>> ^raverman:
This definitely goes on the list of things mankind would be totally unable to make after the apocalypse.


Unless this guy survived...

>> ^grinter:

1500C while pumping Hydrogen gas over it? Does that sound like a bad idea to anyone else?
Do they do that in an oxygen free environment or something?


Actually they never said it didn't burn off--maybe they don't use that much. Could be just to keep the heat even. But, yeah I'd have to find out about the fabrication process.

This is what the sift used to be like, before the invasion of cats, fails, and farts. Oh, the good old days. >> ^kceaton1:

I'd like to see more of these on the sift, it was definitely worth the time. Quite a bit of information in a short piece like this.

>> ^raverman:

This definitely goes on the list of things mankind would be totally unable to make after the apocalypse.


Totally! I want something like Wikipedia except full of the accumulated knowledge of how to actually manufacture stuff. I have to imagine that so much of this engineering knowledge gets lost.

Your video, Bet you didn't know this about lightbulb filaments!, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'bulb, filament, tungsten, ductile, engineering, the engineer guy' to 'incandescent, bulb, filament, tungsten, ductile, engineering, the engineer guy' - edited by kronosposeidon

I understand why people get upset with creationists, but I don't understand why any reasonable person wastes their time trying to convince them that they're wrong. It's like trying to blow out a light bulb.

http://videosift.com/video/Driving-through-500-fluorescent-bulbs#comment-1151228

Choreography was decent enough but very poorly executed. As mentioned above, they moved very slowly, as if they were each holding a fluorescent bulb and trying desperately not to break it. There was no passion or effort put into their actions, and that made it very disappointing to watch.

[redacted]

The bulbs will stay cool.

Almost all energy consumed by households is avoidable waste:
* think about the way you fry eggs. 99% of the heat from the burner is going into the air, not into the eggs. This should be solved by using small device that is well insulated on all sides and has an internal heating coil.
* Ovens have a high heat capacity and shitty insulation. More energy is wasted on heating up the oven itself than actually goes into the food. This could be solved by lining the inside of the oven with silica aerogel instead of metal. If an oven is properly insulated it will not feel very warm to the touch on the outside, even after being on for an hour.
* Most of your heating and cooling energy leaks out the windows -- if their inside surface feels significantly above or below ambient during extreme weather, your heating and cooling energy is being wasted and hemorrhaging out the windows. It would literally save energy to have a webcam on the roof and display that image on an LCD inside instead of having windows, if you live in a climate with extreme temperatures (especially in cold climates, as the energy used for the LCD would contribute to heating the house). All ventilation needs can be accomplished through a small portal with a fan (and a heat exchanger, of course).
* Hot water is produced very wastefully by just dumping energy into it instead of using a thermodynamic cycle to transfer heat and produce something cold as a byproduct. Hot water could be co-produced with cold water for AC / Refrigeration much more efficiently than doing them all separately.
* Hot water goes down the drain. This should at least go through a heat exchanger, which would dramatically lessen the amount of work that has to be done to heat up new hot water. A 7 Liter per minute showerhead putting water 30 degrees F above ambient down the drain is wasting over 8135 watts as long as it is running. However, I don't know of any houses yet designed with a heat exchanger between the shower drain water and the intake of the water heater.
* Fluorescent lights. Duh. Incandescent bulbs should be banned.
* Freezers built with the door on the top will waste much less energy to the convection of air when opened, for obvious reasons.

Here ends the lifestyle-neutral list of suggestions. The following would involve sacrificing something:

* Reduce excessive lighting -- if people wouldn't fuck up their retinas by driving just after sunrise or just before sunset, or seeing specular reflections of the sun on shiny cars and buildings outdoors, they wouldn't need such bright lights indoors. A 1 watt LED is plenty for reading. Sunlight could be used in the daytime instead of artificial lights.

Massive spread of light pollution does affect animals, migration patterns, etc. But I won't go into the details here. But.. I am familiar with such issues being involved in Astronomy, optics, etc. A friend is also a president, and physician in a major medical society within the US. They have solid science backing such things and how light pollution can affect people and animals in negative ways.

Sure light pollution can't be rid off 100%. The 9/11 memorial isn't on 24/7 every day, so that isn't a major problem either. We're talking in a practical sense, not in an absolute sense. Most cases of light pollution is quite simple to solve. Use a full cut-off fixture. You can cut down the lumens of the bulb. Saving yourself a great deal in cost for both electricity and the fixture. Rather than blasting wasted watts into the sky, focus it where you need it, Right down the the ground. A rather simple concept really.

If only every state would take it into consideration, it would save taxpayers huge sums of money in public electricity bills. Some states in the US, and some other nations, have adopted such policies/laws and it has shown it's effectiveness. There is often resistance to such change. We always see it from one sector. The lighting industry. They throw a lot of money to prevent states from making sensible decisions to save taxpayers cash. Often presenting bogus science, or no-name experts. Unfortunately for them in our area, we have an army of professors from big name local educational institutions to call upon. Not everyone is so lucky however. Still, it is sometimes hard to bear fruit as politicians tend to be more likely to listen to money before science.

So my point is about light pollution awareness in general. Most people aren't even aware of it, so I took the opportunity to mention it in this context as you can actually see the affect it can happen on wildlife. In the case for the 9/11 monument, I'm not concerned about it. It is a memorial that is not on 24/7. If the lights were, then it certainly could become an issue.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^honkeytonk73:
.... and light pollution supposedly causes no harm ....

A) Who says that?
B) Where is the harm in this instance? The lights were switched off for 20 minutes 5x to allow the birds to reorient. So, what, we wasted maybe 45 minutes of their time?

Okay, so all that work and danger to.... change a light bulb? Or is this another one of those "because it's there" scenarios?

Free climbing that.... jesus.

Dead video replaced.

In reply to this comment by campionidelmondo:
*dead