Life

Why You Should Ban Visually Barbaric LED Lightbulbs From Your Home

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Our daily lives are full of things we take for granted and do not give much attention to. Do you think much about the lamps, or better yet, the light bulbs in your home? Usually one pays attention to such a thing only when it stops working and needs to be fixed. You think about bulbs when your ceiling light burned out, otherwise it is just fine. The same goes for many other seemingly or actually trivial things.

But if the devil hides in the details, as the saying goes, it hides in the apparent trivialities too. Artificial lights, although they have been everywhere for more than a century, have much changed in the course of last three decades—and they are far from trivially important. You may be aware that staring at bright screens at night is bad for your health, that it disrupts the natural day/light cycle, and that using a warm filter lets your eyes far better. LED bulbs are still another case: they seem less obvious because we usually don’t stare at them.

Perhaps, metaphorically, we should.

How I became LED-aware

In 2009 I started going, first timidly and cautiously, then on a regular basis in the unofficial Catacombs of Paris. The place has no light of its own, which means that visitors must bring their own, as speleologists do. Thus I bought the classic battery-powered headlamp any large sport shop sells. It had three small LED light bulbs behind its protective glass. Later I bought another headlamp that had only one, yet more powerful, LED bulb. All headlamps you can find on the shelves use these same bulbs.

For a special use like wide-subterranean exploration, this makes sense. When you know you will remain for hours in a place with no lights and know unexpected things like a closed exit may happen, the battery duration is the first consideration, and LEDs are undisputedly the least energy-intensive lamps.

Yet, even then, when sitting in a room one notices quickly that a LED light is unsatisfying. Its glow looks cold—its crude white-bluish sorely lacks warmth. This is why cataphiles bring candles with them.

Better yet: an acetylene (carbide-powered) lamp

As long as one remains able to choose and as LEDs are a freely available mean for a specialized use, I see no problem with them. Catacomb tours are a small-time exposure, and when LEDs are used in order to save battery, they are pretty good. But obviously the world we live in is not like that.

Years later I went to Brazil and noticed many artificial lights displaying the same crude, eye-hurting cold color around. In the streets, in bars, even in houses—Brazilians are used to these sorts of lights. A paradox in a country fairly renowned for its hot girls and where there is much more human warmth than in ruthless “developed” metropolis. Add to the assortment of LED and neon lights late-night TV and you get a splashing visual barbarism. Needless to say, I stuffed my own place with incandescent, either traditional or halogen, bulbs that shine with warm glows.

Dangerous lamps

At least Brazil shows things as they are. LEDs are a cold light, not only to the naked eye but physically as well. Whereas natural sources of light, such as the Sun or fires, and artificial ones such as incandescent bulbs emit red and infrared lights, LED lamps emit no infrared, some red on the higher part of the spectrum, and lots of intense blue.

Cold light is the essential, defining character of LEDs. In contrast with other lamps, they are not a thermic source as they emit no heat. They are high on the blue spectre, low on the red and infrared. To alleviate the visual inconvenience, companies have invented LED lamps that show a predominant yellow taint.

These are very much in use in lounge bars, on the streets, and even around art painting and monuments, which makes them associated with a “classy” ambient. However, these apparently eye-friendly LEDs are physically dissimilar with traditional sources of lights: they use a fluorescent sheet to “dilute” the aggressive blue light into a whitish taint and exaggerate the yellow and red as to dissimulate the colder colours—which are still fully emitted.

Seemingly warm LEDs “lie” on what they are. On the surface, they are normal, flexible, and classy lights; on the physical spectrum, which ought not to be confused with the visible one, they are poor in infrared, poor in low-spectrum red, and excessively blue. These unseen light emissions are not only “colder” in general but deleterious to the eye as well.

Two studies have shown that rats exposed to lights of equal, median intensity for 24 hours were only harmed by LEDs. The excess of blue light hurts the visual cells while the lack of red and infrared prevent cell regeneration—and may let us with less energy left as the body also absorbs energy from light sources.

Lights here appear yellow and provide a typical sober, “classy” effect. Compare with incandescent bulbs and you will notice their coldness, too

As a phototherapy specialist warns:

If you use LED lights after sunset, you reduce the regenerative and restoring capacities of your eyes. Needless to say, with less regeneration you end up with degeneration. In this case, the degeneration can lead to AMD, which is the primary cause of blindness among the elderly. However, and this is that most fail to appreciate, LED light exposure that is not balanced with full sunlight loaded with the red parts of the spectrum is always damaging to your biology. Just more so at night…

[T]he main problem with LEDs is the fact that they emit primarily blue wavelengths and lack the counterbalancing healing and regenerative near-infrared frequencies. They have very little red in them, and no infrared, which is the wavelength required for repair and regeneration.

A creepy attempt at imposing LEDs

Since 2005, the European Union has planned to impose LEDs everywhere and ban incandescent bulbs. Unsurprisingly, the army of unelected technocrats there justified this umpteenth restriction of our freedom with ecology. LEDs consume so much less! Well, this is true—but is it worth degrading people’s life conditions? Especially when millions of undesired immigrants are allowed to enter, when they receive always more and more from the public institutions, and when technocrats already allow themselves much?

Regardless of the real importance of consuming less energy, the measure seems to embody some sheer power-tripping micromanagement of people’s lives as well as a good measure of influence-peddling. Several companies have invested a lot in LED research, and they want their investment to pay off—for research, for shadowy shareholders, for revolving door insiders and for overpaid CEOs.

The European Union is notoriously pervaded by lobbyists. It mishmashes the will to micromanage, down to olive oil jugs or vacuum cleaners, with imposing Big Corp’s wishes as to force the consumers into buying its latest crap. How much did Nichia Corporation pay for the right bureaucrats to enforce convenient guidelines?

It was originally scheduled to have all incandescent bulbs banned in 2012. A group of other manufacturers then managed to peddle enough influence to lift the complete ban until at least 2018. Non-European countries have moved in tandem with the European bureaucratic monster. In Brazil, houseware chain retailers stopped selling traditional light bulbs. They still sell halogen bulbs, although a clerk told me these would be phased out next year due to be energy-rated C.

Forcing people into buying more expensive bulbs that will harm their health and damage their daily life conditions, then pocketing the benefits and self-congratulating from muh ecology: a perfect synthesis of globalist big-scale assholery. All quietly, on the margins and through a seemingly non-political channel, of course.

When I moved in my current home, I climbed the step ladder to remove the crass LED whitish lights and put halogen bulbs instead. But then, I found that the home was equipped with… specially LED-tailored bulb holders. These make loose connections with the halogen bulbs. They work perfectly, though, with old-fashioned incandescent bulbs—something rather ironical given that halogens are the most “ecologic” incandescent bulbs.

Now my only working halogen bulb is mounted on a vintage art déco lamp and all the preexisting supports are staffed with incandescent bulbs. Independent retailers are still selling some.

Buy incandescent bulbs (and don’t be a Leftist hypocrite)

The spiciest part is still to come. Guess who rushed in defense of the project to compel LED lights everywhere? Pseudo-radical Leftists at Alternet, who invoked straw man “conspiracy theories” on the topic, and their more official coworkers from the French outlet Le Monde who instead dampened the results of aforementioned studies on rats as to make the issue look trivial and overly technical.

It turns out, yet, that I am not the only one disturbed by the splashing cold brightness of LEDs. As big names of bulb-making massively shifted their production, hipsters have started to make “vintage” bulbs… and it just happens that urban bobos love enlightening their trendy cafés and large flats with warm orange filaments. “Ecology”, or at least its non-glamorous side, is forced on the vulgum pecus whereas those benefiting from globalism still have the options they want. It isn’t as if they were experts in hidden double standards after all.

Conclusion

I long the day when a craftsman on our side will start making old-fashioned and halogen light bulbs. Bureaucrats and depopulation enthusiasts be damned. Until then, buy incandescent bulbs, stock them if you can, and favour warm lights.

Read Next: Why Modern Men Should Develop A Passion For Living

305 thoughts on “Why You Should Ban Visually Barbaric LED Lightbulbs From Your Home”

  1. Such a light is cold. Its crude white-bluish sorely lacks warmth.

    But LED’s can be modulated for any lightwave color frequency, as in perfectly. Modern LED light bulbs, with an accompanying shroud/bulb cover, perfectly capture the warm soft yellow glow of the old 60W incandescent bulbs, I know, because I bought some and they are head and shoulders above the nasty old CF bulbs, and have the same light quality, warmth and color as a 60W bulb that I in fact did verify by comparing the two.
    It’s not just “bright red/blue/yellow” any longer. The technology has advanced a lot, even in the past 5 years.
    EDIT: I understand the “too much blue” thing, don’t get me wrong, but I have these lights on maybe 4 hours a day, max, and in summer time far less.

    1. You have “Daylight”, “Soft White”, “Bright”. Soft white is just that. It has more of the red in it so it’s softer.
      It sure is nice to not have to change bulbs near as often

      1. Right. The filter adds the colors I think are necessary to make it acceptable. Sometimes I think it’s easy to get way too spergy on things like this. Normal LED’s or even fluorescent lights, ok, that can hurt your eyes in time, but really, for the amount of exposure we get to LED lighting, if we go to bed at a normal time, is minimal compared to the lighting we deal with in the day that relates to computers screens and usually office type fluorescent lights.

        4. Summertime has the sky pretty bright way into nearly 10pm. If you’re staying up until midnight to 1pm on a work day, and you have a job, maybe you might want to investigate sleeping aids. Heh.

        7. Don’t think of it as rape, think of it as strangers with benefits.

        8. A guy I know is a parapalegic in a wheel chair, and just a few years ago he got HIV.
          We call him roll aids.

        10. Seems like an appropriate moniker…don’t give him backstage passes to a rock concert – he might get band aids.

    3. I’ve consulted a world-renown team of scientist and medical specialists, and we’ve determined that the only truly acceptable light source is a lamp made out of bioluminescent phytoplankton. It’s either that, or just go to sleep when the sun sets.

        1. Would that be considered photonsynthesis?

        3. Please…..don’t make me explain the joke…..

        9. Oh, sorry, two demerits for using “Kratom” in a non-sponsored article comment.

        12. Ideally. No idea. Allkman’s sight.

      5. So world reknown that they had time to consult with you and so world reknown that you didn’t name them.Stick with whats possible for normal people and not some fantasy.If you were being sarcastic in your response then you failed.

      6. Interesting – Links to such research and any places to get some of these bio etc ? Would like to look into it more.

    4. Where did you buy shrouds/covers for your existing LED bulbs? I can’t find them, just original bulbs.

      2. They come already with one now, a filter, and they look almost like normal incandescents, you can’t tell at first glance that they’re LED.

    5. Summer is the best time for cold bulbs. I don’t need my lights helping nature in my annual nature vs. air conditioning grudge match.

    6. I respect Andre having an opinion about this. My most creative hours are the night ones, and I spend lots of time awash in electric light. There is a huge range of quality with the LEDs, some being good, some being “uncivilized.” I have one of those brains that is picky around high-freq flicker effects, and to my perception cheap LEDs strobe in a very irritating and distracting way. Not everybody is bothered by this. I also feel that photography shot under LEDs is less rich than other light sources. Again, not a deal breaker, but there is a difference that is noticable, especially to eccentrics like me that still delight in shooting 35mm film. Will LEDs ultimately become super-pleasing and fully tuned to humans’ preferred spectrum? Probably. Why not?
      My current solution is to go 80% led/20% incandescent. All the frequencies, fewer of the disadvantages.

      1. I stand by kerosene lamps. I would use whale oil if I could get it.

    8. 100% correct. You can also buy infra red LED lights and if you wanted factories could package infra red chips and UV chips with standard chips to create lighting that mimics the sun’s lights. As it is, they have grow lamps that change the frequency of the light during the growth cycle to change the flavour of lettuce (for example) or make plants grow faster. Phillips can grow as much food inside a 20′ shipping container as you can in an open football field with natural lighting. So the issue about blue lighting comes from elsewhere.
      Chinese don’t like warm yellow lighting because due to their natural skin colour it makes them look sickly (white people say the same about white florescent lighting). Therefore, they favour bluey white LED lighting.
      Incandescent is illegal in China so there is a massive Chinese domestic market for LED. As a result, a lot of the lower priced LED lights available to the consumer in the West are total junk and also bluey white.
      The cheapest ones, although more expensive than incandescent, won’t last as long because they are missing inexpensive electronic components which protect them from the dirty power coming out of your wall socket. (Dirty means it surges and farts and splutters). If you get a real price bargain, it probably doesn’t even save much energy.
      Our governments and large corporations sent our jobs to China so they could print debt money. Except for the Germans, they don’t bother to protect the consumer from the cheap crap that comes back out of China. Our businesses literally have to compete with one hand tied behind our backs and then we also need to listen to lectures from Government bureacrats and corporate billionaires telling us that if we would just work harder we could compete with people who shit on their staff, shit on their customers, shit on their share holders and shit on the planet.
      At least they don’t shit on the street. That’s the software industry.

    9. Nonsense.None of them improve on the incandescent bulb which most closely mimics natural sunlight.What about our choice being taken away?What about people barely getting buy now paying 10 times and up for inferior mercury laden bulbs?Reminds me of the banning of Freon by average people.Oh Freon is still with us but instead of 2 dollars per pound it is now 150 dollars per pound(this price quoted to me last week by local heating/air company)Its all control and more control.

        7. I was channeling a Ron White joke actually.

  3. It’s amazing how science has gone backwards when it comes to increasing the life-span of an incandescent light bulb. Take the Centennial Bulb, for example, which has been working without a hitch for over 115 years. I guess the corporatists really, really, really wanted to make all bulbs last that long, but they just forgot how to make that happen (they probably lost the schematics for this bulb). Gosh, darn, heck, etc. You can look at the Centennial Blub on webcam, at the following link, and find out more about it; it’s in a firehouse in Livermore, California. This particular bulb, the Shelby Y-Ray bulb, sold for 40 cents back in 1901; not bad for over one million hours of light –
    http://centennialbulb.org/

        1. How long before we’re no longer allowed to own the lamp, and we’re just charged a monthly fee to rent the light?

        2. Who knows. I figure eventually they will require licenses for all humans who want to breathe. If you don’t have a license, you’re exterminated on the spot.

        3. Have you watched the film In Time? The story is about people who stop ageing after 25, but must buy time to live. In this dystopian society, time becomes the main currency, replacing money. This results in the wealthy becoming immortal, while the poor literally have to race against time to survive.
          I like the concept, as I personally believe that time is the only currency that matters. Everything that happens in life has to be measured in terms of the returns on the time spent.
          The only drawback is that the film stars Justin Timberlake…

        4. I saw an advertisement for that and almost watched it… but didn’t cause Justin Timberlake.

    2. Kind of like how we just can’t find the cures for terminal diseases but we can sure sell you expensive drugs to treat the symptoms

    3. My parents have the same washer, dryer, and refrigerator they bought when they first got married 37 years ago. Other than replacing a hose on the washer, all of the appliances work fine. When I got my own place, my nice, new washer broke down after a couple of years. Corporations have figured out the trick: make the exterior look sleek and sturdy, but fill it with cheap guts. To milk even more cash, sell expensive warranties that expire just before the expiration date of said appliance. Offer credit cards with 0% interest for 6 months that most people won’t pay off within 6 months, then charge them back interest that they’re just about to pay off…right up until their washer breaks down, forcing them to put the top of the line washer on said credit card, telling themselves they’ll pay it down in 6 months. Rinse and repeat.

      1. They’ve got it down to a science, for sure. Look at computers. Solid-state animals. They should last for a long, long time – but no such luck. Had to go get a computer mouse two days ago – it only lasted about a year and a half. They could make those things last 100 years if they wanted to…but…there’s no money in it. Cars, same thing. Used to run like tops, rarely had problems. It’s the same for everything, pretty much, as you pointed out. It’s all planned corporate obsolescence. Hush-hush. “Shred the documents, the lawyers are coming…” Corporations are the new gods.

        1. I’ll say this of modern computers: some of the failure is by design, but much of it is a consequence of giving us better speed. As we decrease feature size (that is, make things smaller so we can put more onto a small chip), we introduce uncertainty and instability. It’s small enough now that stray electrons (individual electrons) wear down the tunneling properties of the individual switches in your processor and slowly destroy it.
          Hard Drive failure is usually a similar story. Magnetic storage drives start to lose the ability to polarize and repolarize over the course of many millions of read/write operations. Solid state storage uses the properties of semiconductors in certain alignments to store data (as does RAM), and as previously stated the feature size is small enough that each storage block is more likely to fail as we get more data in the same unit volume.
          Mice, though, should be resilient enough to last longer than that. The mouse and keyboard I have are on their fourth year of service, and I work with them daily (and play way too many video games).

        2. Ah, but a mouse is also part analog/mechanical. A normal computer will last decades, but the mechanical parts won’t. I have a system from 1998 that I still fire up regularly and it works just perfectly. Anything that involves movement though is going to get busted up in time.

        3. The click buttons are made with cheap plastic and flimsy metal parts, The switch is a small metal that bend and touch other metal part, After thousand of clicks the metal lose the ability to bounce back to the original off position and the mouse start making unwanted double clicking. All mice use the same cheap part does not matter if is 1dlls or 99dlls the click button is the same part made in china, I don´t buy a new mouse anymore is cheaper to buy Chinese a shitty mouse desolder the switch and replace the bad switches with the switches from the Chinese after all the part is essentially the same regardless the price of the mouse. it cost me less than a dollar and I can give another 3 -4 years to my old mouse.
          It´s cheaper, manufactures likes to take away the ability of the user to repair, They design for obsolesce. And want you to buy new shit to replace your old shit.

        4. Agreed. Look at old-fashioned push lawnmowers…old-fashioned can openers…the list is endless. All with movable parts, but their life expectancy, prior to needing any repair, is very long. I think a team of nerdy 7th-graders with some time on their hands could design a computer mouse that would last 50 times longer than your average corporate model. But those kids had best take out some life insurance policies if they try and pull off that stunt…

        5. I don’t know where you’re getting your info about cars, but they never “Used to run like tops, rarely had problems.” With exceptions of simple, no-feature models like Model T and VW Beetle.
          Today’s cars are much better than previous generations, with far more features.
          I am wary of all of the computers that can be hacked, and certainly the OnStar, Blue Link systems are begging for trouble. But todays cars run better, last longer.

        7. I use a reel mower. I think that this depends on the manufacturer more than anything. One I used busted in a year and was crap, I bought a high end one and it’s lasted for many, many years now. Reel mower as in “beer powered” if you get my meaning.

        8. A guy can find some products with a decent shelf life…but other products, not so much.

        9. The quality of cut those things do is amazing. You can mow your grass down real low too unlike a normal lawn mower.

        10. Where were those puppies when I was cutting lawns in the summers for money, back when I was a kid…

        11. I think a lot of people believe that they’re hard to push, but they’re actually really easy. The only issue is twigs or mulch pieces in the yard, which can jam them up sometimes. If you have a nice clean lawn they are easy peasy to use and your lawn ends up looking like a well manicured golf course.

        12. Be careful with mechanical nostalgia. I used to sing the praises of old tech, till I put my money where my mouth was and daily drove a mint condition 1967 Catalina coupe with 46,000 original miles on it for 2 years….yeah, it had charm, but compared to the chepaest new sub compact, it sucked. Its only major advantage was the styling, and nostalgia of driving it.
          I had to convert it to electronic ignition to garuntee it would start with no drama, had to convert to a modern alternator, became re-aquainted with long lost, day to day and weekely maintenace proceedures forgotten to history, such as lubing the chassis and packing bearings every few months, retuning the car and adjusting the timing for seasons, altitude, and weather, gapping spark plugs, proper starting proceedures for the 1st start pf the day, being a Nazi about the quality of gas I put in the car (high compression 400ci v8, it hated anything less than 93 octane), and on an on.
          All of these things my dad, uncles, and grandfather just chuckled about when I mentioned it to them. Alot of the random issues that would pop up on long drives or road trips, I’d mention to them and they would say, yeah back then cars did that all the time.
          Explains why except for hardcore car guys, many old guys want nothing to do with old cars, never mind old anything.
          Newer usually is superior. New just sometimes comes with it’s own new problems.

        13. Cool. Might have something to do with the belief that anything with a motor is more efficient. Some of those non-motorized vacuum cleaners they have these days supposedly put the motorized ones to shame.

        14. ” simple, no-feature models like Model T and VW Beetle.”
          While they were less prone to major failures, the simpler machines of Old relied far more on maintenance and tinkering.

        15. And yet that 115-year-old light bulb…it still burns. I hear ya though. Depends on the item, and the competition that exists for that item. And greed. And a host of other things.

        16. The good ol’ VW Beetle – genius in it’s simplicity! Just make sure you have oil and the fan belt is tight, and you can drive that thing almost anywhere – for just a few bucks.
          Man, the Beetle has always been one of my favorite cars to restore, or any of the old air-cooled VW’s for that matter. I love all the older American classics, but there’s just something so great about squeezing 300+ hp into a 1500lb car!

        17. “Except for hardcore guys”… I’m one of those guys, but only as a hobby, and I only drive the old stuff on nice days. With the exception of “old school style,” newer vehicles are absolutely superior in every way.

        18. Genius innovator 13 yr old Joshua Pimplezit dead on a tragic case of rare flu shot complications.

        19. Actually it’s about holding down shelf price against inflation. Your competition is going to put a product out there for the same numerical dollar price as it was 20 years ago. What are you going to do? Convince customers to pay twice as much for yours because it is made exactly the same as 20 years ago? Good luck. There are no industries that can get away with that and maybe only a few products here and there.
          In the industry I currently work in many customers want things to be the same but they also want them to cost the same in numerical dollars. That’s quite a trick to pull off. Especially as the government regulations force changes.

        20. The mouse I am using right now is from 2007. Just a Dell mouse that came with a computer that was new that year. Although the current OS doesn’t support it properly.

        21. There’s lots of built it like they used to stuff out on the market. I know there are many click mechanical switch spring keyboards out there. They’ll cost you. $300 or even $1000 instead of $30. I bought a jack a few years back that is the exact same model that they’ve been making since the 1950s or something. A shop floor jack. It cost me over $300. My craftsman jack cost me $29 or some such ridiculously low price on an after xmas clearout sale and it came with jackstands. Much smaller hobbyist thing. It’s still working and it’s probably 15 years old or so. My grandfather’s vice. It’s still made, it costs $800. Guess what I spent a few bucks on refurbishing? A Milton tire gauge and inflator, same as it has been forever. $50. You can get a modern one for maybe $5. There’s all sorts of stuff like this. Just expect to pay a lot more than you are used to.

        22. Very interesting opinions you have there.
          However, I think you should take this debate up with Wikipedia.
          From Wikipedia –
          “Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design and economics is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (that is, unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.[1] The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as ‘shortening the replacement cycle’).[2]
          “Producers that pursue this strategy believe that the additional sales revenue it creates more than offsets the additional costs of research and development and opportunity costs of existing product line cannibalization. In a competitive industry, this is a risky strategy because when consumers catch on to this, they may decide to buy from competitors instead. Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an oligopoly.[3] Before introducing a planned obsolescence, the producer has to know that the consumer is at least somewhat likely to buy a replacement from them.”
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

        23. Wikipedia is defining a term not describing what actually happens. It’s also a marketing to get people to throw away perfectly functional old things and buy new ones.
          I’m an engineer in product development. When I worked for megacorp I still had to meet durability and performance tests written in the 1960s. I simply had to do it cheaper because otherwise I’d end up with a product that retailed for $4000 instead of $200. Some of the tests were absurd for then modern product. I would sit at a shaker table for an entire day recording zeros into a log for a test that had meaning in 1968 or so but thirty years later had no relevance and all product passed it with ease.
          When I am told to cost reduce something today it is so it can stay on the shelf at the same price it has been at for ages. Today my employers highest volume product has had the same MSRP shelf price for about 25-30 years.

        24. I used a Smith and Hawken reel mower for years in my yard. You could push it with one hand.
          I would mow early on Sunday mornings just as the sun came up. It was a strangely meditative exercise.
          Now I am on a very large piece of property and must use a tractor, but just immediately around the house, I still use my reel mower.

        25. “Wikipedia is defining a term not describing what actually happens.”
          Here is a link to a Bing search I did for “planned obsolescence examples” (sans quotes). As you can see, there are myriad artices that outline the facts surrounding actual examples of products that were deliberately designed to fail prematurely or become obsolete in a short period of time.
          https://www.bing.com/search?q=planned+obsolescence+examples&qs=n&form=QBLH&sp=-1&pq=planned+obsolescence+examples&sc=4-28&sk=&cvid=118D408453754EF5AE19146F71D8F26C
          Here is a Popular Mechanics article that deals with eight types of products that are deliberately designed to fail prematurely, or become outmoded quickly, etc. –
          http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g202/planned-obsolescence-460210/?slide=1
          The eight products that they describe at the above link, that were deliberately designed as part of a campaign of planned obsolescence, are the following:
          1) Ink Cartridges
          2) Video Games
          3) Textbooks (scholastic)
          4) Fast Fashion
          5) Software (not to mention operating systems like Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, etc.)
          6) Cars
          7) Consumer Electronics (especially cell phones)
          8) Light Bulbs (I believe I already covered this one, in the initial comment I made in this thread)
          If you should choose to wish away the eight products listed by Popular Mechanics, and pretend they are not examples of planned obsolescence, or if you should choose to wish away the other myriad articles at the first link that describe in detail how planned obsolescence is real, and explain all of it as something other than what it is, that is up to you. You certainly have every right to do so. And I’ve enjoyed this back-and-forth, regardless of what you eventually decide to do there…good talk, and best wishes.

        26. I see, you appeal to authority from the outside looking in. I knew there was a reason I stopped reading PM. Thanks for reminding me.
          1) Printer ink? sell the blades not the razors. Not obsolescence.
          2) Video games? Most people tire of old games. I suppose there’s some marketing involved with which new ones. Me, I just tired of them entirely. Keeping people interested in the same old game takes some doing. But that means change too.
          3) Textbooks are a racket between professors, schools, publishers, and bookstores. Yes revisions are planned but without the racket it wouldn’t work. Remember the guy who got sued for importing cheap foreign versions of textbooks? Without the racket the planned obsolescence part doesn’t work.
          4) Fashion? Yes, women like to change styles a lot. They are women, what do you want? Men keep and wear clothes from high school for decades.
          5) I suppose we could have stayed with 8-bit Atari computers forever. But if you notice free software and operating systems change frequently too. Add new features, function with new hardware. What’s the motivation when it is free?
          6) Cars, My fleet average age is in excess of 20 years. People don’t take care of them and want something new for social reasons every few years. My winter car is becoming a problem, but it’s 18 years old and spent most of that outside and of course government spreading salt on the roads. Now that’s as close as this list gets. The wanton destruction of something.
          7) I’ve had three phones since the 1990s. If people want to keep up with the joneses fine but they aren’t forced to. I used to be in that business. Developed them. The internal tests they had to pass made it so that if you didn’t abuse them they would last pretty much forever.
          8) Again, if you want to have an incandescent light bulb last a long time, turn it on and never turn it off. I just replaced a bulb that was about 20 years old in my bathroom. It got turned on and off frequently.
          I’ve been in product development a long time and I’ve never seen planned obsolescence and never told to make something last only so long. Never practiced it. What happens is that outsiders see a targeted product life and think it is a grand conspiracy. If you wanted to spend twice or even ten times as much I’ll give you something that will last much longer. Maybe forever. As a result of lasting so long it might not meet other requirements you have, like weight. The problem is you don’t want to spend ten times as much and practically nobody else does either.
          People choose to abuse stuff and they choose what cheapest today and demand the same shelf price despite inflation. That’s the cause. The only planned obsolescence that exists is people who feel the need to keep up with fashions and trends. The women mostly. The women who see a man with an old car or an old suit and think poorly of him. After all that’s what this site preaches, having good game, and good game is keeping up with that shit. But it’s a choice, not a conspiracy. Except in some instances, OEM service parts where no aftermarket alternative exists. But your site forgot the one thing that actually might be a viable example. Then again nobody would carry them without the mark up so they would go from being available to not being available.

        27. In the Land of the Blind, you and your one eye would most definitely be king. There is no doubt about it.
          And if you type one more entry after mine, you will then get the last word, as I will not respond, and I know you need that type of thing almost desperately.
          I’ve encountered people like you, online and in real life, since I was a child; you are either paid to spout your online psychobabble – which makes you a beta male – or you are woefully outmanned on nearly every field of endeavor, and you’re mad at god for taking a gigantic crap in your talent pool.
          Either way, I harbor absolutely no enmity towards you, and I truly do hope you have a nice day.

        28. Well, I know exactly what kind of person you are now. You are the kind of person who when he is bested makes personal attacks. A type of person I’ve been dealing with online and in person for decades. And when a person replies in the manner you have, then he is the one attempting to get the last word. Which the whole ‘if you reply bit’ is a clever projection on your part. And you double down on that projection through the course of the rest of your missive. Your reply serves no purpose but to say “I WANT THE LAST WORD”.
          The fact of the matter is you don’t know jack shit about putting a product out on the market and what it requires, what the real issues are, and it doesn’t stop you from telling those who do know what their business is.
          So, in review: The real instances of planned obsolescence are entirely marketing plays to people’s social inclinations and desires. Just because you either buy cheap shit or don’t take care of your stuff doesn’t make it a conspiracy.

      2. American auto industry. the 7-9 year mark.. doesn’t matter if you drove the car 200k miles or 2000 miles. The materials will degrade just sitting there even if in a garage. Whenever I hear someone say; “Man I got a great deal on a 10yo car with low mileage.. I tell them to prepare for everything to start going, never fails.

        1. My daughter drives a 2002 Grand Am that had only 30k miles on it when we bought it 1.5 years ago. Except for normal maintenance items, it’s held up perfectly fine. Did I just get lucky?

        4. I dunno. I think that there’s a bit of perception issue with regard to “old things”. We always say “They used to make things better!” when we hold up an antique item, but forget that this item is one survivor out of millions of units produced back in the day that did not, in fact, last very long.

        5. Funny, I just mentioned that to bem below.

        6. Its not that. My recollection is that GM didn’t start getting their act back in gear until after that. This is brand-prejudice, not age-prejudice.

        7. Eh, could be. This one may be the one anti-lemon they built in 2002. It can happen.

        10. I prefer Porsche, but my budget does not.
          So yeah, Toyota or Honda for me usually, except pick’em up trucks which must, by law, be made in ‘Merica and be, again according to law, made by Ford Motor Company.

        13. Doubtful, the quality of trucks has really risen these days. If you get a nice Diesel package you won’t even be breaking in the engine until after 120k miles. Those things will last for freaking ever. The only thing I don’t like is all of the “comfort” bullshit they’re putting on them. I’m a man, if I’m out throwing hay into the bed of the truck, I probably don’t need a heated steering wheel on principal alone.

        17. Maybe so. I reckon I still have another 150-200K miles on my truck which will mean I probably have another 10-15 years with it.

        18. Im not going to make a stalking and impregnanting joke about your daughter.

        19. The problem with the new diesels is all the EPA emissions crap they put on them, I have buddies with brand new ones having trouble with sensors, the regen, or something tied to all that EPA mandated parts on them. You can delete them and void your warranty but you’ll get better fuel mileage and power but the EPA has cracked down on all the companies making tuners for them. Plus they cost so damn much now, 60k easy for a new dually is absurd.

      4. I believe that not only are the appliances better; but the fact that my father knows how to work on small-pumps, and mechanical things, changing hoses, etc…these practical life-skills have helped him keep the old appliances going.

      5. Appliances are the way they are because most people don’t repair or take care of stuff. They buy new. It’s what 90% plus of customers want. And inflation. Customers paid $299.99 20 years ago and that’s what they expect to pay today.
        My grandmother bought a commercial dryer in the 1950s or early 60s by the look of it. It was still working in 2011 although the self lighting was intermittent. It was like those bunsen burner strikers but turned by an electric motor. Odds are the flit or such was worn.
        My current place has a washer and dryer from 1980. I think I’ll be taking them with me when I move and replacing them with whatever is in the new place.

      2. I garuentee you that if that bulb was turned off, it would immediatly blow when you tried to flick it back on. It may have slightly better fillament materials inside, but everyone knows a bulb last as long as it stays lit. Its the repeated introduction of electrons that makes it fail over time.

        2. exactly, what everyone seems to fail to grasp too, is that lights with longer lifespan give off much more red light than white light, meaning they look extremely unnatural, and will use about THREE TIMES the electricity in it’s first 1500 hours. That’s about 200 dollars more per year in electricity costs per bulb…

    5. For incandescents there is a trade off between performance/efficiency and lifetime. Running a 120V bulb at 105V will cause it to last essentially forever, but it will be dimmer.

    6. One light bulb out of the millions from the early 20th century survived, how exactly does that prove they were better?

    7. It’s easy to make light-bulbs that last a long time, it’s just that they are terribly energy inefficient. Do you want to pay $200 per year per bulb?

    8. What kills bulbs incandescent bulbs is turning them off and on. If they are on constantly they last a long time. These century plus old bulbs have been constantly on and today are run at low voltage to maximize their life.

    9. Phillips, Osram and the other big lighting businesses had an illegal agreement to limit bulb life to 1000 hours. They had a system of penalties for anyone who broke the agreement. Being rule bound Germanics these companies actually documented the penalty payments they made to each other and as a result were busted by the EU for anti-competitive practices. It made no difference because the world had already changed to LED.
      LED lighting is truly a green product. You can reduce your energy consumption by 80-90% with the most efficient LEDs and if you network the lights and run some software (in a large office building, for example) you can save another 80% on top of that. Lights near windows dim during the daytime, lights in corridors not in use between predictable hours, say 21.00 and 07.00 turn off completely, desk lights switch off when no one is at the desk and overhead lights can therefore be set low (which, as a bonus, is less fatiguing for workers).
      LEDs, being semiconductors, make significant improvements in power consumption every couple of years and this should continue for the next 20 years. Also bear in mind in a large supermarket, in winter, in the UK, the aircon needs to be switched on at lunchtime to pump out the heat generated by the lights (kept ultra bright to encourage sales). So not only do you save 80% of your energy bill from lights, you also save massively on your airconditioning bill.
      I have made factory lights that take 40 years to diminish to 70% of the the original brightness and you can keep on using them after that if you don’t mind dimmer light. You would need to replace the LED driver ever 10 years but LED light chips pretty much last forever if you give them the proper heat sinking. That could be another extreme saving.
      However, like the Centennial Bulb, no one can make a living selling lights that last forever. It’s a race to the bottom on price and your long lasting light, although incredibly cheap over its lifetime, will have a higher sticker price in the store. Therefore, you will accuse me of being a robbing bastard and go with Sum Ting Wong Guangzhou Factory Reeree Reeree Excerent EREEDEE Righting for cheap dollah. Top Quarity…..just trust me, roundeye, you buy now quick.
      The massively positive impact of LED lighting to the environment is the reason why there are non-stop articles in the media about the benefits of LED lighti….wait…..no, it’s all polar bears dying and glaciers melting. Scamming bastards haven’t found a way to increase government power or poz by pushing LED lighting; and Phillips/Osram et al have political clout, so the environment can go fuck itself. Let’s keep pusing solar and wind power. GE can make money that way. LED just saves you money and as far as our wonderful governmental and corporatist masters are concerned, you tax slaves can go fuck yourselves too.

  4. I don’t care what the light bulbs are like as long as the light switches are like this:

    2. By the way, im not one of a meme freak but my profile picture is a joke of the current culture of memes

  6. Science bulbs? WTF is this noise. Where are my flying cars! Promises were made!

      1. Probably. And not for nothing, but the fact that we don’t have some kind of pill we can take daily in order to eliminate the need to shit is just stupid. What the fuck are they up to over there. It’s not like cancer is any closer to being cured. Why not work on some real fucking issues. Airborne fecal matter is the single most important issue of our times and it is like absolutely no one is doing anything about it.

        1. Plus, we still don’t have real hover boards.
          Priorities, man. Priorities!

        5. You’re damn right it is. I have a basic human right as an American by god to have a real hoverboard.

        9. Actually….we do. I just gave you something to obsess over and crave more than life itself.
          This is NOT utilizing airflow, btw. It’s not a hovercraft.
          You’re welcome.

        11. Actually there is a cure to cancer. A compound in brazillian wasp venom targets only cancer cells and destroys the cell membrane. Mass synthesis however is still years away, if it is allowed.

        16. Yeah, but only Sean Connery can get to it using zip lines and shit, so its totally unpractical, and Sean is too much of a dick to go get more for the rest of us.

      2. Sorry. I’m not taking that blame. Frankly, I don’t get this article. Light is light to me. Candles or otherwise, if I need to see, the more light the better.

  7. Near infrared penetrates into tissue a few centimeters. There is speculation that it is biologically significant, even necessary for health. All illumination prior to the 20th century (including incandescents and daylight) were/are thermal. “White” light without infrared is biologically novel and should be viewed with suspicion. As to myself, in living areas (i.e. not security lighting) I use incandescents in the winter, where their heat is useful and there is less daylight, and LEDs in the summer, where there is plenty of natural daylight, and the heat from incandescents is undesirable.

    1. NO. They only last half as long as advertised, can become fire hazards if used in fixtures such as can-lights, and contain mercury – to the extent that the EPA recommends opening windows and leaving the room for at least 30 minutes if you break one. Plus you’re not supposed to just chuck them in the garbage, so disposing of them is problematic.

      2. Not even half as long as advertised. In the Navy we had to immediately put fluorescent bulbs in a plastic bag when changing them out, so if they broke they were contained.
        Was going to donate my last VHS tapes to Goodwill, they won’t take them as they have mercury in them. Had to take them to a recycler- (well, I could have tossed them but the recycling place was on the way home anyway…)

    3. arent those the ones where if you break the bulb, you have to get the kids and pets out of the house, open the windows, put on a mask,etc before cleaning it up?

    4. They’re AWFUL and worse than cheap LEDs. I’ve tried them before settling on a good quality LED bulb.
      CFLs also don’t always produce “smooth” lighting – some produce slightly visible flicker in addition to poor color content of the light produced.

      1. I haven’t had any problems. Chances are if you’re staring at a light bulb enough to notice the flicker you either a) like watching paint dry or b) are extremely photosensitive. Or you’re just getting a crappy brand.

        1. Yes, not everyone does. However some people are able to discern flicker (or the edge of a visual detection of flicker) so the average person may not be affected.
          However, it’s not surprising given that CFLs work off of switching power supplies. I once had a Dell LCD monitor I had to return for the same reason as the backlight was creating flicker I could sense and it was extremely bothersome.
          Things like that can be resolved with a better design, but again it seems to bar is pretty low for the quality of most mass-sold lights. I’ve seen something similar in a few cases of LED bulbs (bad design, poor lighting “smoothness”)
          CFLs in general don’t produce a good color spectrum anyway.

        2. My mother has such photosensitivity to the point where she cannot go to the cinema (the new generation of film projectors as some sort of digital thingumajig) and some screens, yet is fine with cfls around the house. Probably because her attention isn’t focused directly on them. If I focus hard I can see the refresh rate of a my screen (60hz) but it takes an effort.
          CFLs flicker all the time because of the physics behind it. The bulb is exciting a noble gas, moving photon to an excited energy level/orbit, and when the electron falls back to a normal energy level/orbit it emits a photon. A CFL might flicker if the cycle is synchronized throughout the entire tube -perhaps the result of using a single noble gas instead of a chemically inert mixture.
          I don’t know why a LED would flicker. Those little buggers are just literally a glowing chunk of metal. Probably a malfunction in the control circuit.

        3. Wow, that’s amazing about your mom. I’ve never heard of it to that extent.
          At any rate, there’s not guarantee how good the design is of whatever CFL i might have tried. Seeing as how making them cheap (for store shelves) is the bottom line usually I wouldn’t expect very much in terms of performance.
          For an LED, it depends on the power supply design, since it requires rectifying the AC power to DC, often using a bucking supply design (step-down power supply). If the voltage isn’t rectified and smoothed well I can see how flicker would be present, coming from a 60Hz supply.
          I opened one up some time in the past and it was a fairly primitive power supply inside, and very little capacitance, so it’s not surprising it was pretty poor. There’s no telling with Chinese made bulbs – they tend to cut corners pretty badly to hit the lowest cost.
          I guess the bottom line is the same old wisdom: it’s worth it to spend a few more dollars for better quality!

    1. Hard to say, but I’m certain that the content on the television is destructive towards a healthy view of life.

        1. Peeps seem to read and retain info better from printed material than from screens

      2. think mine is an LED. Miss the ol plasma- brighter color but I bet it was even worse for your eyes

    1. Brilliant!
      “How to suck a rich guy’s lil’ dick and fake excitement”. Is that a jab at lolknee?

      1. Nah, it’s a jab at rich guys with small dicks (I think there’s a strong positive correlation there, in most cases)…

        1. Then logically, there must be a correlation between poor guys and big dicks. Damn, it feels good to work your way up!

        3. There is; in that most poor guys ARE big diks.
          As are most rich guys come to think of it….

  11. I am no fan of cold-light LEDs. That said, there will be a need for low-energy-consuming electrical devices in the future. The end of humanity’s “energy-dense ride” on fossil fuels is drawing near. Peak oil is a very real problem, but it should more accurately be named “peak affordable oil.” Hopefully, “warm” lights will be invented that consume less energy, though they will likely be less bright.

    1. And on June 17th this year, I bought a tank of gas for $1.899 a gallon. Expensive! 🙂

  12. I worked for an energy management firm for a few years, I’d design lighting projects when incentives existed to the switch at many electric companies and fed tax breaks. Anything over apx. 3300 Kelvin range is off-putting. The bluer the light, the more it disrupts your circadian rhythm.
    It’s simple really, deeply rooted in the evolution of man is association of fire with comfort, warmth and visual / physical “safety.” The closer to “light without heat” you tend to go on the scale…the more flight response you body reacts with. You subconscious mind is saying “oh fuck,” while your body says Zzzzzzzz.
    There is value however to the higher Kelvin range of colors. Primarily in the treatment of certain neurological disorders (Parkinsons, Alzheimers, potentially ALS), when flashing, strobed, etc, have been proven to help ward off the initial onset potentially depending on the person.
    Finally, a contractor I work with was recently at his optometrist for an eye check-up. Dr. told him;”At no point, in any hemisphere, during any season or weather condition, should you be outside during daylight hours without UV protection and high quality protective glasses on. The more our industry investigates the damaging effects of full spectrum sunlight on the eyes, the worse the findings are.”

    1. This article needed a section about the physiology of the eye and human vision to be taken seriously.
      I’m a doctor (though not an ophthalmologist), and I think he had “sort of a point” about the lack of red and green simulation.
      I must say, this potentiality for long term disease development should be investigated, as should the neurologic and oncogenic effects of Wi-Fi radiation. Clearly, lobbies are effectively preventing science and political power remains suspiciously silent about it.

  13. I think the author of this piece needs to be more familiar with the variances of color temperature in LED light bulbs. Not all of them are cold and blue, and different color temperatures work for different applications.
    At home, I use warm LED lights, with a color temperature of < 3000K. This is comparable to most “soft white” incandescent bulbs.
    But in a work situation, I’ll use cold “daylight” LEDs. I need the “harsh” light in order to focus.
    And while I don’t agree with any sort of ban on any kind of light bulb, I would still never go back to incandescents. They were horrible in terms of quality. One ding and poof. Money wasted, beyond the horrible electrical inefficiencies. At least plastic LED bulbs are more durable.

    1. Not only that, but if a company introduced an Edison-style light bulb as a new product, it would quickly go off the market as the accident numbers added up. “Here, put a thin, fragile glass shell around live electrical wires. What could possibly go wrong?”

      1. Then there are those nasty, disgusting CFLs. I am so glad that they are obsolete.
        I unintentionally discovered a “benefit” of plastic LED bulbs while I was doing some home repair work in a confined space. I accidentally knocked over the lamp I was using and because it was plastic, it did not break, and it continued working.

  14. I suppose it will come as no surprise to anyone that LEED, that globalist Trojan horse of ‘environmental’ construction criteria pushes LED lighting exclusively….

    1. “Well, they only push it because they know better than we do and they care about all of us, and the planet as well.” – Vacuous Liberal

    3. LEED buildings have ratings. Platinum, Gold, Silver. To bother with anything other than Silver, is an enormous waste of money, and a total joke from a financial perspective. Now, it’s wonderful to have essentially a fully sustainable building that’s LEED Platinum, but for 2-3x the cost? And naturally installed by all union construction workers? Fuck that. Stupid. 1 single fossil fuel release from a single Elon Musk space rocket releases more GHG and Carbon Footprint than an entire US state of LEED Platinum buildings for a year.

      1. “Sustainable” is as slippery a term as “organic” if not more so. If you are savy with your record-keeping you can get an open-hearth coal furnace in Central Park certified as “sustainable”.

  15. Kind of funny that even in industry no one really defends the CFL rip-off scheme.
    They were supposed to last way longer than incandescent bulbs, to make up the price difference.
    Instead, they last much shorter. And create issues w/ cold light, flickering light, and Hg in waste.
    I did the math, and under certain high use conditions, you can save money on purchase price+electric bill in long run w/ CFLs, but not sure it’s worth it considering total costs.

    1. I honestly hate them. I agree with you. The light is bad and with many my eyes could slightly notice flicker – it would eventually bother me too much in several cases.
      CFLs are pretty poor in general.

  16. OFF TOPIC:
    Why the hell the number of female commenters keep increasing?!
    They shows up often on articles about games and relationship.
    They’re not gonna show up on articles like this one or any articles related to home-making or self-improvement tho.
    Attention whores.

    1. Nice avatar, LOL.
      We seem to draw hateful females (and the occasional Gentle Sir In Defense of M’lady) like flies to a fly zapper.
      There are lots of angry, bitter women out there who simply CANNOT leave any men’s space alone and absolutely cannot stand to go without posting hateful comments and exceptions to the rule about articles they have no experience with.
      Remember the piercings and tattoos article? That got an INCREDIBLE amount of internet hate last year. Women flooded the site.

      1. Danke! LOL
        To me, it seems like they crave our attention so bad, even more than ever.
        “There are lots of angry, bitter women out there who simply CANNOT leave any men’s space alone and absolutely cannot stand to go without posting hateful comments and exceptions to the rule about articles they have no experience with.”
        EXCEPTIONS. That’s it. Deep down, they want to be seen as good girls or wife material kind of women by men, but they’ve ruined themselves beyond repair and they can’t reverse that and they know it very well, hence they make these “exceptions” hoping that men will see that “they’re not like other girls” despite of the unbelievable number of anonymous dicks they’ve sucked.
        Hahaha.

  17. “To alleviate the visual inconvenience, companies have invented LED lamps that show a predominant yellow taint.”
    I think you mean ‘tint.’
    I think he meant ‘tint.’

    1. “Roll over baby…..ewwwww girl, you got a nasty yellow taint! I ain’t gittin’ near that, yo!”

      1. Yes. Scientists agree: Yellow taints are the leading cause of too much blue[balls].

        3. So, Cheese, I guess you could say you don’t look sideways at slants’ slants?

  18. This is the same backwards logic hipsters use to justify using poor quality vinyl records. If you want yellow light, just get an LED with a filter.

    2. There are poor quality Mp3 players too, there are poor quality everything, Hipster buy record for the cool factor not the sound, You need to spend a lot of money to make that shit sound decent, You need good Vinyl record, a decent cartridge, a phono preamp, a decent amplifier a two good speakers. Cassette tapes and CD are design to sound better, Some dudes hate the digital music, but the real problem with digital music is lossy compression (Mp3, Youtube, Bluetooth Audio), Loudness and bad mastering of the album (RHCP Californication and Metallica Death Magnetic). A good CD is cleaner, more accurate and with more Dynamic Range than any vinyl, Some people like old stuff. Modern music reproduction is great. The reality is that the average dude hear music in shitty laptop speaker, use 1 dollar headphones, and hear compressed 96 kbps mp3 uploaded to compressed youtube streaming the audio to compressed Bluetooth to a shitty low quality BT speaker mono. Triple compression, it sound like ass.

      1. Old stuff has it’s place, as well. I’ve just built a clone of a very famous, very expensive tube amplifier (my first one ever!) and I now understand the appeal. Although tube fanatics go overboard at times, the sound is the best I’ve had yet. The harmonics are more pleasing to the ear and also sound reproduction was better in way than solid-state amps.
        What I’m beginning to see is that there’s a place for both: great sound reproduction from the best audio formats (since you can now play lossless files on your phone, etc) but reproduced on older equipment for the best sound. My Bluetooth feature in my phone is actually quite nice (APT-X) but I’ll be moving away from that soon.
        That being said, I do agree: the average Joe has no idea what “good” is and listens to shit quality music on crappy Beats headphones and terrible Bluetooth connection.
        So the average person’s bar is set pretty low. Lots of things used to be made to sound good in the retail store showroom, and not really for the best possible performance :/

        1. in theory SS can reproduce the tube 2nd degree Harmonics, but that in paper is considered noise (a pleasant noise of course), if I want something that sound like tubes I will buy a tube amp not something that pretend to sound like one. In recent years tube emulation become very good, specially in guitar amps, but if you like the tube sound buy a tube amp, I prefer the clean very analytic sound of SS. Tube sound is not for everybody, a good amp is expensive, fragile and hard to repair, those voltages can kill you. SS become so low noise and clean that essentially becomes sterile, an SS with no coloration is a boring amp so the companies add their coloration(dark or bright) and then call it signature sound.
          I would love to own a good tube amp, but I´m to poor, so build an hybrid headphone amp, The millett´s starving student hybrid amp I have never hear a real one, I also build a buffered CMOY and an Objective2 Amp with the ODAC. I prefer the O2+ODAC combo.

    3. While a filter can alter the spectrum by filtering out parts of it, I can’t see how a filter will shift the spectrum. The complaint is that the LEDs are skewed on the blue end of the spectrum and emit less as the red end of the spectrum. A yellow filter will not make the diode emit on a broader scale.

      1. Since I posted that I realized actually you don’t need a filter at all, you just need one that emits red/yellow light.

        1. It depends on the semiconductor types used. The color produced varies as I understand it.
          But I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible to design a composite LED bulb which would cover the visible spectrum pretty well.

  19. The worst, the WORST part of LEDs is the blue headlights. In the Northwest, we call them “European bulbs.” When cars with them pass by, or toward you around a corner or over a bump in the road, because the lights refract at different shades at different angles, the color shifts momentarity resemble police sirens. I can’t remember how many times I thought I had an officer flagging me, and it’s just those blue LEDs.

      1. Well, we also call ’em “zeenon” bulbs, (is it xenon?) which I thought were LED. Either way, blue, painful-sky blue. Pierces your retnas. Flashes when they pass over a bump. Saw another pair today.

        1. yeah thats it, xenon bulbs, agree they are painful when they are not even on full beam

      2. On the latest vehicles especially midrange to luxury vehicles like Acuras I am seeing many with LED headlights. Many times I’ve had issues with them as my eyes were too sensitive.
        I can understand not wanting the old 3000K color temperature like the old standard bulbs, but some of these are VERY “white.” Ugh.

  20. Wikipedia chimes in on the subject of planned obsolescence –
    “Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design and economics is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (that is, unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.[1] The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as “shortening the replacement cycle”).[2]
    “Producers that pursue this strategy believe that the additional sales revenue it creates more than offsets the additional costs of research and development and opportunity costs of existing product line cannibalization. In a competitive industry, this is a risky strategy because when consumers catch on to this, they may decide to buy from competitors instead.
    “Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an oligopoly.[3] Before introducing a planned obsolescence, the producer has to know that the consumer is at least somewhat likely to buy a replacement from them. In these cases of planned obsolescence, there is an information asymmetry between the producer – who knows how long the product was designed to last – and the consumer, who does not. When a market becomes more competitive, product lifespans tend to increase.[citation needed]”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
    So it is a definite coporate strategy, and not a conspiracy theory. Corporations do indeed manufacture items that are designed to stop functioning and/or break within a pre-planned period of time – or become obsolete when a newer model jumps to the fore (like, oh, the latest cell phone).
    In other news, water is wet.

    1. Wetter and wetter. “But don’t forget to conserve water this summer! Go green with us!” said the local news team. “In related news, the iphone turned ten years old yesterday! Will you pick up the iphone 8 in October for the cool, cool estimated price of $1000?”

      1. What’s fun is telling these leftist nitwits to look up how much water is used to make all of the microchips and electronics in their precious little iZombies. Heads explode.

        1. A lot of machines break down if you don’t run them from time to time. Edit: here I’m referring to the lib-tard brain.

        2. Nothing wrong with exploding leftist heads…and hey, according to Wikipedia, the phone developers are just “shortening the replacement cycle”. Man, it is wickedly short for cell phones…kind of like the attention spans of the end users.

        3. I replace shit when it breaks and I can’t get it fixed, and not a moment sooner. My last car, towed out of my driveway last autumn, was bought new by me in 2001. Fuck if I subscribe to the “latest, greatest!” thing when there’s no real need outside of marketing hype. If your iZombie runs the same iOS (and it likely will) as the new iZombie, then you don’t fucking need to upgrade every,literally, 12-14 months. I feel no remorse for these fools going into debt and 20 year extended calling plans to get the “latest, greatest, must have!” crap.

        4. I settle for the cheap off-brand imposters, tbo. I can’t pretend I haven’t also “bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.” Simon and Garfunkel were prophets, by the way. Did you know?

        5. They should create a new iPhone called Silence. Then all the people who talk on it will be listening to the Sounds of Silence. There’s a joke in there somewhere. I think.

        6. The sound of silence: the humming scoot of a million iphones set to (((vibrate))). Shakes the streets like a world-wide ‘brown noise.’

        8. I’m the same way. I possess a backpack, a laptop, clothing, a few other items, ready cash, and nothing else. I will beat my laptops into the ground, until the lettering on the keys rubs off. My phone is a $37 Walmart Android. I wear clothes of the Upscale Hobo variety. It’s pretty bad in some ways, as I can get way behind the times in terms of computer technology. But I just don’t crave “stuff”, or “gadgets”. Things own us, usually. It isn’t the other way around.

        10. in the future, being anti-consumerist just might get you jailed…

      2. “OMG, like I can’t live without that new iPhone 8!”…said nobody with a pair of working brain cells ever.

        1. My wife is still using her first “smart phone” an a “something” 4 that uses Android OS (I really don’t know what kind of phone it is, and don’t care). She’s had that thing for years now. It’s just starting to break down and she’s *still* reluctant to go out and get a new one until the one in her hand overheats and catches fire.

        2. Hey, just remember: “A real lady never brings her phone into a resturaunt.” Sounds like if you want a replacement, all you have to do is hire a speedy break-in.

  21. LEDs are the shit. I have some experience with custom LED lighting and the only problem I have ever had came from crazy ants getting in an outdoor sign and eating the silicone coating off of the diodes, which then burned out. If you’re looking for outdoor lighting, they are far better than high pressure sodium bulbs. They generally last 5 to 10 years minimum and run on roughly 1/3 of the power of traditional bulbs. The bulb style LEDs are usually pieces of shit, and higher wattage diodes will require a heatsink in the fixture, but fixtures comprised of multiple low watt diodes (1-3W) run cool to the touch and also don’t really attract flying insects. Sure, it’s “artificial light”, but it’s a much better alternative to flourescent. Also, they’re available in warm white if the cool white color bothers you.

    1. The ants. I’ve heard of people getting them in their Televisions, too. Crazy ol’ world, isn’t it?

      1. Used to work in this legal office years ago. The company bought a bunch of new landline phones. All of a sudden, cockroaches are swarming the office. A weird variety of cockroach, at that. On a hunch, I took the casing off one of the new landline phones. And a posse of Asian cockroaches was inside…

        2. Gross, man. Ever heard the one about roach eggs on envelope glue? The lady licked one, and cut her tongue. A couple weeks later the babies hatch out of her tongue. I heard this one before I knew how to be skeptic. As a kid. Stephen King said someone told him Dragonflies will land on your face and sew your eyes shut. Bugs, man.

  22. Color temperature is what matters, no matter what bulb type. The LEDs I use are 5,000 kelvins. The closer you get to 5,500 kelvins, which is the color temperature our eyes are most sensitive to (noon on a summer day), the better. The idea that a lack of the broader spectrum output by incandescents has some impact on health has to be BS. They’ve been around too short a time for them to have had an impact on our evolution.

  23. LEDs can be made and purchased to just about any specification of color, including infrared. In fact infrared LEDs have been around for quite a while now, tv remotes anyone? There are warm colors available that look absolutely no different than an incandescent. The claims in this article sound like paranoid incandescent light stockholders.
    BTW I’ll stick with LEDs on my interior 12 volt systems in my boat and my RV. They look just as good as the halogens they replaced and draw significantly less power and produce much less heat, less prone to fire and a heck of a lot more durable to harsh environments. A win win on a mobile off-grid setup.

    1. Heat is the big problem for me in a number of situations if I wanted to replace LEDs. Incandescents are downright dangerous in confined spaces and/or where flammable vapors might collect.

      1. Absolutely it is. The halogen puck lights in my ceilings got very hot, a couple of the fixtures looked like they had gotten a little too hot over the years and were on the verge of catching fire at some point… melted and browning.
        On the contrary however, I do use an incandescent trouble light in the winter to keep water pipes from freezing down in the compartments. They make great little heaters lol

        1. Incandescents in a clamp light… I use this technique in my well house to keep the water from freezing in Winter – works like a charm!

        2. I had my closet light get EXTEMELY hot and yep, some plastic melted. I bought an LED replacement with more white color temperature also, since it made it much easier to see the clothing colors vs. the old 3K incandescents which made it much harder.

    2. I agree. I live in an RV and they can get hot, especially recently in West Texas, where we had 105F heat. Last thing you want inside an RV is halogen lights giving off more heat.

    3. That seems to be the problem – lots of LED choices and some are much better in color quality and lighting quality, but so many seem to be low-end, so you have to hunt down the better ones.
      Fortunately there are much better choices now, as they used to be much worse.

      1. To be fair, the Amish are a patriarchal culture. Man builds, earns, works and guides. Woman cooks, nurtures, helps man and sucks out seed. Not a bad deal.
        But, yeah. This article is schisse.

  25. there is zero proof that LED cause any heath damage. this article should be pulled, pathetic. you also forgot to mention that LED bulbs come in a broad array of colour temperatures.

  28. I bought a couple of hundred dollars worth of 100 watt bulbs in 2011. The corruptocrats announced that these bulbs would no longer be allowed to be produced. F*ck-em, I said.

    1. I still don’t get why incandescent bulbs had to be banned or phased out. At the time CFLs were getting cheap enough where people were choosing them anyway.
      And now of course LED bulbs are ridiculously cheap and CFLs are going away, no ban needed.

  30. Yeah. Mandating when you can wash your clothes, put on your dishwasher, what type of toilet flush you are allowed, what light bulbs you use………..next, you can only have one-ply toilet paper, three square for number one, five squares for number two. Let’s not forget the garbage police mandating what bags you can put your refuse in. City Hall will sell you the appropriate bags. There now, good citizens, roll over and play dead.

  32. Years ago, that was the case with both fluorescent and LED bulbs. They gave off just a cold white light and were unattractive and annoying to have installed in a room. Ironically, I had just bought some LED bulbs tonight which is why I clicked on this article.
    The LED bulbs I installed are identical to the incandescent types of bulbs from yester-year. A nice warm yellow type of light. LED bulbs have come a long way since. What’s cool is you can turn lights on and leave them on. Back in the day, leaving an incandescent bulb on definitely made a difference in your electric bill with such a high wattage just for one lousy bulb. I was against fluorescent and LED bulbs years ago, but I like them now because they have made them them better now with more attractive warm lighting and they are just pennies a day for multiple bulbs to turn on for long periods of time.

    1. What’s cool is you can turn lights on and leave them on. Back in the day, leaving an incandescent bulb on definitely made a difference in your electric bill with such a high wattage just for one lousy bulb.

      And when one has young kids who more often than not forget to turn off the lights when they leave a room, this makes a big difference.

    2. I hate flourescents (many have a flicker I can see, and poor spectral content) but I agree that LEDs are much better, when available in higher quality, now.
      Those who can’t spend the appropriate few more dollars will get the worst ones, of course.
      My office was getting SO warm from incandescents and with the LEDs the temperature is so much better, but it took a while to find LED bulbs worth having. Too many are just for the budget/stupid consumer.

  33. What a pantload. Keep putting up crap articles like this and you will save me the time I spend visiting RoK.

  34. So many pixels gave their lives just so this essay could see the light of day. What a waste.

  35. I’m not advocating visible LED use for one’s home. There are also IR LEDs (used in remote controls). I wonder if these IR LEDs would have any health benefits?

  36. I will never go back. I would literally already be bankrupt if not for led bulbs. I do not however usually buy atore bulbs. I hunt for and buy good low power (1 to 2 watt) bulbs and i mix warm and day white to get a nice clean desired cri approximation.
    I also love the led filament bulbs. Gorgeous as well as silly efficient. Literally cut my electric bill in half.

    1. Yes you do have to be very particular when buying LED bulbs as the vast majority I’ve seen are manufactured and sold for the “unwashed masses” who are clueless as to the small differences in quality of light, color temperature (K), and the quality of the bulb itself.
      When I actually try to find bulbs better suited to my eyes, it takes much more work (in addition to finding a moderatelypriced but good quality model).
      The new LEDs with filaments are pretty interesting. Far too low on the color temperature scale (yellowish and almost amber in appearance) but I can see the appeal.

  37. Incandescent bulbs were banned because the light bulb manufacturers were stuck. They had these automated factories in the USA that could churn out bulbs cheaply. There was no profit in going to China because so few people were needed in the US plants. They wanted higher margins but people kept buying the incandescent bulbs. Nobody wanted to be the first to shut down but they wanted to get people to buy the higher margin CFLs and LED bulbs. So a law was created.
    Now the real kick in the head. Not long after all that automated equipment was scrapped someone came up with a laser treatment for the filament that made the bulbs more energy efficient. It would have been one additional automated station on the production line.

  38. You can add a black light bulb to your lighting and it has the added benefit of killing many types of bacteria.

  39. Everything but LED already banned in Sweden. And LED has quicksilver in them lol.

  40. Totally agree.Great article.I’ve been interested in this since Dems/GOP joined to force the American public to use harmful eye damaging,depression causing,mercury laden bulbs which instead of being 50 cents like the incandescent bulb are 6 dollars and up per bulb.How much longer will the dumbed down,distracted public allow their pockets to be picked,their freedoms extinguished and their health compromised?Thank the Lord for ROK and its well above average readers.

  42. dude there are LEDs in all colors. dimmable, color changable, whatever you want.

  43. LEDs are a cold light, not only to the naked eye but physically as well.
    I’m not sure that I completely agree with this. From what I’ve learned so far, and from searching for various types of bulbs as my eyes can detect flicker and unnatural color, etc, here’s what I’ve found:
    – Cheap LEDs definitely are far more prone to having much higher blue content
    – Today’s home bulbs are available with a much more pleasing color temperature range, but those can be harder to find and you have to be able to see the specs, assuming the manufacturer is providing them. Again, the low-end bulbs are poor in color and color index.
    I can see how if it was a matter of the LEDs found in headlamps like for spelunking and outdoor activities, as mine are, they’d be too blue. The majority of those appear bluish or very white in appearance (say 4000K and above).
    Probably there is a solution but it has to be with a manufacturer willing to share their color spectral content of their bulbs and provide a healthier solution like adding red content and better filtering of blues. I do understand the concern about missing red content.
    At work I use 3500K LED bulbs by Satco and they’re pretty good. I tried many others and was VERY dissatisfied. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WIB480C/?tag=thesc03-20
    Here’s a bit more info about issues with light and LED bulbs in general: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/10/23/near-infrared-led-lighting.aspx
    PS: I tired the Dr. Mercola “daylight” flourescents before my Satco LEDs and couldn’t take them. Like other flourescent lights, they looked “odd” and “unnatural” and definitely bothered my eyes.
    The good think is LEDs seem to be improving greatly over those used just a few years ago. I’d stay away from the cheap Wal-Mart bulbs, however.

  44. When you realize the people at the top are psychopaths and want to kill most of us, everything starts making sense.

  45. This article is ridiculous. Could the subjectmatter be farther afield from manosphere? Seriously. First-world-problems on display.

  46. (Northern)Brazilian here. Energy bills in Brazil are murder* and a big part of a family’s expense. Country is mostly dependent on hydro so we’re dependent on the climate for our power. Energy saving is taken very seriously here. Fluorescent Lamps took the country by the storm, and now everyone is buying all the LED they can. Here at home we got three lamps, two LEDs. Once finances get better we plan to buy the last one and go full LED.
    *Rule Three of Brazil: Everything is far more expensive than it should actually be.

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