That would end the unclear energy usage

Yeah, even my old ass CFL bulbs only take a second to turn on. Now, that's a bit different if you're using one outside, and its -20c or so. Then it can take a few minutes for a normal CFL bulb to warm up.

I think you can get a full spectrum CFL. Not entirely sure though. I bought myself a couple full spectrum incandescent bulbs recently. They are nice.

If they have so many earthquakes over there, why don't they develop and engineer an earthquake driven power plant? It must be possible to catch, convert, store and use all that energy. Some genius just has to invent it.

Perhaps I'm being a worry-wart, especially since the article I'm linking even says it's not a big deal, I'm still curious about the safety of my pregnant wife and the child. She drinks a lot of milk. A lot. Anyway, should I be observing closely what's happening to the radiation levels in milk (or when should I get concerned)?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42348512/ns/health-health_care/

Do you live next to the reactors in japan that are damaged? Or in an area that gets its milk from farmers around the reactors^[1]? If your answer to those questions is false, then don't worry. Theres no way your milk will be affected.

What Thomas said.
The thing is that radionuclides are detectable in extremely minute quantities. So pretty much whenever radioactive material is released into the atmosphere, it will eventually be picked up by monitoring agencies all over the world (this is a big part of enforcing nuclear weapons testing ban treaties, BTW).
Remember this: you're surrounded by radiation every second of every day of your life. The world is a radioactive place. Everything you eat is, to a certain degree, radioactive. You are even quite radioactive yourself.

OK, light bulbs:

• In cold areas, using low-energy bulbs is pretty much pointless. The energy you save on light also reduces the heating side effect of the bulb, which means you spend less on lighting and more on heating.

• CFL bulbs these days light up instantly, but it still takes them a whole friggin' time to reach their full brightness (at least every single one I've seen so far has this problem)

• CFL bulbs, even the full-spectrum ones, don't produce a continuous spectrum, but one or more sharp lines. In most cases, we don't see this, but combining them with other non-continuous-spectrum devices (such as LED or LED-backlit LCD screens) sometimes yields disgusting results

• Specifying the light output in the Wattage of an equivalent conventional bulb is silly, but it seems to be the only way to get consumers to buy that stuff. I've even seen things like "13 W = 60 W" printed on the box.

Now how a simple heater can be of varying efficiency?

Keep them isolated from your posts. Otherwise the warranty is void.

For a house using electrical resistance heating, bulbs would be just as efficient, except for disrupting the actual temperatures of particular rooms because of thermostat location. A house with a heat pump would see a rise in electrical usage due to the increased efficiency of heat pumps. For petroleum heated houses, no contest, bulbs are a terrible heating strategy.

Yes, but the point is that electrical resistance heating is far more expensive than alternatives.

I remember back in 1998, I lived in a house heated by electrical resistance, and left my computer on all the time. This is how the conversation went (in February)

Him: "You're leaving the computer on all the time! You're wasting electricity!"
Me: "The 'wasted energy' is just helping heat the house."
Him: "But it's wasting electricity!"
Me: "The heat helps warm this room, which has the thermostat in it. Therefore, leaving the computer running will cause the thermostat to turn off the heat faster and turn it on slower. The only effect is that the other rooms will be a bit cooler because the computer heat isn't blown into those rooms like the heating ducts do."
Him: "But you're wasting electricity!"

[EDIT]

I suppose the extremely slight amount of electromagnetic radiations emanating from this computer could be considered to be wasted energy. I kept the case on though, and the resultant trapping of the electrical waves would just make the case warmer.