How nutritious is your light bulb? (in lumens, of course)
By Sean Hollister 
posted June 23rd 2010 10:14PM
posted June 23rd 2010 10:14PM
posted June 23rd 2010 10:14PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
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:o
@JonnyB
I like this idea! More information about the product is always better for the consumer!
@JonnyB
"Is that an incandescent? Don't get that, girl, it'll go straight to your thighs!"
@JonnyB
THIS JUST IN
Engadget sued $100,000 for misleading article title, causing young 25yr old woman to eat a light bulb!
Though knowing it would be harmful, she did it anyway, thinking that Engadget must know the logical choice.
@ThundaChunky And I'm Bob the Tomato...
@Mike10010100 "I like this idea! More CONSISTENT information about the product is always better for the consumer!"
Fixed that for you.
What would be awesome would be if instead of showing the "Light Appearance", they actually showed a graph of the spectral output. Oh wait, if they did that, there'd be a lot more people like me who didn't buy compact fluorescents.
I see what they did there....
that's damn cool, if you ask me... i mean... deliciously cool.
@DopeyFish, you mean 6500k cool?
sounds good on paper, but aren't there a lot of variables that can mfg's can manipulate for testing?
This is actually a really great Idea.
As lame as it sounds, I've wished there was something like this when I was buying bulbs once.
@ConradOBrien First thing I did when we moved into our new house is replace every bulb in the house with compact fluorescents. Love em.
Umm...Education FTW
~(-_-)~
/ | \
excellent!
I hate hate hate nanny governments that tell me what I am and am not allowed to consume, but I really do appreciate when they require manufacturers to be honest and forthright with their products with a CONSISTENT measuring system, so that a consumer can make an INFORMED decision! =)
60 calories.
wut?
This is pretty damn awesome.
mine are 13W CFL @ 4100K,
I used to use 6400K but I kept loosing track of the time of day
Considering that this same group of geniuses are mandating a light bulb that requires an emergency hazmat response team to show up on your doorstep and lock down your house if your break the bulb...in the name of the environment...this little bit of idiocy is just a blip.
@teky
and what bulb would that be ...
@teky
it's all a heathen conspiracy
@magic6435 That would be your CFL light bulbs. One of the chemicals found inside of compact-fluorescent lamp bulbs is mercury. Mercury is a hazardous chemical. State poison control centers say that if you break a CFL you are to make sure that pregnant women and children leave the house and call a HAZMAT team to clean.
@dfresh - Yeah, because you also need to call a hazmat team when you open up a couple cans to tuna too. That is about the same amount of mercury as in a single, modern bulb.
@dfresh
Thats strange because the EPA simply suggests airing out the room for 15 minutes and then sweeping it up and tossing it out.
Does this mean they won't take away my beautiful incandescents? I mean, isn't the right to a 100 CRI in the constitution or something?
@bradleigh
Amen brother. They'll never take our black burning radiators!
This is good, but the info that still missing (that we'll probably never get) is the *real* failure rate. The economy of CCFLs doesn't live up to the claims when they prematurely die, and I've had something like 10 to 20% do that. I hope LEDs are better, but I tend to doubt they will be because a lot depends on the quality of manufacturing. Even with the failure rate, they'll of course still save energy, but won't save as much money as we're led to believe.
@appsman I like u can get an 8 pack at home depot for 1.89 for 40, 60, or 80 (equivalent) cfls I stocked up!
@appsman I have 2 CFLs on my front porch that have been on for 2 years straight... Night AND day...
It's about time Color Temperature is printed on every box. But where's the Color Rendering Index (CRI)?
I've been wondering how much of my daily value of mercury is in a CCFL...
@neillien: I believe about the same that you get in 6 cans of tuna . . . no, really.
What bulb is used 3h/day anyways? Bathroom?
Wierd.
I bet they still find a way to make it confusing, like how many lumens are in half a light bulb. Be sure to check your serving size!
Lumens and color temperature? Wow let's hope that the EU take a long hard look at this or that the manufacturers standardise the boxes worldwide. No more dim, morgue blue LED bulbs!
@AMcUK - Agreed, I live in the EU (Netherlands) and so far the information provided for lights is very inconsistent and generally incomplete. Terms like 'cool' or 'warm' light are very unreliable too when 'cool' can mean 3500K as compared to the 2900K of an incandescent.
I would definitely welcome consistent and complete information.
I'm waiing for the time when it will be required to post the vacuum energy as well. Expressed in kilograms of water it can boil (how many kilograms of water are there in all the oceans on Earth?). Now that could at least look as a nutritious value, given that it can be expressed in kilocalories.
So what would this look like for an incandescent 100W bulb?
3 hours a day?!
I guess this is good news for those prolific glass eaters.