QotD: Compact Fluorescent Lighting

Personally, my home is practically a cave. I have to burn lights even in the day, because I'm in a first floor apartment shaded by tall buildings. I'm also really cheap, and a fairly committed green. So if you can't get me to use the things [compact fluorescent bulbs], you know there's a big problem. And that problem is not, as the article suggests, that light-bulb companies are resisting producing enough of them, that consumers are uneducated, that they are not displayed in the stores correctly, or that the bulbs are a funny shape. The problem is that after five minutes of sitting under a compact flourescent bulb, I feel like an extra in a Fellini film. I use one in the range hood, and if I had closet lights, I'd install them there. But there's no way I'm using them as my primary form of illumination unless legally forced to do so; it's just too murderously depressing. Which is what every single other person who writes about the things says. I can only assume that the New York Times author has never tried the product, or is out too much to actually notice what the lights look like, or lives in some kind of penal institution where such lighting looks natural.

Jane Galt, "Let there be (compact flourescent) light", Asymmetrical Information, 2007-01-02