I notice the 60hz blink. I got a couple strings of those LED christmass lights last year (you know, the ones with the prop. 65 warning about the massive amounts of lead in the PVC insulation), i tried using 'em for a nightlight in my kid's room. Lousy, they gave me headaches if i stayed in the room more then a couple minutes, and gave everything the same jerky strobe light look as waving your hand in front of a CRT. Plus they kept my kid awake, which was another major issue. I am admittedly far more sensitive to that then most people though, i've run into such issues before.

Inconceivable!

I try to pretend that pointless research is vaguely close to maybe normal.

Everything is arbitrary from a galactic perspective, and largely irrelevant as well. The earth is, /. is, i certainly am, and yet i'm rather attached to myself and feel that i'm worth celebrating. To humans through the ages the changes of the season had a huge amount of meaning, especially the thaw from winter into spring. It meant that the members of the tribe that were still alive had a good chance of making it another year, as well as meaning that food is plentiful again. Important stuff! These days we as a western culture don't celebrate many of the same holy days anymore, and those that we do have been warped severely. Historically speaking there is an excellent chance that modern New Years celebration comes from the Festival of the Bean King. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean-feast These days we don't elect and then kill someone, not generally at least.

Even more so that romantic partner the leading option. Though really the average age of slashdot geek/nerd/techie/whatever types is going up from what i can tell, the kids these days don't give a crap about why a piece of tech works as long as it works. They don't build their own computer, they buy a laptop. It's weird, but there is more evidence of it if you look at the adds put up for techie toys, they're aimed at mid 20's and up people. For the record, i'll be at home with my gf and two kids. I might even stay up that late!

CFLs use a phosphor too, the mercury in the tube is made to fluoresce, it emits UV light that strikes the phosphor layer on the bulb which then fluoresces, releasing visible light. White LEDs are a UV LED with a phosphor layer that the UV strikes, causing it to fluoresce, releasing visible light. Only difference between the two is the method of generating the UV.

That's my view. The last entertaining game i found that was decently priced ($20, rather then $60) also happened to be free of copy protection/drm, so i bought it. The fact that it was made by a couple of independents in various coffee shops on their laptops is a bonus, but the low price, addictive gameplay, and lack of DRM is what sold me on it. (In case you can't guess, this'd be World of Goo)