As we say goodbye to 2013, we also say
goodbye to more incandescent light bulb types. On Jan. 1, 2014, the
most popular incandescent light bulbs, 40W and 60W will be no more.
They join the already gone 75W and 100W incandescent bulbs as their
domestic manufacture and import has been legislated away as part of
the final phase-out stage of the Energy Independence and Security
Act of 2007.
An estimated 30 percent of informed consumers will be raiding the
aisles of local stores, grabbing all of the 40W and 60W bulbs that
they can get their hands on to delay the inevitable - and save
big bucks in the process. Maybe by the time their final stash is
gone the newer bulb prices will have come down from the
stratosphere.
Another icon of the late 19th and early 20th centuries likely
to become extinct soon is the landline telephone. This will not
need to be legislated out, new technology has rendered them mostly
unnecessary, even though the new technology has yet to achieve the
clarity and dependability of the landline instruments. The
number of home landlines in the US is dropping at a rate of
700,000 per month and currently just five percent of people depend
solely on copper phone lines.