LED flashlights hit the Big Box

Longer-lasting, cooler-running LED flashlights have shown up in Wal-Mart, but nobody really wants people to notice:

The LED at the End of the Aisle [Wired News]

Flashlight maker Rayovac, which launched value-priced LED flashlights and head-mounted lights through Wal-Mart in July at prices ranging from $10 to $20, says the lights have been an unexpected hit with mainstream consumers. "Quite a few Wal-Marts sold out in the first week. It surprised us," said Peter Steel, global director of lighting products for Rayovac.

Rayovac's LED-equipped Sportsman line of lights will run from 100 to 200 hours on a single set of batteries, Steel said. That's up to 20 times longer than ... traditional bulbs. LEDs convert much more of the battery's stored energy directly to light rather than heat, greatly reducing their drain on the battery. ... LED bulbs are also much more resilient when dropped or struck than incandescent filaments, and can last 10,000 hours or more, compared with several hundred hours for an incandescent bulb.

"As a battery company, we don't really like to say this, but you don't need as many batteries," Steel said. ... One sporting goods store manager [said]: "The bulb and battery people aren't exactly crazy about them."

I'm kind of surprised they're there at all, given that... I'll have to check 'em out.  

 Scalzi on cheese-moving

I have a feeling it may not be quite as bad as he says, but Scalzi very entertainingly rips apart the management tome Who Moved My Cheese? (scroll down):

John Scalzi's Whatever, Sept. 20

...the author [confirms] the usefulness of the book by creating characters that are helped by its philosophy, but which don't actually exist in the real world. This is a very Ayn Rand thing to do ... the book throws in a few other lessons, which are hopefully unintended...

[Bad lesson] #3. The mice in the parable understood that the "cheese" was decreasing but neither informed the little humans nor seemed interested in helping them once the cheese was gone. Mice represent the "other." You cannot trust the "other." Stick to your own kind (alternately, the mice represent management, who know more about the reality of the situation, and the little humans are the rank-and-file, intentionally kept in the dark by management. Either way: Not to be trusted).

Look, people. If you ever find your "cheese" decreasing, don't run around frantically in a maze, looking for something else to replace it. Simply learn to make cheese. Which is to say, be responsible for creating your own happiness internally instead of relying on something outside of you to provide it, and living in fear that it will go away.

Plenty more there to enjoy; I recommend reading it all.