ben.parmeter

Short post today.  How many blogs does it take to install a light bulb?  On second thought, no light bulb jokes today.

Just the other day, I noticed that our front porch light had burned out, again.  In a rare burst of efficiency I decide to replace this burned out bulb as well as another bulb in our hallway that had recently burned out.  Our hallway light, unlike our porch light, is a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) which is part of our general plan to replace all of our light bulbs in the house with these energy savers.  I had always assumed these bulbs would last much longer than standard bulbs – I guess I’ll learn to make those kinds of assumptions in the future.

My front porch fixture contains a light sensor which slowly turns on the porch light automatically, at night, and is supposed to turn it off during the day.  Unfortunately, the way CFL’s are designed, with a ballast that alternates current through the fluorescent gases inside, it doesn’t take well to the sensor mechanisms.  Any CFL bulb I’ve attempted to install flickers worse than a strobe light at a rave.  So I continue to stock the old filament style light bulbs for the porch.

All this light bulb installing got me to thinking.  Light technology really hasn’t improved much over the last 200 years.  I mean, we’re basically using the same method of passing enough electricity through a filament, until it heats up enough to emit light.  Come on folks, this is just a couple of steps away from candle technology!  We can do better.

Maybe we can do better with LED technology in the future.  I’m not holding my breath.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 7:52 pm and is filed under musing, tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.