<\/strong><\/p>\n I spoke with Bryan Trainor, VP Marketing of Bulbs.com. The upshot: You will be able to buy bulbs to fit all your present fittings. Some will be incandescent, for example the light in your refrigerator for which there’s no alternative. Some won’t be incandescent. Some may be CFL or LED or some other new technology.<\/p>\n The legislation’s thrust is to push manufacturers to improve lightbulb efficiency. For example, today’s 100 WATT incandescent is horribly wasteful of energy. You can presently get the same light output (as measured in lumens) from a CFL using only 23-25 WATTS. That’s an 75% energy savings.<\/p>\n Try this: A 100 WATT incandescent from Bulbs.com costs 49 cents to $1 (depending on the maker). A CFL costs $1.50 to $3.00 but you’ll get 10,000 hours of life versus about 1,000 for an incandescent.<\/p>\n On the left is an incandescent 100 WATT. On the right is a CFL of equivalent light output. The CFL is slightly taller than the incandescent. Photo courtesty Bulbs.com<\/em><\/p>\n Many people, including my wife, believe CFL light is awful. But it’s been getting a lot better and now comes in various \u201cflavors.\u201d Our building switched hall lights to the curly CFLs and the apartment owners went ballistic. They argued the building was going \u201clow class.\u201d Then we switched the hall lights to the newer CFL curlies encased in glass — so they look like normal incandescents. No one complained. We’re now saving about $400 a month.<\/p>\n I replaced a couple of incandescent top hat overhead bulbs with CFLs in my country palace. Then I asked my friends to identify the CFLs and the incandescents. No one got it right. They were all impressed when I pointed out which was which.<\/p>\n Trainor says the legislation is “very complex.” It’s not about banning bulbs. It’s about making manufacturers hit improved thresholds of efficiency. Says Trainor, “The country will save a lot of energy if it could simply replace the millions and millions of 100 WATT incandescents with more efficient bulbs.”<\/p>\n Bulbs.com has an Energy Savings Calculator on its web site. The savings switching to CFL are striking. Click here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n P.S. I do buy all my lightbulbs from Bulbs.com.<\/strong><\/a> I buy the no-name “brands” since they’re cheaper and work as well. <\/strong>I’m not stocking up extensively, since technology is improving so fast and prices are coming down so fast. There are now dimmable CFLs. <\/strong><\/p>\n Sugar is toxic. <\/span><\/strong>It’s not good for you. It’s a serious factor in diabetes and cancer. Give it up. Or at least reduce your consumption. The best article on sugar and research on it in the medical community was in yesterday’s New York Times.<\/strong><\/a> Please read it.<\/span> <\/strong>Send it to your children. Buying stuff. Harry’s quick takes: <\/strong>There are no so many alternatives in technology, you need to understand your needs — before you buy.<\/span> + Cameras:<\/strong> there are three types: cellphones, pocket cameras and digital SLRs (single lens reflexes).The BIG difference is shutter lag — the time it takes from pushing the button to actually taking the photo. DSLRs are instantaneous. Everything else takes enough time to lose the smile.<\/p>\n – Cellphones are great. The iPhone 4 is the best cellphone for pictures. It’s also the fastest to email a photo.<\/p>\n – Pocket cameras are semi-useless these days. They all have shutter lag. They will produce a better photo than the iPhone. Usually you won’t tell the difference.<\/p>\n – Digital SLRs produce the best videos and photos. The new ones can make high-definition movies in 1080p. Directors are shooting ads for TV and movies on them. Compared to traditional movie cameras,\u00a0 they’re light and cheap. Compared to cellphones and pocket cameras for taking still shots, they’re heavy and expensive. I love my new Nikon D7000 with its ultra-sensitive chip.\u00a0 It’s the best camera for weddings, children and YouTube — shot in normal or low-light.<\/p>\n + Laptops and iPads.<\/strong> There are basically four types:<\/p>\n – iPads. absolutely fine for email, surfing the Internet,\u00a0 reading books and watching movies. Great battery life. Great portability. Susan took mine and loves it. She rarely uses her laptop any longer.<\/p>\n – Ultra-portable, high-speed laptops, e.g. the ThinkPad X series. I use the X201 because I need its processing ability. I could write this column on an iPad, but it would be very difficult to pick up the photos and stock charts, scissors and paste them in Photoshop and then drop them into the column. My X201 has a bigger screen than the iPad, but is three times heavier and has only three hours of battery life, versus the iPad’s 10+ hours.<\/p>\n – Bigger laptops. My X201 has only a 12 inch screen (though I run three external 22″ screens with it).\u00a0 That screen is bigger than the iPad. You can get giant laptops — with screen ranging from 13″ to 17″ inches. The most powerful ones can cost over $4,000. They have super graphics and are used for gaming and animation.<\/p>\n – Apple’s laptops don’t have the variety that Windows machines have. But they’re less virus-prone and Apple’s operating system is far less buggy then Windows. There are two reasons I don’t use Apple laptops to write this column. First, I don’t like Apple’s keyboards. I can simply type faster on a Lenovo ThinkPad, which was originally designed by IBM. Second, I’m used to my Windows machine. To write this column, I use at least five different software programs each day. I don’t even know if all those programs are available for the Mac. In fact, I know of one that isn’t. And it happens to be key.<\/p>\n Rebuke my wife and daughter.<\/strong><\/span> That’s what one reader suggested yesterday because my wife and daughter hadn’t grabbed the Tarp monies as mentioned in Matt Taibbi’s article. See yesterday’s column<\/strong><\/a>. If you didn’t read it, you must.<\/p>\n My friend, a very successful, now retired Wall Street executive and ultra-strong Republican emailed me, “Even I find this outrageous.<\/em>“<\/p>\n He also wrote:<\/p>\n Because Wall Street is much smarter than Government and can find opportunity in even the most mundane programs. I’m sure the company set up to purchase these assets was the brainchild of some smart young financial engineers at one of the major firms and peddled to Mack and his wife. It has happened many times over the past 40 years as smart HBS MBAs and mathematicians flocked to the Street. Almost every program created by the idiot Congress to intervene in free markets has brought with it these finds of opportunities.<\/p>\n Privately he told me that Wall Street finds these opportunities regularly and typically shows them to the executives of large companies it’s trying to sell investment banking services to.<\/p>\n Next week is Passover. I have some great Passover and Easter jokes.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Lightbulbs.jpg\" "\\"Lightbulbs\\"")
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