Osborne Vixen - Zenith 7" display t-shooting issues

[Tothwolf]

On Sat, 8 Nov 2014, Mouse wrote:

>> Over the past couple of years, I've replaced the dark-activated 7W 
>> "night lights" in my home with modern white LED ones.  Big 
>> mistake--after about 2 years, they're much dimmer than they started out 
>> to be.
>
> Yeah, "white LED"s are pretty close to white, but only sort-of LEDs. 
> They're fluorescent lights driven by (IIRC) ultraviolet LEDs, and they 
> have the dimming-with-age issues most fluorescent lights do.
>
>> I didn't replace the EL or neon night-lights and they're all still 
>> fine.
>
> Yeah.  Up here (Ontario), some misguided fool[%] has managed to get 100W 
> incandescents banned.  (Well, not entirely.  Just manufacture or import 
> of them.  Possession and use are still permitted.  Also, there are some 
> exceptions, such as rough-service bulbs.)

Same in the US, illegal to manufacture or import (still legal to own, use, 
or sell remaining inventory). Part of the "Energy Independence and 
Security Act of 2007". That bill was backed heavily by lightbulb 
manufacturers such as GE, Osram Sylvania, and Philips, likely to help them 
push their sales of compact fluorescents, which at that point weren't 
selling well and have a much higher profit margin than incandescents. What 
most people don't realize, is that bill didn't just ban 100W 
incandescents, but the whole range of 40W, 60W, 75W, and 100W 
incandescents (as well as many PAR reflector types), PLUS all T12 
fluorescent tubes, magnetic ballasts, and quite possibly a lot of T8 
fluorescent tubes too.

>> I don't get it.  Or maybe I do.
>
> Yeah, as near as I can figure it's a planned-obsolescence play, dressed 
> up in "green" rhetoric, by the makers of the various short-life bulbs. I 
> wrote about this a little on my blah; see 
> http://ftp.rodents-montreal.org/mouse/blah/2011-11-13-1.html, the two 
> footnotes in particular.
>
> [%] Assuming you don't push the causality back far enough to reach
>    someone with a vested interest in this campaign....

IMO the incandescent and T12 fluorescent lightbulb ban is the result of a 
modern day incarnation of the Phoebus cartel 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel], except that this time they 
have unlimited amounts of money to throw at politicians and very little in 
the way of election spending laws to limit them.

My own way of punishing these companies is to buy LED replacements from 
independent companies such as Cree who is not owned by GE, Osram Sylvania, 
or Philips.