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Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

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Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#231

Post by brookst »

dmonitor wrote: post #207
laverya wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that your "fully adjustable" bulb is giving you the spectrum you think it is? Syonyk's posted a few RGB bulb reviews recently, and they tend to have a lot more blue light than you'd think. And if you use the RGB functions, they tend to get REALLY spiky instead of having a smooth emissions curve. https://www.sevarg.net/2023/04/08/ecosmart-smart-bulb-review... + https://www.sevarg.net/2023/03/11/philips-sm…

I’m lighting a room, not a science experiment

If you're not lighting a science experiment, you are the science experiment.

(or something like that)

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#232

Post by philipkglass »

patmcc wrote: post #210

One way I like to think about progress: there are things that are (basically) post-scarcity. Things that have become either too cheap to meter or close to it (for an average "western" consumer, at least). Light. Water. Ice. Calories (if not picky). Entertainment (radio, youtube, etc). Information (google, Wikipedia). We still have a ways to go, but that's a good damn start.

I agree. My personal term for this is "weakly post scarcity." It's the point at which the median member of a society will more often suffer from excessive consumption of $thing than they suffer from deprivation of $thing.

There will never be true post-scarcity in our finite universe. A lot of services and goods can become weakly post scarcity in that they'll exhaust someone's finite time (watching YouTube or other entertainment) or destroy their body (drinking alcohol) before the median person will run out of money to personally consume more of them.

The weakly post scarcity environment brings new challenges but they are largely better ones to grapple with than those of a high scarcity environment.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#233

Post by dredmorbius »

zerodensity wrote: post #129
NeoTar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope your heating is more energy efficient than heating with electric light bulbs though! (And it should be - worst comes to worst basic electrical heating can be effectively 100% efficient, and heat pumps can do better)

When is electric heating not 100% efficient? I thought they were by definition.

Heat pumps achieve greater thermal output than the input energy, unlike electric resistance heating.

The latter is 100% efficient (all energy in is delivered as heat). Heat pumps exceed 100% efficiency, and can deliver 3 to 6 times the heat energy as input, as they are moving heat from the exterior environment to the heated space.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#234

Post by Schroedingersat »

_yb2s wrote: post #178
comfypotato wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use an LED that produces the same color. They 100% exist. I agree that incandescent is better than cold LED. A little shopping and consumer research will 100% find you exactly the LED you want.

It doesn't look or feel the same to me. Maybe something to do with CRI (I don't really understand that). I am not switching to LEDs... It would be wasteful to throw away something that works great and replace it with something new that doesn't work as well. I like incandescent, and my 40 year old reading lamp and a few extra bulbs will last forever running a few hours a night dimmed to ~20W.

Rough service incandescent bulbs are exempt and will last decades driven at a quarter power.

Sure it's a special order, but it's a special case.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#235

Post by _yb2s »

santoshalper wrote: post #213
_yb2s wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just seems like a solution looking for a problem... incandescent lights are exactly the perfect solution for my use case, I am completely happy with them. The whole problem LED bulb mandates are trying to solve is mostly a problem of unnecessary and excessive lighting which is causing tons of light pollution, interrupting peoples circadian rhythm, etc. If people used a very dim light near their body just between s…

No, the problem they are trying to solve is not light pollution, it is that incandescent bulbs use several times as much electricity as LEDs.

Making it more efficient just means people will think even less before brightly lighting things up all night long that either don’t need lighting at all or don’t need it so bright. LEDs are so efficient and cheap that the result is massive light pollution. The solution to energy waste is to make light dimmer and more localized.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#236

Post by dredmorbius »

6DM wrote: post #11
rsynnott wrote: post #8

Mildly weird piece, in that it's really measuring two things; lighting efficiency (and only at an extremely low resolution, implying a whole-system efficiency that doesn't change between the invention of the light bulb and the fluorescent light) and wage growth. 60 hours of work may have bought 72 hours of electric light in 1880, but rather more in 1990, say, for a combination of both reasons. That said, LED bulbs do…

I have a love hate relationship for led lights. They are more efficient, come in an array of colors for you to personalize your space. But I consider them expensive and a lot of them surprisingly don’t last that long, especially for their price. I’ve already replace two out of three led light fixtures that are supposed to last at least a decade and it hasn’t even been 5 years. I hope the quality improves or there’s s…

Out of a set of 30 or so LEDs, I've had five fail.

Four of those are spots in either recessed or exposed cans, and I suspect temperature or moisture may be involved. (Another set matching three of the failed, in near-identical fixtures ... are doing fine.)

One was a stick-type bulb used in a closet which seemed to fizzle.

In all cases I suspect it was electronics rather than the LED elements themselves which failed.

Three-way LEDs are hugely superior to incandescent 3-way bulbs, which always seem to lose at least one filament within a few months. The LEDs are going strong years on.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#237

Post by Schroedingersat »

pixl97 wrote: post #209
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we look at only the resource of light, you'll find that over a billion people are still using kerosene lanterns, primarily in places with low electricity access. That's around 10 billion liters of kerosene still being used per year. It's more expensive, dangerous, unhealthy, and wasteful than a cheap LED light, but without electricity, it's still the best choice.

Solar panel and led is cheap and pretty durable. I'd think batteries to run part of the night would be biggest issues at this point.

A laptop powerbank cost about as much as those and will run enough lighting to read for days.

Lower cost than that, there are C-grade prismatic cells. Usb/12V adapters exist for a single cell as well, although i'm not sure if they are in that form factor.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#238

Post by mhb »

Dalewyn wrote: post #204
_yb2s wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I resent the laws banning incandescent lights. I consider myself an environmentalist, and am very careful about wasting electricity. I love the warm dim light from an incandescent and think it helps me fall asleep... the light from one incandescent dimmed to about 20-40W is all I need after sunset, and all I want. It's like sitting near a campfire. My house is solar powered, and I keep a window open witho…

I resent the banning of incandescent light bulbs for a practical reason: Heat. In colder regions it's been common sense to use an incandescent light bulb to keep a space heated so it's just above freezing (above 0C or 32F) during the winter months. This is to prevent things like plumbing and sensitive machinery from breaking due to ice formation. A full blown heater is generally complete overkill and impractical for…

Simple Deluxe 150W Reptile Heat Lamp Bulb

https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Deluxe-150W-Reptile-Heat/dp/B0...

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#239

Post by bumby »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #217
bumby wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t this break down once your utility function goes beyond strict economics? E.g., economics may say it’s best to let Taiwan specialize in semiconductors, but that may not be optimal once you factor in other dimensions like national security. Humans are not Homo Economicus

> economics may say it’s best to let Taiwan specialize in semiconductors, but that may not be optimal once you factor in other dimensions like national security. Humans are not Homo Economicus And those other dimensions come at a cost. National security seems like a reasonable thing to pay a cost for. Enriching an oligarch does not. A lot of protectionism is about the latter.

Sure, just like the hypothetical yard work has a cost. I think what you’re illustrating is that protectionism doesn’t make people poorer per se, but it’s bad when it’s abused for individual purposes rather than broader purposes.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#240

Post by koyote »

Dalewyn wrote: post #204
_yb2s wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I resent the laws banning incandescent lights. I consider myself an environmentalist, and am very careful about wasting electricity. I love the warm dim light from an incandescent and think it helps me fall asleep... the light from one incandescent dimmed to about 20-40W is all I need after sunset, and all I want. It's like sitting near a campfire. My house is solar powered, and I keep a window open witho…

I resent the banning of incandescent light bulbs for a practical reason: Heat. In colder regions it's been common sense to use an incandescent light bulb to keep a space heated so it's just above freezing (above 0C or 32F) during the winter months. This is to prevent things like plumbing and sensitive machinery from breaking due to ice formation. A full blown heater is generally complete overkill and impractical for…

This almost sounds like the popular xkcd around CPU overheating being a feature: https://xkcd.com/1172/

Surely there are other, more reliable ways, to keep a space heated during winter months?

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