Sweet! Is that just a normal florescent light? No flickering and good color, so must not be.

Amazing! Though I think he could have done without breaking mercury-containing florescent lights.

>> ^entr0py:

Somehow it seems like a bad idea to inject your skin with florescent chemicals.

You'd think it would be a bad idea to inject your skin with died chemicals as well, but I guess progress has got to be made.

Somehow it seems like a bad idea to inject your skin with florescent chemicals.

OK, yes, being energy efficient is great, and my wife and I are currently hunting for a house to buy and renovate, with the idea to make it as energy efficient as possible. BUT... you've gone a bit overboard on some of your ideas.

To suggest that everyone should have tiny windows is insane. Windows are brilliant for a large number of reasons:
* Free light
* Free solar heating when it's cold (including heating up a large mass like a brick wall to radiate heat inside the house)
* (most importantly for me) Removes the feeling that you're living inside a tiny box... large windows overlooking a garden or nice view can turn an otherwise normal room into a peaceful oasis.

Definitely do all you can to reduce heat loss from the house through them when it's cold, or heat entrance to the house when it's hot... but getting rid of windows is NOT the way to live. Not in any sane sense of having quality of life. And suggesting that people have sheets of plastic over their windows really is a little horrendous. That's utilitarianism taken to extreme. It may work, but your house will resemble a shanty town.


LED lights would be great to have except that there are NONE that are anywhere near to bright enough to replace even moderately bright incandescent bulbs at a pricepoint less than $100... so until they become a logical choice it's compact florescent for our house at present.

You haven't really even touched on passive heating/cooling, and you're very much only thinking of keeping a house warm when it's cold rather than cool when it's hot. I live in Melbourne Australia, today the temp is going to be 44C (111F), which is STINKING hot by anyone's measure. But it also gets down to single digit temps (40s F) in winter... so we have to have homes that can be good both ways.

One of the best ways to keep a house cool is to keep air moving through it. If you have vents/windows up high you can have them open to vent off hot air that rises, and window down low open to draw in cooler air from outside. This is one thing our current house lacks. It may have lots of windows we can open to let air through, but being that they are all about midpoint through the wall it is infuriating to have the house too hot and yet a change has come through and it's lovely outside but you can't coax the air through the house.

* Insulate as much as you can afford.
* Build the house (when you're doing so from new) such that it takes best advantage of the sun for the given times of year.
* Install Solar Panels for electricity
* Use an on demand gas hot water system (so you're not heating a large container of water and have it sit there), and even better have it be a backup to a solar hot water system
* Install Rain water tanks
* Use dual flush toilets (amazing that they are not common in the US)
* Use evaporation cooling over refrigerated
* Use as much passive heating/cooling as you can.

Crying foul of how inefficient things like stoves/fridges are is a little pointless, as other than getting the most energy efficient ones you can when buying, what can you really do about it?

Definitely think about energy and insulation and actual energy usage, but you don't have to live in a sealed, windowless box in order to live efficiently.

Yeah, mercury is bad for you. It is a very dangerous neurotoxin. I wrote more on the video post if you feel like reading it.

In reply to this comment by ponceleon:
Okay, so which is it... Is mercury bad for you or not? There's that one video on the sift where the guy is handling mercury and then there is this. Make up your minds dammit...

>> ^cyberscythe:
So the answer is, no, they are not.
The amount of mercury released in the atmosphere is a net loss compared to an incandescent if it's powered by a coal-fire plant. The natural mercury in the coal would be greater than the 15mLs in the bulb.


Atmospheric mercury pollution from coal-fire plants is nominal compared to other producers like various gold mines. Besides that, atmospheric pollution is not as dangerous to you directly as is the concentration in your home if a florescent light breaks, and in landfills where the toxin can run off into local rivers and enter the food chain.


>> ^ponceleon:
Okay, so which is it... Is mercury bad for you or not? There's that one video on the sift where the guy is handling mercury and then there is this. Make up your minds dammit...


And yes, mercury is bad for you. Very bad.

http://www.videosift.com/video/How-Mercury-Causes-Neurodegeneration-Brain-Damage

...but when those bulbs expire, dispose of them carefully.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Compact-Florescent-Bulbs-are-Bad-for-You

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/03/27/does-lighting-candles-for-earth-hour-defeat-the-purpose/

"Depending on where you live and what wattage bulb you use, lighting a candle instead of a CFL could result in a net increase of CO2 emissions. In California, a CFL will emit about 5 grams per hour. In Kansas, it’s almost 13 grams."

Looking at this map, if you live anywhere in a red or orange region, you will actually increase C02 emissions by using a candle rather than a compact florescent for lighting during "Earth Hour."

<embed src="http://i39.tinypic.com/raxf8i.png">

Saving the earth is a good idea...but make sure the physics make sense.

I'm Dyslexic, what's the big deal, you get on with life, you use spell check, I'm more visual, florescent lights and low monitor refresh rates give me a headache, I avoid both, I write run on sentences ...so what, read James Joyce....sigh.

I remember reading about this in a magazine a good time ago, glad to see that its finally a reality.

Farhad you pretty much described my situation, I think I'm lacking in decent sunshine as well from the harsh florescent lighting here.

The video likely does not convey how brilliantly bright this is. Guessing from existing HID lamps, at 1300W this thing must be able to light a huge space by itself.

Or a better analogy, the HID lamp in even a quality high end LCD/DLP projector is at most 300-400W.

While the weed growing benefits are clear, I am actually more interested in its effects on people's well being working in office environments.

My previous office only had florescent lighting with no windows, and it was really depressing, because all I had was my desk, my large board of technical scribbles and a telephony server the size of a large SUV. I didn't think much of it until I moved locations and go put into an office with windows and bright yellow colored walls, then I realized how much of a difference basic lighting conditions made because i was still stuck on a desk, and now 4 servers.

My work really improved after that, and I think most of it was due to natural light conditions. I had a friend who actually went to sun therapy sessions to reset his biological clock and increase his well being (he worked security so constant night shifts).

A few years back also I watched a documentary on architecture that featured a building that was designed so that most of its lighting came from the sun using windows, reflecting mirror domes on the roof that would bounce light inside the building. I thought that was awesome.

That was awesome on so many levels. Took me a little while to realize the bolts where lighting up the florescent bulbs. If only Edison never was, this kind of shit would be everywhere.

This picture is better.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/graphics/2008/10/23/scicat123.jpg

I wanna know when the first florescent human baby is born. The ultimate raver kid.

I'm sure Kubrick would be proud to have his face placed over Brittney Spears' private area and between the glow of the florescent "Glory Hole" sign*.

*Wasn't that the gay bar at the beginning of Gasper Noe's movie Irreversible? Anyone cinemaphiles in here willing and able to answer that one?