Bravo Dale

On to victory !

Ha: so the 'banning' of incandescent lightbulbs has finally been noted in the the USA: we in the UK have been suffering this for years. Street lights are getting switched off too, to save carbon or something: but there obviously cannot be any increase in vehicle accidents (sorry, that would be 'incidents' as the language police have also been busy - every incident has its blame to be allocated).

Also interesting, especially with respect to the EuroZone, is the increased use of the word technocrat. Now, being fond of technology (but, I hope not to an overwhelming extent in governance), I have resented this hijacking of a word with an existing and perfectly good definition. The EuroZone's newly authorised prime-ministerial 'dictators' are surely nothing more than a subspecies of bureaucrat.

Back to Dale's issue, I'd like to propose a new word (truly new if Wikipedia and Google are anything to go by).

Let us vilify the ecocrats.

Best regards

Smited at 1512 UTC.

It matters when, in one's humble opinion at least, one is extending the language.

Best regards

But funny enough, it seems the regulations in the two places come to the same place at the same time. The end of edison bulbs in the UK arrives with the new year I believe; and in the US they have created 'standards' which companies must comply with. That is Statist talk for, "we are going to make you manufacture Edison bulbs that are so expensive they cannot compete with our chosen lights."

I like it.

What about changing the black to red? Would that make it more recognizable or more confusing (as in 'watermelon green')? A red border would also make it stand out more, I suspect.

I found this(Link). Is it copyrighted or could it be placed under the circle/slash? I'm trying to think of ways to make sure the message gets through to people who will be shocked and horrified at the heresy of it. :-)

A few humble suggestions for prosecuting the war:

* Make friends with your local Godfather. Suggest to him that lightbulbs and other anti-Green things are the wave of the future in smuggling and contraband!

* Start rumours about Greens burning Korans for heat or using them in place of the Sears Catalog.

* Make stickers of the logo and leave them in unusual places, especially those guaranteed to p*** off the enemy.

* The stickers could especially be useful on Green Propaganda signs and posters.

And above all, have fun!

On the face it changing black to red sounds like a good idea, if only because of the Watermelon vibe. Delingpole will love it.

I also think that sticking the red on it concedes, although I am not yet quite sure of the logic - it's more a feeling, that some greens who genuinely want a prettier world are being used by the red tendency. Enclosed by them, stopped from doing their thing.

I think I would avoid mixed messages. Red and Green might make people think we were against Christmas or something ;-)

I think that Texas passed a law allowing for the sale of Texas manufactured Edison bulbs.

If this is true and if some bright businesscritter in the Lone Star State starts making them, I predict a thriving future for smuggled bulbs. Kinda like the way Westerners smuggled six packs of Coors to the East coast back in the early seventies.

...using them in place of the Sears Catalog

Brilliant idea. But how old do you have to be to get the reference? :-)

First let me say that in our house we have flourescent light bulbs on the landings, in the kitchen and in the bedrooms because they provide adequate lighting, last for decades use less energy and make sound economic sense. No green, carbon footprint reducing, bullshit required.

In the rooms where you need to actually see what you are doing we still use incandescents.

Those who think that there is some kind of moral, Earth saving dichotomy between the two types of bulb have not really thought it through. Incandescents are really cheap and low carbony to make and are easy to dispose of when they die because they are made of harmless glass and metal. They do, however, die more often. Flourescents last much longer but contain poisonous chemicals are less low carbony to produce and to dispose of properly. Why not make these facts publicly available and let people make their own decisions? Maybe because the average citizen is not very bright, unlike the leader of our nation who is presently exposing himself as an empty headed idiot in a series of interviews in the guardian.

I clipped the image to be just big enough for the circle, and set a transparent background.

https://billstclair.com/blog/images/nogreens-229x230.png

I like the logo, but I think it would be better if it were a no symbol over top of an actual watermelon. It doesn't seem to me that there's anything objectionable about genuine concern for the environment, once it's separated from the political considerations it's so often alloyed with.

Kinda like the way Westerners smuggled six packs of Coors to the East coast back in the early seventies.

Why would anybody want to drink Coors?

First class idea, but a little bland in execution. It needs some clearly recognised or recognisable generic environmental/green hysterical symbol in the centre.

A stylised image of a tree hugger maybe? Can't prepare an example of what I might mean, lacking any semblance of artistic ability....

I second Mid absolutely as to the red thing.

Shall I tell you a story about CFLs? I am warden of a Christian place of worship. We have many elderly worshipers. I am now buying incandescents in much the same way I might source a bottle of booze in the USA in 1925. Why? A few of the elderly have T-loop hearing aids and CFLs interfere.

Dale, much though I commend your activism here I am a bit miffed that you called them "Edison bulbs". Surely you know co-credit must go for Joseph Swann from my own native North East of England?

If you lost the black around the circumference and made the line across it red as others have suggested it could represent a watermelon slashed to reveal the red innards.

Great idea in principle, but it definitely needs a symbol under the bar. Colour-dependent logos are always a bad idea (perhaps less so in the age of the internet and cheap colour printing, but there are still places - useful places - where it won't work). Also, doesn't the bar in those things usually go the other way, from bottom-left to top-right?

re "Edison bulbs"
- That would be Joseph Swan bulbs in fact

I don't think it's a good idea to change the colour of the black strikethrough, as this being red could make the logo be misconstrued as coming from some kind of obscure reactionary arch-conservative anti-green Communist movement.

If you want to go with the watermelon theme (which is a good idea) better to keep the black and replace the all green circle with a thick green outer circumference and a red inner core.

I don't agree with Cats above. I think the logo should be as clear and simple as possible - easy to replicate, recognisable as a stop sign - and caricatures of silly greens on logos could get a little pastiche.

As CFLs are forced into wider and wider use, we will see more and more elctronic problems.

NickM alluded to hearing aids, which is one that I happen not to have heard of. But CFLs insert EMI onto the electrical wiring that supplies them, and this can have very odd consequences. Relays that chatter or fail to engage, wireless control devices that produce spurious signals, interference with cordless phones, garage door operators that don't work, the X10 home-automation system, the list is endless.

Quite apart from the simple issue of lighting quality, there is a huge mass of other problems waiting the wings as a result of this ill-advised change. The next wave after that will be 'green' ballasts for conventional flourescent tubes.

Wait until somebody dies as the provable result of the use of CFLs. Hospitals are already having serious EMI problems because the treatment areas are literally awash in electromagnetic signals of all sorts.

The Law of Unintended Consequences - it'll get you, every time.

llater,

llamas

http://www.cafepress.com/+no_tree_huggers_225_magnet_10_pack,55101474

Llamas:

I knew those problems 30 years ago as a kid. Every time my father went into the basement, where he had the old-style fluorescent lights, you'd start to hear a buzz (or worse) on the AM radio.

I bought the domains oldLightBulbs.co.uk and tungstenLightbulbs.co.uk earlier in the year, but have never got around to developing them. If anyone has any good ideas (not necessarily commercial) please let me know!

Seems like the ban only applies to tungsten filament light bulbs. Halogen light bulbs can with bayonet cap and Edison screw interfaces can now be obtained from various electrical outlets. They are dimmable, provide better colour rendering and use less power than the banned tungsten filament bulbs. Just saying...

I do a lot of wifi installations. The propagation of EM waves is unbelievably weird. For instance since we got this netbook I'm now typing on I have changed my usual seating in the living room. It's like when my Gran got her first telly (to watch the Coronation) and the machinations involved in adjusting the antenna were stuff of family legend (yes the whole Grandad having to go out in the snow and hold it "just so" so they could watch... God knows what was on then but it was on a magic picture box so...

Anyway, I got a physics degree and of course did Maxwell's Equations which are elegant in a LIH (Linear Isotropic Homogenous) medium but are merry hell in the "real world". I had a client a few years back, a lady flat sharing and what she wanted was to have the 'net for her laptop in her bedroom and for her flatmate to also have it. I guess I could have solved the problem in an intricate manner but decided to cut the Gordian knot and ethernet the gaff. Wireless has it's advantages in convenience and so do helicopters but you don't see fixed-wing CTOL aircraft going out of fashion anytime soon do you? Wifi like VTOL is dead nice to have but it comes at a price in so many ways. If you can, ethernet the gaff. If you can't I might be able to for a reasonable remuneration. If not wifi is more sophisticated these days - well it can be (not with the "free" routers you get on ADSL/CaTV contracts and I have doubts about PLN especially in the context of Llamas' post. Any thoughts Llamas? I personally haven't used PLN.

Hell, it's complicated! That's why I do it! Or more to the point that's why folks pay me to. And it's going to get even more hideously complicated with ever more things being wireless. Can we dig up Nikola Tesla and jerk start him?

Alisa,
That image looked like more than a hug. When a Daddy Monbiot and a Mummy Tree love each other very much they have a "special hug"*

(just watch out for Woody Woodpecker).

*From the UK National Curriculum, sex education, annex 4, "On sustainable love-making for pre-schoolers".

Just out of curiosity... I know that some symbols of this sort have the line in the mirror image sense to mine, which I think goes back to Heraldry, 'gauche' 'Siinistre' whatever. However I think the modern graphic statement of the line in the more 'expected' direction makes a smoother graphic statement and one that is a more appealing positive image, ie stomping the Greens is a good thing, not a sinistre. It just plain 'feels' better to me this way. I also would make a very pleasing battle standard as is. Easy, visible and identifiable from very far away... something you lose by adding complex bits to it. I also disagree with the 'watermelon' ideas. Outside of a small circle of friends, no one knows what the hell you mean by a 'watermelon'. It is a very private and inside joke amongst a miniscule minority and will simply confuse the statement for virtually everyone.

Although I did it with little thought, the more I think about it, the more I think my subconscious artist side got it right the first time.

The greens have been wildly successful at 'branding' 'Green'. The very mention of it without a specific color related context will bring to mind their movement. It is as solidly 'theirs' as the best and oldest corporate logos. That makes it very easy to attack. I like using the black because it does not confuse the color iconography. It is just a statement 'No Green'. Pure and simple and identifiable to virtually anyone with little more than a few seconds of thought. Also, it is not, like with the use of tree-huggers and such, a humorous emblem. It is dead serious, stark, uncompromising. It might get a smile but it is not conveying a laughing matter.

And besides which, if you prefer the bar in the opposite sense, just rotate the image +/- 180 degrees...

Umm, wouldn't that be 90 degrees?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication#Broadband_over_power_line

Is this blog not rated PG30+?:-)

...' last for decades ..............
Really ??

They've only been widely commercially available since 1995 ( and their price at that time, like LEDs now, was VERY high ), 16 years - so you haven't reached decades. plural, yet.
Don't believe the the claims of the manufacturers.

The ones I've tried are doing well to last 3 years, not longer, and in fact a considerably shorter life span than my incandescent bulbs so the economy MIGHT be there based solely on operating costs. Depends on life span and so far, the ones I've tried fall FAR short of the spans claimed by the manufacturers !

In addition, the things will either not fit at all in some light fixtures ( due to the electronic housing at the base ) or look hideous at best if visible in the fixture !

Llamas is correct about the incredible amount of electronic 'noise' these things produce and the effect of that on wireless devices etc.

I don't like the hue/brightness ( or lack thereof ) of the light ( yes I've tried several 'different types" ) and the 'warm-up' until full brightness, while getting better, is still annoying !!

And to top it all off, I simply despise the idea of gov't telling me what kind of light bulb I HAVE TO USE !!!!

My dear old Dad (MHRIP) worked for the Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken. He brought me a couple of engineering-prototype CFL lamps in 1985. These were not the familiar ice-cream swirl we see today - these were a single coil of glass tube inside an outer plastic housing that made them resemble a conventional bulb.

One of them is still going, and in an outside fixture in Michigan, no less. And I know that it does not produce intolerable EMI on the house wiring. It doesn't put out much light, and never did. And it can take several minutes to start on a cold day.

Apparently, they traded output and price for durability and EMI cleanliness.

As others have repeatedly noted, these things do not last as the cost models say they must in order to make economic sense. But that doesn't stop those cost modles form being put forward as arguments for the mandatory use of CFLs. Since the makers of CFLs (all offshore) now have a government mandate to enforce the use of their product, how much do you really suppose they are worrying about MTBF and EMI emissions?

I don't know too much about the RFI aspects, my day-to-day concerns have more to do with EMI on the wiring and susceptibility to interference. I can stop RFI with Reynolds Wrap, but I can't put Reynolds Wrap on the power cables.

As the devices are being froced to higher and higher frequencies, we're getting into the areas where the static from the device can easily be misread as a digital signal. While a 50 Hz hum on the old Atwater Kent is annoying, this is a set of problems entirely more insidious and fiendishly-hard to protect against.

Thanks to those who e-mailed me with other cases. Apparently, CFLs may have interference effects on the current generation of 'smart' electricity meters, and another noted that CFL emissions have casued problems for the controls of home standby generators.

It's going to be a mess. Worse than tin whiskers.

llater,

llamas

Jerry,
I live in an old house. The electrics aren't all of a piece if you know what I mean. This means light-bulbs and all sorts fritz anyway.

Laird, yes. 180 will give you the mirror image due to the symmetry involved.

Why would anybody want to drink Coors?

Good question. I remember those days. The answer is that it was hard to get.

Alisa... the link brings back memories. I remember doing frequency analysis of the power lines in Mudge Graduate House at CMU back in 1973 for Dr. Romesh Wahdwani whom I was working for as a junior member of our start up company Compuguard. We went on to do some commercial power line modems not only over house A/C but down power distribution systems for EPRI. Fun days. I was young, I was a CMU engineer, the world was my circuit diagram!

73?...Let's see, I think I was already on solid foods, but I could be wrong...Just kidding:-) I was still in the SU though, that's for sure.

What were the modems used for?

The first project was for security systems in apartment and office buildings, also for a health alert system from a 'Dick Tracy' wristwatch for elderly or persons with health or other worries. Reciever plugged in the wall; sent the signal to a central location over the buidling wiring where it got picked off and sent to the computer for decoding and printing out an alert. The later system for EPRI was to do remote meter reading and feeder switching. We worked with Carolina Power and Light on the testing.

Neat.

I gave up on reliance of wireless access in my two-story home and instead installed power line 500Mb/s ethernet adapters. Best move I ever made, in terms of home computing.

I *hate* yellow power-saving bulbs. HATE. If it isnt at least 5500K color temp, I'm having none of it.

Perhaps a text slogan in the style of the compulsory no smoking notices?
"It is against Humanity to be Green."

I like the symbol, even if the green is a little too vibrant.

My choice of green would be a dull, darker green. In other words, we of the New Ruling Order want greenery but no light in it. Just gloom.

Good point, Clix. It should be a more bureaucratic green.

And I recant what I wrote earlier. Dale's right - the simpler, the better. No point complicating the meaning. Anti-green.