Hey - it is the end of the week!

It was a long time getting here, but now it is.  And here we are!  Regular slate of meetings and what-not at work, followed by a trip to Wonder Sushi.  I tried to remain calm and not go nuts with the selected delights I normally gorge on.  This turned out to be a good thing because I ended up eating my share and then my share again in crispy spicy rolls.  They were extra spicy today and that means extra good, at least in my book.  Kinda scuppered the rest of the day though, as it takes a while to produce 120 pieces of crispy spicy tuna.

Not much else to talk about, except this Slashdot article on CFL bulbs.  Turns out that there is a gap between "real power" and "apparent power" used by these lights, something called the "power factor."  Basically it means that the utility (the grid) has to have more power available than is used by the bulbs to make them work properly.  I only went through some of the comments, but they make many interesting points about LEDs and CFLs and other options.  I have always disliked the bans of incandescent bulbs - they are very useful and well understood.  They have their uses, especially in the cold.  The heat factor has been brought up recently - some people think that a house full of incandescents would provide extra heating in the winter.  I personally don't think it makes a huge difference, but whatever.  Incandescents produce a very nice quality of light.  We got all CFLs for our house when we moved in 3 year ago, and I've had to replace several recently.  The suspicion is that these are older, cheaper and less reliable than the bulbs we can buy today, but I haven't seen a 7 year life, or even a 5 year life.  We'll wait and see.