80 CRI is awful. Greenish, bluish, pinkish, yellowish - you can have a pastel disco party if you don't re-lamp all at the same time. Anything less than 80 is more industrial quality than residential. Especially give that they *can* make 95-98CRI lamps.

Sylvania used to make a PAR20 with a 95CRI and, I'll tell you, they're dead ringers for the incandescent they replace at full power. They don't make them anymore. Could be they were 10W (vs the 50W halogen they replace), or it could be they were $40 when bought at discount so they just didn't move them well enough. Then again, I've had a 25% failure rate of these 20,000h lamps in just 2 years (thank goodness for the 5 year warranty), so maybe that's part of the problem too.

LEDs rarely last more than 4 years. Or, more specifically, the electronics rarely last more than 4 years. If you end up with a net average life of the lamps of less than 3 years, you're behind. Considering most lamp warranties are a year or less, you're probably going to end up on the short end of that bargain until the electronics become more reliable.

Also, LEDs have poor color rendering (which means different brands will look bluish, pinkish, greenish) regardless of color temperature, many do NOT turn on instantly (there's a short delay ranging up to 100s of ms) to allow the electronics to stabilize, do not dim below ~10%, and do emit EMI/RFI.

Call me back when they start making all the lights 95+ CRI. We've been seeing light at 100CRI for millions of years, that part of the "correct" light picture won't change with time.

But their total lifecycle cost may be less than an incandescent if they last long enough.

Reliability of a $10-30 lamp is far more critical than a $0.50 lamp. It's all well and good to say that the lifecycle cost of your 10,000 hour, $10 lamp is lower than a 2000 hour $0.50 lamp. However, if your $10 lamp dies early, and it costs $7 to ship to the manufacturer for a replacement or you've lost your sales receipt or (most likely) it's out of the 1 year warranty period, then you would have been far better off getting an incandescent.

I have 13 very high quality LEDs in my kitchen (dimmable 10W PAR20 w/ 2950K color and 95 CRI). In two years, 3 of the 13 have failed. I'm lucky that they're high end lamps with a 5 year warranty and Sylvania has simply shipped me a new lamp (no return of the old one) each time one dies. If these had been OTS, they would have been out of warranty by now, despite having a 20,000 hour "rating".

That seems like a good idea until you get one. And then you realize that a lot of the keyboard shortcuts no longer work. Tried it, returned it. Got a keyboardless flagship android and swipe.

NB - I had several slide out phone "back in the day" and swore I'd never get a phone without one. Really, I don't miss it now and I type faster with the swipe keyboard than I could on a chicklet.

Tip of the hat for the History of the World reference, my good, anonymous sir.

Exactly. And the exact same words can be both protected and non-protected.

If you incite a crowd to rape a woman on campus, or to beat someone to death, the first amendment will not protect you. If you slander someone, the first amendment will not protect you. If you lie about a product in your marketing literature, the first amendment will not protect you.

For someone who is trying to quote case law, you certainly have a very inaccurate view of the limits of free speech.

And, whether you like it or not, SCOTUS is the arbiter of the intent of the constitution. Until they change their minds, their interpretations stand. You don't get to put your personal spin on the constitution or the amendments and expect the rest of us to take your personal viewpoint as God given truth.

I'm pretty sure naturally occurring lasing is still on the table, and I find that highly likely compared to several of the options such as arc discharge, giant space worms, and a young, eccentric billionaire who traveled there to engage in some planetary bondage play, the scars of which haven't yet healed.

It certainly sounds like "something" is exactly the level of confidence in the information at this point!

Different kind of drone I guess.

" it allows them to vent their issues and opinions. "

You say "allow" I say "empower." Same concept.

I'm under no illusion that we can fix society, because it's full of fucked up people who are essentially raised to be mean, bigoted assholes by their parents (who are generally mean, bigoted assholes).

Allowing the borderline assholes to explore these tendencies and gain confidence in their ability to emotionally torture others will not fix them. Allowing full-on assholes to do the same is no better.

"Anonymity actually empowers society to see the underlying issues within when they are small and addressable"
I would disagree. Society is not a user interface on a computer database; not even close. And simply showing that there are assholes among us is no closer to a solution. We know they're there. All this does is reinforce their belief that being an asshole is perfectly acceptable, because there are no consequences for doing so.

If you went to class every day and called your professor an ugly cunt that should be beaten every day, how would that affect your relationship with that professor? If you said your professor was a dick and should have someone sodomize him with a baseball bat during the Q&A portion of a lecture, would that help or hurt your grade in the class? What if you could do it anonymously? Which of those two cases would produce a better societal outcome for you, personally? Which one would produce a better outcome for the class as a whole?

The anonymous platform does not benefit society in these cases, only the speaker. Most of Yik Yak is innocuous. The subset we're talking about is, imho, abusive.

In general, yes - as I stated in the first five words of my post.

To the topic of discussion, though, Yik Yak is not a platform for whistleblowers. And there are far more borderline assholes who are unleashed on Yik Yak than there are whistleblowers who would change the world or amend great wrongs with a platform like Yik Yak.

Not that Yik Yak is bad, or should necessarily be eliminated - but the right to unlimited assholeness is not guaranteed when it targets someone. Your freedom to yell "gang bang" does not exist any more than yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

Quoting a politician when discussing science is usually a bad idea, no matter which side it is. Then again, listening to zealots (again, on both sides) instead of scientists is just as bad.

"The law approved by the senate on 12 June [2012] banned scientists in state agencies from using exponential extrapolation to predict sea-level rise, requiring instead that they stick to linear projections based on historical data."

No need to limit talking in NC, they just pass legislation which limits sea rise. Science through legislation. Done and done.

http://www.scientificamerican....

Not in general mind you, but most people who have their name/reputation tied to what they say to others are rarely* inflammatory, belligerent, or insulting because it has social consequences for the speaker. But anonymous speech, where it has no consequences for you and only consequences for a target, is specifically the case where people become assholes.

Now, they may have been assholes all their lives, but anonymous services empower them. Are you really in favor of empowering assholes?

*since many on /. seem so to be pissed all the time, I mean "rarely" in the sense of the number of mean spirited comments compared to all comments made in the world, not the number of mean spirited comments *you* come up with among your friends or when you're pissed at someone/something.