99% Invisible: 144- There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

December 10, 2014 7:46 AM

Hanging in the garage of Fire Station #6 in Livermore, California, there's a small, pear-shaped light bulb. It is glowing right now. This lightbulb has been glowing, with just a couple of momentary interruptions, for 113 years. Episode page at 99pi.org →
posted by ocherdraco (9 comments total)

This is one of the less fascinating episodes of 99pi, for me. I found myself more interested in the things discussed in the sponsorship messages than in the actual story! In particular, I'm glad to know about Hrishikesh Hirway's Five Song Fridays newsletter.

I was fascinated to learn about the Phoebus Cartel, though. It never occurred to me before that incandescent light bulbs were flimsy intentionally; I'd always assumed their disposable nature was a bug, not intended as a feature.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:55 AM on December 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

ocherdraco, get out of my head.
posted by Etrigan at 10:01 AM on December 10, 2014

I'm from this town and .... having not heard this podcast, I already suspect it's quite dull. It's a weird little miracle, yes, but what else can you say about it? "Good craftsmanship?"
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:43 PM on December 10, 2014

I liked this episode, but would sort it into the "mildly interesting" category. It seems some of the episodes are weak, as Roman Mars is trying to live up to the promise of "an episode a week, damnit!" I would be happy if 99pi would go to a 2-week schedule if it allowed the team more time to research and produce an episode. Maybe now that Radiotopia has had their huge kickstarter the quality will start to go back up.
posted by jazon at 5:03 PM on December 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

It seems some of the episodes are weak, as Roman Mars is trying to live up to the promise of "an episode a week, damnit!"

The thing I definitely didn't get from this episode was how it tied into 99pi's general theme of design. Okay, the bulb was engineered in a peculiar way, and that led into the interesting stuff about planned obsolescence, but the whole thing just felt non-99pi-esque to me.
posted by Etrigan at 5:51 PM on December 10, 2014

I thought it was a good episode and glad to hear there's a reason why some lightbulbs can last seemingly forever (I've heard of other historical bulbs lasting for decades) while most don't. It's crazy the industry colluded to make weaker shorter life bulbs -- to me, that was the "design" angle.

After finishing the episode I went immediately online to find the webcam but it's pretty low-res and boring. I'm surprised they haven't upgraded it to a dropcam or something modern like that.
posted by mathowie at 6:53 PM on December 10, 2014

The Phoebus Cartel previously on MeFi.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:22 AM on December 11, 2014

The design of that webcam page is almost as old as the bulb.
posted by moonmilk at 6:29 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm from this town and .... having not heard this podcast, I already suspect it's quite dull. It's a weird little miracle, yes, but what else can you say about it? "Good craftsmanship?"

You'd be surprised. That's the value in listening before commenting, rather than presuming.
posted by maxsparber at 6:16 AM on December 13, 2014