I’ve ofter wondered about this. Turns out it’s a bit of an old wives tale.
Turns out, however, that power surge is so brief that its energy draw doesn’t amount to much: the equivalent of a few seconds or so of normal operation, according to U.S. Department of Energy estimates. In other words, from a strict energy-conservation standpoint, it’s almost always beneficial to shut off fluorescents when leaving the room—the start-up energy is offset by the power saved in even the briefest outages.
NASA: STS-122 pilot Alan Poindexter and commander Steve Frick look out of the starboard window (pilot’s side) of space shuttle Atlantis while it was docked to the International Space Station. The two watched as fellow crewmates Rex Walheim and Stan Love perform the third and last spacewalk of the mission.
Wonderful series of firsts from National Geographic. This is called “Blue Marble” and it was taken on the 7th of December in 1972, from Apollo 17. I was less than five months old. :)
No, I’m afraid the Oirish show hasn’t finally been cancelled. But this is pretty amazing too, eh?
(Via the bizarrely-titled Jazz Biscuit.)
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