Light bulbs, the new IQ Test

Hot stuff - the incandescent lamp

It’s not often you can find what appears to be an innocent little question that has a powerful answer, but it looks as if asking someone about their choice of light bulb can tell you if their mental capacity borders on what probably passes for normal (whatever that might actually be), or if their brain is little more than would be installed in something that only needs to grunt, and walks around with its knuckles dragging along the ground.

Reading through some of the responses to an article about the long overdue demise of the popularity of the incandescent tungsten light bulb is enlightening, and should also make you worry with some degree of concern about how some people’s brains are wired up. Some of these responses, if you consider they reflect on some folk’s thought processes, might make you want to take a step away from someone you don’t know, just in case.

Greenpeace manage to come of the story looking like a bunch of mindless idiots as usual, with a crazy claim quoted from them that incandescent light bulbs waste 95% of the the energy they use. In the real world, CFLs may be good, but not that good, and something closer to 80% would have been more than adequate to make the case. Smaller CFLs are less beneficial than large versions, as the running gear inside the base consumes a couple of watts, and this has to be added to the rating of the bulb. So a 5 watt bulb will gobble up around 7 watts - 40% more than expected, while a 20 watt bulb eats closer to 22 watts - 10% more. This also shows how one should take care when percentages and real figures are selected by the promoter - always ask what real numbers the percentages refer to - the reality of the numbers may be a lot more significant.

David Walker from Stirling, Scotland, tells us:

The so-called improved CFLs do not illuminate higher-ceilinged traditional domestic properties adequately. They do not suit traditional light fittings. They appear dim and have no equivalent to 150 & 200w bulbs which are necessary to illuminate older properties. The mercury content is of real concern in CFLs. We only use CFLs at home for cupboard lights as cosmetically, they are horrible - and don’t light up the cupboard either. Much more development is required before the nanny state in this country imposes yet another restriction on its citizens.

David clearly has more money than sense if using 150 watt and 200 watt bulbs to light ceilings, the rest of world now uses directed lighting to see what it is doing, and must like to smash his CFLs against the interior walls of his home if mercury is a concern (hasn’t it been superseded?). I suspect he’d be at the head of queue complaining if the government failed to promote any energy saving technologies.

Tim Beeche-Newman, Reading, England, shows why hyphenated names are best avoided:

Low energy bulbs do not, in any case, save as much energy as claimed. This is because unlike conventional bulbs they produce very little heat. Therefore in a house using low energy bulbs the central heating system will have to work harder to make up the difference. Thus assuming one’s central heating system is on for 6 months per year, the actual energy saving is only half what is claimed. Ask any physicist.

A physicist puts him in his place later, but unless you’ve got a very recent, highly efficiently insulated home, the amount of heat gain from incandescent lighting waste is not going to make any difference to the work done by your central heating system. It’s the comparison of a few hundred (intermittent) watts versus a few kilowatts running for a significant period of the year.

Jimmy R, Scotland:

The main reason I am hoarding them is that I object to the bullying attitude of governments over normal bulbs. I am quite willing to change when asked but I have always had an attitude problem with those who try to push people around without cause.

I’m lost here. Other than perpetuating the suggestion that Scots have a massive chip on their shoulder about everything, what has this to do with the goodness or otherwise of CFLs? Jimmy is still free to use what he likes at the moment, unless he’s looking for a fight.

Paw Bokenfohr, Bracknell, United Kingdom, raises a much repeated complaint about dimming:

Something I didn’t see mentioned in your article, is what about those of us with dimmers? I have one in each of the bedrooms; I don’t always want full brightness, especially when I am getting up in the mornings or winding down for sleep. Why should I be made to remove these switches in order to use CFLs? I shouldn’t is the answer. I am all for reducing our carbon footprint and all, but I already recycle, have a low emission car, and my commute is less than 5 miles, and I always shower, never bath. Why shouldn’t I be able to retain my incandescent bulbs? It seems a small thing to ask.

Again, I find myself a bit lost. Our earlier commentator complain that CFLs are not bright enough for them, now we have someone complaining that they are too bright. I know it’s an extremely simple solution, but dimmers weren’t always available (and are wasteful anyway), so Paw could do something radical and daring like having more than one size of bulb fitted, and use table or floor lamps with lower wattage bulbs when winding up or getting up. Paw also demonstrates flawed logic - something which many so-called green schemes foster - by ending up with no net saving. After reducing one’s carbon footprint, instead of reaping the benefit of the reduction, its used as a sop to indulge in something wasteful, thereby wiping out any benefit.

Alison, London, England, gives us the benefit of feminine logic - if it looks pretty, who cares if it wastes energy:

I will resist these energy bulbs for as long as possible firstly because I have just bought a beautiful light fitting that would look terrible with these bulbs and secondly because I suffer from migraine and do not wish to introduce something that could trigger an attack.

And she even managed to find a medical reason to justify never changing.

Chris Markiewicz, Barnet, England, manages to stay on the medical theme, even if he slips a little in his logic:

I have a visual impairment (retinitis pigmentosa), which means I cannot see well at all in low light. The new bulbs leave it almost impossible for me to see well - I often stay in hotels and now many of them use these bulbs and I literally have to feel my way around the hotel room, whereas with the traditional bulbs I can still see reasonably clearly.

While wishing Chris the best with his impairment, I’ll wager that his problem is not confined to hotels with CFLs. In fact, since they use a quarter or so of the electricity of their hot-blooded incandescent brethren, penny-pinching hotels than put light bulbs that are little better than candles in their rooms could afford to put more powerful bulbs in their place, and still use less power. Chris’s hotels probably still had the 10 and 15 watt “hotel specials” in place, as the owners would rather pay 50 p for an old bulb, rather than the £2.50 the CFL would have cost them to replace it a few years ago.

Finally, the physicist’s contribution in response to the drivel from the first correspondent.

Chris Latham (Physicist), England:

There is a factual error in the contribution from Tim Beechey-Newman, Reading. Each unit of electrical energy delivered to the consumer takes about four units of chemical or nuclear energy to generate it. Three units of energy are lost in the generation process and transmission.

Typically, central heating systems running on a fuel such as oil or gas use about one-and-a-half units of energy to generate one unit of useful heat for the consumer. Thus, when everything is taken into account, electricity is an inefficient way to provide heating. Indeed, this is reflected in the high cost of using electricity for heating. Energy-saving lamps, therefore, do exactly what is expected: they save energy.

Actually, slipping my mildly satirical hat off for a moment, it’s all a fairly sad reflection on people’s attitudes, and unwillingness to adopt to changes, and what might be described as the “comfy pair of shoes” syndrome.

Assuming global warming is real, and that there is indeed a tipping-point which represents the point of no return if we don’t change our ways, then don’t bet on the tipping point not being reached if we’re dependent on ordinary people to do anything about not getting there being coerced.

Ridiculous TV wages

I used to be something of a TV addict, which was possibly something of an achievement as I don’t have any interest in any of the slops such as the soaps or reality (have you ever seen anything less realistic?) shows. Probably more of a drama, factual, documentary, comedy person, this used to include quiz and game shows until they were taken over as showcases for nobodies that wanted “5 minutes of fame”.

As it is, I don’t even bother to wire in any of my video recorders into the system any longer, and I used to have four (together with a home cinema system to control them all), and just watch what comes along when it suits - and that generally means something from the past, probably the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s. That’s probably the period before the talentless discovered they could become famous by belching, farting, or smashing themselves in the face with a hammer.

Channel 4’s Countdown was a nice simple bolthole that one could take refuge in, and has largely avoided most of the irritating jazzing-up that producers seem to think is necessary with each new series. The only thing it really suffered from was the guest commentator, or celebrity, although the mild nature of the show at least ensured they appeared much as themselves, rather than their persona, so they were largely bearable.

I recall Carol Vorderman’s first appearance on TV, as a presenter on Tomorrow’s World, soon deserted. She kept on popping up, and we learnt she had earned millions from writing books years and years ago, so she’s never been short of a penny or two, or in need of another paying job. But, that didn’t stop her, and it seems she’s been coining it in for 26 years on Countdown.

Now that she’s leaving the show - and there seems to be all sorts of nastiness being stirred up around this - her wages have come into the news: Vorderman’s agent said on Saturday that the star felt forced to step down from the show when she was told to take a 90% pay cut from a salary understood to be in the region of £1m. The reason appears to be in dispute, but no-one had jumped in to dismiss the figure given.

I don’t think I’ll be watching Countdown again - whether it’s Vorderman or a replacement, the idea of someone being paid £1 million per year for placing nine cards into a grid a few times over the course of the programme, occasionally solving a simple mental arithmetic puzzle, and laughing on cue at the host’s jokes is just something I can’t take. And this million is on top of whatever is still coming in from the books, and any other exhorbitant fees for the other TV programmes and appearences she makes, and any celebrity jollies she’ll pick up a penny for showing her face at.

Nice work (that’s work?) if you can get, as they say.

If she enjoys the job so much, she can easily afford to do it for nothing, or at a nurse’s wage level. I don’t fly the flag of nurse’s pay, but it’s a handy comparison in terms of reward with regard to the value of the individual concerned.

To reuse the word “ridiculous”, that’s the only way to describe a comment made by Kathryn Apanowicz (Richard Whiteley’s ex-partner) who said of a 90% cut in that £1 million wage: “She was even contemplating taking this ridiculous figure that they offered her”.

I could probably be talked into shuffling some cards for £100,000 per annum.

It will be interesting to see if the truth about whatever is going wrong with the programme surfaces, since the current host, Des O’Connor, also handed his notice in at almost the same time, and I thought that was something of a coincidence - and started waiting for the conspiracy theory to appear in the news.

Sex and the Boiled Horse

In keeping with the anolgies drawn by one of my heroes on Dragon’s Den, I’d rather have my eyelids sewn open with a rusty needle threaded with rusty barbed war and have paint stripper poured on them than watch “Sex and the City”. God knows where they find the mindless zombies that must be lined up to provide viewing figures, and now we have to watch adverts sponsored by this rubbish and featuring the tarts that appear in it.

I never thought I’d have anything even remotely complimentary to say about this programme, but I’m prepared to eat my words and thank it for one of the best images I have had conjured up for me in years.

I’ve never understood what the attraction of Sarah Jessica Parker was. All I see whenever she appears on screen is big wart which, combined with the rest of her face, just makes me want to throw up - sex is the last thing her appearance bring to mind for me.

And I’m not alone…

Thanks to Jeremy Clarkson’s inspired review of Sarah Jessica Parker’s appearance, I now have his description of her as “A boiled Horse”, so I now have a mental image of her that doesn’t make me want to puke when I see her.

Thank you Mr Clarkson.

I tried to find a quote of his description on the net, but came up with this instead:

Horsey pics

FIA GT fiasco at Thruxton

Just a brief mention for the appalling behaviour, and what must be some of the most lenient application of penalties as a result, at Round 9 of the FIA GT championship.

Circumstances during the race led to all the cars diving into the pits at the same time, this led to then stacking up there, and double parking. The result was that many couldn’t clear their own pit box, and get round the rear of the car stopped in front, so the teams had push their cars backwards so they could take a second cut. The only problem here was that the cars behind were simply piling up behind, and the result was that that cars were being pushed back into the car behind, while cars from behind were still moving forward, and crashing into the back of the cars being pushed back.

Now, this was all thanfully low speed stuff, but would still have cut the legs off any mechanics that might have been standing in the wrong place. Thankfully, it seemns that none were, but that doesn’t excuse either the drivers, or mechanics for that matter, who were placing the cars where they were.

The farce of it all was that, while we could see the TV coverage showed many cars hitting one another in the pit lane, and behaviour that was less than gentlemanly, it seems from the final commentary that only one team received a stop/go penalty as a result.

From what could be seen, either all, or none, should have been penalised.

iLemmings

Watching one of the Sunday morning “lifestyle” programmes this morning - yes, I have better things to do, but do stop channel surfing if I see anything remotely gadget like in someone’s grubby little paw - I was reminded of why I’ll never succumb to any of the iCrap out there, and fund Apple again. Last time was an Apple II, and look what a mistake that turned out to be. The only useful piece of software I ever ran on it was an adventure game, and I never got past the first chapter.

This morning it was a reminder at the cynical marketing ploys of their iPhone. Having launched a bit of clunky, pathetically underpowered piece of hardware and software that depended on nothing more than its looks to make it sell, they’ve now released a slightly more functional version of the thing, with proper software, storage, and network access. In fact, for the ridiculous money, all the things it should have had the day it was first launched - but that might have hurt the “second sell” aimed at the early adopters.

If it worked, it might not be so bad, but even Channel 5’s biased Gadget Show didn’t award it top spot for what it did, only its looks.

Of course, this will do wonders for their sales, and empty the pockets of the faithfull, since there’s no trade-in or upgrade route, so all the folk that have already splashed out to have the latest overpriced “must have” shiney box will have to throw them away, having had them for only a matter of months, and shell out for the newest one, or be left behind with an old-fashioned, obsoleted, uncool gadget.

Now, we all know that that’s never going to happen with the faithfull, and they’ll happily dip into their pockets, and empty them to fill Apple’s coffers to buy the newest version - and folk complain about Microsoft.

France F1

The fiasco that took place at the F1 race held in France this year reminded of a number of thoughts from the past.

Senna and Schumacher are considered to be great drivers, but to be perfectly frank, while they may have some skill and been able to pair themselves with a car provider that maximised their skills, after the French race I was left wondering if they would have been such great and successful drivers if they were on the track today, and subject to the application of the governing body’s rules and regulations in the same way as, for example, Lewis Hamilton.

In their day, and by their own admission at later interviews, both Schumacher and Senna forced their way to the podium at the expense of other, by little more than bullying, and moves that one would imagine would see them penalised by stop/go penalties, or black-flagging nowadays. Today, we have driver’s accusing one another of dangerous driving, and putting lives at risk, yet in the days of Senna and Schumacher it seems that driving another car of road, or even simply crashing into them to ensure they couldn’t score any points in a race was acceptable, and even admitted after the event.

While I can see the idea behind the regulations that shove drivers back down the grid if engines and gearboxes are changed ahead of schedule, does this nonsense really save all that much cash given the size of an F1 budget, and the amount drivers can extort from the teams for deigning to drive for them? The BTCC (British Touring Car Championship) is now pointless, as “success ballast” as added to shove any winners to the back of the grid, and the any hope of watching any trends develop is wiped out by grid reversals and handicapping dependent on the type of engine/fuel/drive used by the car. In the “good old days”, the various categories developed their own groups on the track and had to weave through one another. Now the pack is just an amorphous mass circulating the track, and it’s too much hard work trying to work out which is which.

You can’t help but feel that we’re no longer watching the team/driver racing and competing fro the trophy/title, but watching to see who has the best mind working away in a back room with a spreadsheet, and deciding the whole outcome in advance by fiddling with the numbers and deciding everything in advance.

Labour governments sneaks in secret taxes

Since I usually manage to avoid using words like scumbags, or making overtly political remarks like ’sneaky Labour government’, I’ll avoid the temptation to use them in this post and start a bad habit, and just direct readers to some articles in the Times Online, which give details of some taxes that the incumbent government and its nice minister have failed to announce in a loud, clear, and distinct voice, but which will be noticed by most who have an older, larger vehicle on the road.

Apparently you need not worry about the increased costs and lossed (depreciation) that has eroded the value of your vehicle, because you can dispose of it (ignoring the loss on the sale) and replace it with a nice, shiney new one that doesn’t suffer from the same costs.

Ah, the magical logic of politicians that don’t have to worry about any costs of living, like the peasants they ‘represent’, and act on behalf of…

Road-tax hike makes thousands of family cars almost worthless

Secret tax adds £200 to cost of running family cars

Threat of fuel protests returns as cost of petrol hits £5 a gallon

Time to fire the ASA

After reading an article that listed  the Top 10 most controversial ads, I’m even more convinced in my belief that the Advertising Standards Authority ranks amongst the most useless of organisations, and is chaired by a bunch of old women with nothing better to do, and no grasp of reality.

The top complaint (774 complaints) was about anti-smoking ad, of which we are told: “Many of those who complained said the adverts were offensive, frightening and distressing. The largest group of complaints related to the poster ads and the effect they could have on children.”

That sounds to me like the very reasons for creating and showing the ads, it was (or would have done) what it was supposed to do if the old women at the ASA hadn’t been around to interfere, and they proved they have no grasp of reality, when they upheld the complaint instead of laughing it out of the room.

There’s a time for “glove’s on” and there’s a time for “glove’s off”, and this was clearly  a time for “off”!

2. TRIDENT GUM - 519 COMPLAINTS

Upheld on basis of unintentionally offending a significant minority.

3. RUSTLERS - 219 COMPLAINTS

Partly Upheld as it was shown during a children’s film.

4. MFI - 217 COMPLAINTS

Upheld for showing actual domestic violence.

5. QUORN - 181 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

6. COCA COLA GREAT BRITAIN - 180 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

7. BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION - 122 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

8. JOHN WYETH & BROTHER LTD - SMA NUTRITION - 109 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

9. PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS (PETA) - 68 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

10. NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD - THE SUN - 56 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

I’m not wasting time repeating the finding, you can read the original article for that, but look at the spread of numbers: 774 for the top item, down to 56 for number 10.

Given the population of the UK, isn’t it ridiculous that the old women at the ASA can influence ads, with only a literal handful of complaints? And just who are the complainers, individuals with nothing better to do than watch adverts (hell, there’s so many now I feel I’m having to work hard to avoid them) or is it groups with agenda’s, and reasons to make these complaints and have the ads pulled?

As I intimated at the start, the ASA’s little more than a joke, with no real purpose and doing nothing to maintain any sort of standards in advertising.

Witness the dreadful USwitch advert that typecast a black Gospel choir with a a bunch of black people miming (badly) to the words - I can’t believe that rubbish hadn’t generated more complaints than the above.

Then there’s the mobile phone and texting adverts that areclearly little more then procurement services for prostitution or sexual services. Near naked teenage girls filmed in extreme close-up with husky voice-overs encouraging the viewer to text and chat and meet etc etc, or to receive videos. If you are an insomniac, then you get bombarded with this  trash all night. Item 10 above, the Sun ad, is laughable by comparison.

As for standards, if the ASA was really maintaining any sort of standards within the industry then they’d do something about the sponsor tags that are repeated incessantly between the programme breaks and the actual adverts. On long programmes or films, these are little short of brainwashing, being repeated 12 or more times in a single hour when a particularly popular programme is broadcast.

The ASA should do a proper job, or shut its doors and stop being paid to do very little of any value.

F1 on ITV - advertsing gone daft

F1 on ITV has to rank as the one of the worst slaves to advertisers, possibly coming second only to all the crime/drama programmes ruined by the endless AXA sponsor tags that ITV sold its soul to.

Qualifying has been mode boring enough by the change to this daft multi-session format produced to supposedly make it more ‘interesting’ (for which read ’short sessions to allow adverts to be jammed in without having to find a gap in all that inconvenient qualifying stuff that is getting in the way of the ad breaks’), and what used to be a programme that took little more than the old ‘Qualifying Hour’ has now grown into a 2 hour plus grind of  tittle tattle about the drivers, teams, managers, and the sport (and of course, the ad-breaks).

Selling out to money-mad Sony as sponsors was never going to be good, and we now have the pleasure of eac ad-break being punctuated with a plug at each end for ITV, F1, some driver’s face, Sony, and some crappy piece of music they’ve chosen, which appropriately features the word ‘Madness’ in its interminably repeated showings.

The programme segments aren’t even worth staying still long enough to watch in some cases. I made the mistake of getting up to investigate a noise at my door just as one part of the qualifying programmed began after the blasted Sony music - I only had to wander to the door, check there was nobody there, or anything suspicious happening, and wander back to my seat - I don’t own a mansion, but in the time it took to do that, when I sat down again, all I was treated to was the blasted Sony ‘Madness’ score yet again, and another batch of adverts.

Why bother squeezing in a programme section of a minute or two? Just make it all adverts and at least we’d know we had time to go make tea or coffee, or write War & Peace, while the ads were on!

Smile, your on CCTV - and fined!

A little while ago, I was moved to write about Automated Guilty Verdicts, and was basically suggesting that there seemed to be an increasing dependence on cameras to be Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

This trend is continuing, and STV’s Tonight programme, due to be broadcast on Friday, March 28, 2008, features the next incarnation of this method of acquiring convictions against ‘Soft Targets’. The programme looks at the introduction next week of regulations which mean that councils will be able to issue parking tickets based solely on CCTV evidence. Jonathan Maitland meets the parking rebels who say the new laws will lead to innocent drivers being falsely accused of crimes they have not committed.

We’ll have to see the programme to understand the full implications, and the concerns being raised by the so-called ‘Parking Rebels’, however there is little doubt that the trivialisation of the process that leads to the issuing of a fine, by degrading the legal system to allow it to be issued solely on CCTV is a matter for concern to all.

While there’s no argument regarding the use of CCTV evidence to obtain a conviction, the crucial principle to date has been that the evidence it presents is reviewed in court, by those charged with deciding the verdict, and in the context of other evidence and circumstances. Viewing CCTV images that simply placed the accused at a scenes without further evidence to back up the context is highly suspect, and downright dangerous in terms of justice - but perhaps justice is not the ultimate aim, and like other camera systems, despite claims to the contrary, the real aim is just the usual filling of coffers.

You should be concerned about this, and a quick look at the many TV programmes that feature endless hours of CCTV content should be a warning that the quality of such imagery as evidence is often lacking, and subject to mis-interpretation without witnesses to back it up in context.

We have already seen private parking companies misuse photographic evidence (it may even have been the Tonight programme that revealed their dubious operating practices), where their operators would position themselves on roads/streets their companies were contracted to patrol, and take digital photographs of any vehicles that stopped on the road. They would then use those images to issue fines, with the threat of escalating charges if not paid immediately. The only trouble was that the operators were taking their ‘Evidence Photographs’ whenever a vehicle stopped, including the dropping of passengers, deliveries, or even just when the traffic stationary in the road. If your wheels stopped rotating, one of these operators would pop out of hiding, photographs the vehicle to catch the registration number, and trigger the issue of a fine. When challenged, the operators did point out that the streets carried signage to make it clear that fines would be issued to any vehicles that stopped, however, without stopping to get out and find the sign, and read the small print, driver’s had little chance of being aware of what was happening.

Will council CCTV parking fines be issued with similar relish?

Will this become Scotland’s ‘Top-Up’ for its declining Council Tax?

Will an operator be sitting at screen, noting the numbers (I presume they will not be using APNRS) of any vehicle not moving in the controlled area - without even having to be there and see why - and plugging them into the fine-issuing machine, confident that few will have the time or money available to challenge the charge?