On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 10:38 AM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com>wrote:
Using incandescent lights is economic lunacy. Even with cold fusion it > would be crazy, especially in commercial apps. > That makes sense. I draw a big distinction between compact fluorescents and LEDs. LEDs are not bad at all; in fact, I kind of like them. CFLs make my eyes hurt and make everything less vibrant looking. I'm going to guess this is because they are only lighting up small portions of the spectrum of visible light, but this is just a guess. I'm reminded of Neil Young's explanation for why he thought that CDs didn't sound as good as records -- something along the lines of being able to hear the skips in the binary encoding of the CD as the laser was passing over. He was no doubt mistaken on that point. Another kind of light source I really have a hard time with is sodium vapor. San Jose, which is just a 45 minute drive from where I live on a good day, uses this for their street lamps. This is what it looks like at night there: http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site568/2013/1101/20131101__streetlights~1_300.JPG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/HPS-lamps.jpg What these images don't adequately convey is the strain on your eyes that you feel when you're there at night. If the members of the city council there are normal people, it is hard to envision the decision making process that led to those lights being installed. I suspect the members are all accountants. An expert described the advantages of CFL over incandescent by saying: > "this is not a free lunch; it is a lunch you are paid to eat." > If that's the case, then I would much prefer LEDs. Eric
