.

[Utah Binger]

I realize this is not for everyone, however we are saving $250-300 monthly in our museum using this dimmable par 38 replacement. Soon the prices will plummet on all types of LED's including soft white for 100 watt replacements. And they last forever we are told. They are expensive now but I guarantee the market will take care of that.

If I was 25 again I would be going door to door selling these products. And if some bright American actually started manufacturing the product in America......well that's a topic foe another time.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

If you are buying 100W bulbs right now, you absolutely must check on the “Lumens” (brightness) rating on the front of the box. The *minimum* Lumens for a 100W bulb should be no less than 1500, and typically can be found as high as 1650 or more.

But some manufacturers are selling 100W bulbs with as little as 950 Lumens, which is about as bright as a 60W bulb. In other words, a rip off.

Those who have already laid up a store of 100W bulbs would be well advised to look at their boxes. If they are rated less than 1500, you might as well throw them out and get new ones, because they are just taking up space.

Oddly enough, some of the big, name brand manufacturers are the worst abusers in this, and “no name” Mexican bulbs are often a lot better. Yes, they may not last as long as well made American bulbs, but if they don’t do what they are supposed to, it doesn’t matter how well they are made.

[Chewbarkah]

Next years’ story: In a brilliant move to combat rampant bulb-crime AND increase employment, Obama’s new BEA (Bulb Enforcement Agency, headed by “Aunt Bea” Otoomi) will spend half its multi-billion dollar budget on Operation Dark & Dubious, paying out-of-work drug smugglers to steal American incandescents and walk them back to Mexico. The other half of the budget will go to loan guarantees to boost the DNC’s production of dim bulbs.

[Peet]

I have been studying the different lights... Incandescences are cheap and give good warm and cool lights but 85% of the cost of running them is from the heat they produce.

3200 degrees kelvin - I used to be a photographer. Using 3200K balanced film in daylight yeilds interesting effects. Can't duplicate it with a digital camera AFAIK

The “squiggly” ones are also going to be phased out; which is fine with me ‘cause I hate them and they contain mercury.

In my expreience (see below) they don't last nearly as long as old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.

There is a light on the horizon coming into production that will be great when it finally gets here...it is the LEDs. They are expensive right now, but will cut your electric bill in half because they do not produce any heat at all.

Yep, as with all things give it time.

Also, they are suppose to last at least 10 years. Can you imagine not changing a light bulb for 10 years?

I do not have to imagine! My house was finished ten years ago this month and all but two of the original incandescent bulbs are still in service indoors[1]. One of the blown bulbs was in a fixture that arced and flickered badly, the replacement bulb in the repaired fixture is still in service. The second was whacked with a piece of furniture while moving said furniture.

In that time I have had at least half a dozen CFLs fail, some quietly and some with dramatic sound effects and burnt circuitry. Besides the CFLs, every florescent fixture in the house has failed at least once including the Circline® kitchen fixture and the 4'-tube laundry-room fixture.

All my bulbs were labelled "commercial service" and "130V" so they're not what one gets at Home Depot. I got more by finding out where the electricians stock up on supplies and buying them there.

Companies that have installed them are saying that they are saving from 50 to 85% cost on their lighting bills.

I'll garan-damn-tee you that people will quickly be complaining about the cold blue-white light LEDs produce.

Peet

[1] I have lost a bulb in a drop-cord, but lights slammed around under trucks don't count, do they? Also lost a couple OUTDOOR flood lights on the motion detector -- that stopped when I replaced the cheapo motion detector with a quality unit.

[sheana]

I looked up the brightness of leds comparatively. Looks like 20 lumens led is equivalent to a 4 watt night light?

•A 100 watt Bulb is rated at approximately 1700 lumens
•A 60 watt incandescent bulb is rated at approximately 800 lumens
•A 40 watt bulb is rated at 400 lumens
•A 4 watt night light bulb is rated at 20 lumens