World's Northernmost Town Gets Nightlights 144
Velcroman1 writes "On October 26, 2,000 Norwegians watched the sun set. The next time they'll see it rise? Sometime in February. Extended nighttime is an annual occurrence for the residents of Longyearbyen, Norway — Earth's northernmost town. Located at 78 degrees north latitude in the Arctic circle, Longyearbyen experiences a phenomenon called Polar Night, in which the town remains in perpetual darkness for four months each winter. To lighten up the seemingly endless night, Philips has started an experiment called 'Wake Up the Town.' And anyone who's complained about the brief daylight hours in winter will want to know how it works."
Re:Not the northernmost... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, not sure in other parts of the world, but here, in Australia, it means they have at least one pub :)
Re:Depressing. (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't wanna live there unless I had to. The darkness would mess with your eyesight, would put you in a low mood (to the point of depression) and your skin wouldn't produce enough vitamin E.
And that's different from your parents basement in LA how? /profiling
Re:This is an advertisement! (Score:1, Funny)
They aren't doing science unless it's a proper double blind study. Both the scientist and the experimental subject should have absolutely no knowledge of whether a bright light is shining on the subject or whether the subject was given a non-functional placebo light.
Cheaper alternative (Score:3, Funny)
Go to the local mass-market store like Lowes or even Target and look for a CFL bulb with the most lumens per watt. Also look for bulbs that have a curiously long life rating since these will not have any circuitry to use more power at startup to warm the bulb up. It doesn't matter if it says "instant on" or not (all slow-starting CFLs say "instant on")... in fact if the packaging is really loud about being "instant on!!!" then that's a good one to buy since it's guaranteed to take forever to get fully bright.
Now you have a bulb that will take 5+ minutes to reach full brightness even pointed upward. Then get a cheap clip-on lamp and a wall outlet timer. Set the timer to turn the light on say 15 minutes before your alarm. If the 5+ minutes it takes to get fully bright is still too fast for you, point it downward so the bulb heats up more slowly (but this will lower the life of the bulb significantly if you leave it on). You're done. Total cost ~$20.
So next time you play "CFL roulette" and get a really bad one you'll have a use for it. And since the really bad CFLs last for freaking ever (just to spite you) you'll soon have a huge stockpile of replacement bulbs for the time when all CFLs are actually instant on (yeah right...).
Re:Slashvertisement (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Slashvertisement (Score:1, Funny)
My wife really likes it too, but she doesn't get up when it goes off.