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October 17th, 2006

Fluorescent Lights Suck

Fluorescent lights, besides being hard to spell correctly the first time, really stink.

They’re harsh, unnatural, overly bright, and give me headaches. I dislike them so that I don’t turn on the lights in my office at work. This morning I had to because it’s dark and rainy outside and within two minutes, I got a comment about it. “Wow! You have lights in your office!”

I prefer natural light or a very low, soft light. It drives my wife nuts because she can’t understand how I can work in the kitchen using only the light over the stove. I usually don’t even shower in the morning with the lights on. But that’s just because I’m hideous and can’t look at myself.

On a related note, it’s tough to find a lightbulb that provides a nice, soft, diffused, yellowish light. Some of the energy saver bulbs are getting close, though. And that’s good, because there’s nothing worse than painfully artificial light.

Posted in Everyday Life

Matt October 18, 2006, 4:03 am

I often leave the lights off in my classroom. Luckily I can do that this year, since I have a trailer with four windows and a small door window. Too much fake lighting stirs the kids up, yet they seem to be calm when I leave them off.

Ryan Buslovich October 18, 2006, 4:14 am

I don’t have anything to say about light bulbs, but I can’t wait for January 6th’s post on Just The Ten Of Us!

Aanen October 18, 2006, 11:55 am

My friend has them in his garage. You can see some flaws in the paint of his otherwise flawless car.

Merle October 20, 2006, 11:03 pm

The full spectrum bulbs are pretty close. It still seems a bit off to me, but perhaps some coloured plastic would solve that. It is a lot better than fluorescent!

blah blah March 25, 2011, 4:37 pm

You need to look for the CFL “bug lights”. These have a yellow housing covering the CFL, so they filter out a yellowish light. There’s an idea that CFL’s in general contribute to sleep disorders, since they give off more blue light. Humans evolved to see blue spectrum during the day, and as night came along yellows, reds and oranges were dominant. The lack of blue light supposedly triggers melatonin or something. So, folks that have trouble sleeping can install bug-light CFL’s to provide yellow light, so their sleep cycle will normalize.

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