After a century of unimaginable technological change, the incandescent lightbulb is much the same. It may be the most backward technology in use on a large scale, and yet it endures, even inflames.
The federally mandated phase-out of inefficient versions of the incandescent in some of the most commonly used wattage specifications has met with intense resistance, from Tea Party rhetoric to panicked buyers’ stockpiling a lifetime of the classic A-Line incandescent, with its “warm” glow.