Swirly

I was pretty adamantly anti-compact florescent lightbulb until I started working with Josh Weinberg on the International LED summit PR campaign, and it was my job to write up releases and fact sheets about the progress that's been made in the solid state lighting world. The LED world sets itself up not so much against incandescent bulbs, which everyone in the city planning, architecture and design world already knows are wasteful and high-maintenance, but more against CF bulbs. LED lighting is even more efficient and takes even less maintenance than CF.

Anyway, in the course of researching solid state lighting, I came to discover that apparently CF lighting has come a long way as well, and I decided to take a leap of faith and try out one of these new-fangled swirl bulbs. The deal-breaker always for me was that florescent light is a really unattractive color, and that I can see the flicker, and it gives me headaches.

I'm so happy with the new "soft light" CF swirl bulbs that I'm totally switching, at least everywhere that the bulb itself is hidden from sight. (They look terrible in sconces.)

Anyway, California is pretty excited about enforcing this on the rest of you, so maybe you won't so much choose to move over, you'll be forced to. Bear with the middling humor of the Chron and read up on the proposed legislation.

"How many legislators does it take to change a light bulb?

In California, the answer is a majority — plus Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Decrying the inefficiency of the common light bulb, a Democratic Assemblyman
from Los Angeles wants California to become the first state to ban it — by
2012."

Light bulb moment in California: Should it ban the common bulb?