Last month, IKEA recalled several ceiling lamps because their shades could unexpectedly fall, shattering over consumers’ heads. Today, the Swedish furniture company announced another lighting recall, this time for lamp bases that can shock users. [More]
lights
IKEA To Sell Only LED Lighting Starting September 1
By 8.10.15
That lamp you’ve been eyeing at IKEA is getting a bit of a makeover; or at least the light bulb is. The company is moving forward with plans to only sell LED bulbs starting this fall. [More]
Watch Out For Fire Hazardy Knock-Off Christmas Lights
By 12.23.09
CBS’s The Early Show aired a segment last Friday about counterfeit holiday lights and extension cords, mostly from China and mostly available at dollar stores, that can cause fires. The problem is that the manufacturers use shoddy materials, and sometimes even fake UL stickers, to give the impression that they’re following safety guidelines. You find out they’re not when your tree goes up in flames. [More]
Sylvania Lights The Path To Good Service With Bulb Replacements
By 3.21.09
SJ replaced his Volkswagen’s bulbs with Sylvania Silverstar lights that were twice as expensive, only to watch them fail after three months of use. Disappointed, since the standard bulbs lasted for three years, SJ wrote to Sylvania telling them that he expected, at a minimum, a voucher for new bulbs. Sylvania’s response managed to brighten his day…
Fix Your Old Christmas Lights
By 11.30.07
Save some money by re-using your existing strings of light this Christmas—even if they’re currently acting all wonky. Here are some handy guides on how to repair dark strings of Christmas lights, whether they’re LED or the classic incandescent type. They’re fairly detailed, with a sort of techy “how things work” vibe, but contain a lot of useful information. For example, just because a string of incandescents has an AC outlet at the end, that doesn’t make it an extension cord—the more power you pull through the cord, the greater the current and the higher the risk of shorting out bulbs.
Nintendo Says: Wii Hates Your Christmas Tree
By 12.21.06
Thankfully, there’s an easy solution to the problem. Writing on a blog, one user complained: “The last couple of days my Wii has been acting weird in not picking up the Wiimote on the side of the Christmas tree and I could never figure out what was wrong. Well tonight, I turned off the Christmas tree and it fixed my problem.”
How Verizon Stole Christmas
By 12.22.05
Verizon does something evil? Surely not our sweet, beatific megacorp! Yet that is the claim levied by the wicked town of Lonaconing, Maryland, whose annual Christmas lights were banned—for safety’s sake—by Verizon. Each year Lonaconing’s Christmas Light Decoration Committee would string their vine-like lights across the same poles used by Allegheny Power and Verizon to provide light and warmth to hundreds of poor children in the coal town.
”If a wire is hanging at 15 feet, a truck could snag it. It could snap a pole, and someone could get seriously injured,” Verizon spokeswoman Sandra Arnette said. ”We never said the town should not hang the lights. But safety is the first thing.”
The first thing is safety, Lonaconing, not your vile, pagan celebration! We would wish you coal in every stocking if we did not already imagine it would give your dwarvish children great joy to fondle each sooty treasure betwixt their stumpy mole fingers. And to put an inflatable Grinch balloon next to the Verizon office? Take your idolatry elsewhere, Lonaconing. We’ll have none of your craven imagery in this, the season of plastic, light-up Jesus.
