Letters to the Editor
Lynx
Published Letters: 1590 Editor's Choice: 126
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princeprigio
[Read the article: GE to Ohio: Turn off your light-bulb factories]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You say LCD bulbs are the way to go and that'd be great, but the technology doesn't seem to be here yet. I've heard this kind of thing before and I'd prefer not to use CFLs because of the mercury problem, but where am I going to get an LCD bulb? I looked on the web and found a few that are at cheapest $15 per bulb. I might be willing to pay that if it lasted a long time, but they warn that over 85 degrees farenheit and under 14 degrees, the bulbs may malfunction. Also 1,700 lumens is standard for a 100 watt incandescent bulb. I have some 25 watt CFLs that perform around the same, giving off around 1,600 lumens. What does that $15 LCD bulb emit? 25 lumens. Not a sufficient substitute.
The LCD bulbs I saw that emit higher lumens are all spotlights, not a substitute for a standard lamp bulb. Part of the problem with LCD lights is that they're directional. Evidently this problem hasn't been solved yet.
If you can show me bulbs that match the lumens output and aren't $60 or so per bulb and aren't directional, I'd love to see them.
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Crazy Indeed
[Read the article: How scalpers hoard "Hannah Montana" tickets]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Farhad Manjoo,
I understand you are supposed to be some sort of "technology" writer. If I may, please let me introduce you to the ginormous flaw in your little scheme. It is a tiny upstart company, so it isn't surprising that you may not have heard of it. It is called Google.
Weird name, no? It is called a "search engine" and people can use it to search for all kinds of information on the web, getting results quickly. Letting them do things like oh, I don't know, answer quiz questions about things they know nothing about. There's another site that might help answer these too, it is called Wikipedia.
I know! Where are they coming up with these names? Strange as it may seem, this site thinks it is an encyclopedia and contains tons of information about things that'd never be in "real" encyclopedias. I'm sure this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Montana couldn't possibly contain the kind of information you're thinking of for your quiz though.
Of course, if neither of those work, you've got your old-fashioned "spiders". These are tools people write that go out and scan web pages looking for keywords, kind of like search engines, but more specialized.
I guess they could hire "experts" too, but that seems like a wast of $ when these other tools are available, no?
There's one more flaw in your wacky scheme. Do you really only want to get to go to concerts where you've obsessively memorized strange facts about the act in question? What if a friend plays you a song by a band like The Epoxies and you decide you really like them and hey, look! They're coming to town. Aw, since you don't know who Roxy's 5th grade teacher dated in 1984 you don't get to go.
Also, now you can't get concert tickets for a friend or relative as a present. How much study does a parent need to do to get tickets so their little girl can go see the Cheetah Girls? Assuming, of course that you manage to pick questions that can't be answered using web resources.
And you're overlooking the biggest problem in the pack: Ticketmaster. Friends of mine and I want to go to see a local band here in Boston. I know almost nothing about them, except I've heard a couple songs. Tickets are $13 a piece. How much total if I get 3 through Ticketmaster? $55. That's right, there's a 41% surcharge per ticket and that's without involving scalpers. Sure, that's a far cry from a 400% increase, but it is hardly reasonable. Ticketmaster's only upset 'cause they can't charge those prices themselves.
We're going to just buy tickets at the door.