Check your lamps and the supply closet. The government has pulled the plug on 75 watt light bulbs. The packs that are left on store shelves are it. While the 75 watt bulbs may now be gone – the feds aren’t stopping there! A quick trip to your local Home Depot or Target can overwhelm you with a giant selection of light bulbs. In fact, you may not even realize that the old school 75 watt incandescent bulbs are gone. But, if you have a lamp that calls for one – you soon realize, you will have to change. The incandescent light bulb can trace its start back to 1802, when British inventor Sir Humphry Davy passed a current through a thin strip of metal to light the first bulb. The light that was given off was very low and lasted only a few seconds. Over the next few decades, he and other inventors would try to refine the product. An incandescent bulb causes light by heating a filament wire to a high temperature by passing an electric current through it. The filament is protected by a glass dome. The bulb is screwed into a lamp or socket by lining up the metal grooves at the bottom. A total of at least 22 inventors have been listed as helping to perfect the modern incandescent bulb. In 1841, British inventor Frederick de Moleyns received the first official patent. In 1878, American inventor Thomas Edison would begin work on a more practical model that would be more affordable, brighter, and last longer. On October 22, 1879, he would create a bulb that would last for 13 ½ hours. He later discovered a bulb that could burn over 1200 hours by using a bamboo filament. It wasn’t until 1880, that another British inventor Joseph...

Here at F & N, it’s obvious how much we love Star Trek.  Check out what happens when National Power and PowerGen from the UK writes a couple of fat checks to William Shatner and James Doohan!  You get one of the best Star Trek commercials Americans have never seen! While the commercial uses the sets from Star Trek: The Next Generation (meaning this was filmed in Hollywood), it features the movie era Kirk and Scotty and a shot of the Enterprise lifted from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The meteor shower scene was well produced and could have worked well in an actual episode.  According to the copyright at the beginning, this was released in 1990. Kirk beaming up is the showstopper of an ending! National Power was formed in 1990 when the power grid in the United Kingdom was privatized.  This commercial was shot to invite investors to purchase stock in the companies. Powergen was formed in 1989 and was also looking for investors, but was taken over by E.ON, a German utility company. The British actor is Simon Cadell, who was famous for his role on the BBC sit-com Hi-de-Hi!.  He passed away a few years after this commercial was filmed in 1996. THE 411 Name: National Power / Powergen What: UK utility companies JERSEY JOE RECOMMENDS: It’s too bad they couldn’t reuse some of this for electric company ads in the United States.  It could have worked for Con-Ed.  It would have been bad had it been used for Enron, looking for suckers to invest! I wonder if anyone in the US gets the Wally comment. Image credit: x-ray delta...