“How many legislators does it take to change a light bulb?”

By the way, that’s the name of the act: The “How many legislators does it take to change a light bulb?” Act. Where else, but California?

“How many legislators does it take to change a light bulb?” It may sound like one of those “How many…” jokes, but it’s actually a proposed title for an act. The “How Many Legislators Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb” Act is focused on attempting to lower greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming. But perhaps the real question should be: how many legislators will change a light bulb? One will, for sure: California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine is aiming to ban incandescent light bulbs by 2012. Probably because Uh-nold says so.

Look – I get it. Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) are significantly more efficient. Comparable light for less energy consumption. Lower power usage. But do we really need MORE government dictating what we can’t do? No. No we don’t. I use CFLs everywhere it makes sense to in my house, but I chose that because it makes sense for me. Educate the masses and let them decide if they want to save money and reduce power consumption. Give tax breaks for CFL purchases. Subsidize CFL costs some other way. But don’t mandate. That’s just more government we don’t need.

[tags]The “How many legislators does it take to change a light bulb?” act, California bill to ban incandescent lights under consideration[/tags]

You really can do almost anything online

Catching up on so much techie news makes me almost sad at how little time I have to stay current on everything any more. To give you an idea how ancient I am, I used to buy things off eBay when you could actually read every single new auction for the whole site. I scanned every new listing every morning for a while. I quit doing that when it took 2 hours for me to get through everything. Luckily I had a job that only required about 2 hours of work a day, so I still had plenty of time to do my job.

What does that have to do with anything? Nothing at all. I tend to ramble. I blame the ADD.

The real point of this post is to point out the awesome online tool formatpixel I just read about today. Using formatpixel, you can create, well, stuff you probably would have used PowerPoint for in the past:

Create your own online magazines, fanzines, brochures, catalogues, portfolios and more. Using the formatpixel online editor you too can design page based projects, layout text, upload your own images, add interactivity and customise their appearance.

Edit the order of pages in your projects by moving, inserting or deleting pages to create multi-page presentations.

There are some really cool demonstrations of the power of the tools at formatpixel (w00t for me – 3 time repetition for increased brain implantationility (Yes, I made that word up) to help you remember the name). If I had any creative talent, I’d put something together to show off the site. Instead, I’ll point you to the article on TechCrunch where I first read about formatpixel (and a 4th time!).

[tags]Online flash-based presentation/layout creation site formatpixel, Online Powerpoint substitute tool[/tags]