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Local company whose origins date to Edison's invention of the light bulb gets out of the light-bulb business
By adamg on Wed, 05/27/2020 - 12:38pm
General Electric announced today it's getting out of the light bulb business that helped propel the company back when it was formed in 1889 as the Edison General Electric Co. to bring together various companies started by Thomas Edison, whom you might have heard of.
The new owner of the light-bulb line - Savant Systems of Hyannis - will continue to use the GE name on its bulbs. In a statement, GE CEO H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., said:
Today’s transaction is another important step in the transformation of GE into a more focused industrial company.
Back in the day, GE explained massive night-time signs made possible by its bulbs:
No truth GE's decision to exit light bulbs had to do with fallout from this ad:
The softer side of GE bulbs:
Let's not forget fluorescent bulbs:
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Will yer last person out of GE please turn out the li—, oops.
Never mind.
You had to, Adam.
Magoo. :-(
Not sure what happened to Elmer
He had interesting posts and the "Adorable" post for animals were adorable. And then something happened and he turned into Magoo.
I keep thinking those accounts must be some form of social science project to see how people respond.
Elmer used to carry on cogent, thoughtful conversations.
No offense Magoo, I don’t mind your schtick, but I don’t confuse you with anyone else. This is before we even talk about the folly of trying to puzzle out who anonymous posters are
Here’s hoping Elmer is well and just got sick of our nonsense.
I think...
...they call it trolling. Maybe not with vicious intent as is common, but trolling nevertheless.
GE is turning into a zombie
GE is turning into a zombie financial and product licensing company like what's left of Sears Roebuck.
Thanks Harvard MBAs!
No
Thank Jack Welch, the pride of UMass Amherst.
True.
for stuff like light bulbs.
They also happen to be one of the biggest industrial (think nukes, power distribution, etc) companies in the world.
They're becoming what they used to be.
They're scum
They got into all kinds of "services" businesses. My father, who was self-employed, bought a long-term disability insurance policy from them, paid his premiums faithfully for years. He put in a claim when he was disabled and dying of cancer. They denied it. I have never bought so much as a light bulb from them since. They are the worst, vilest, lowest kind of scum.
Ah well
I guess all the money they made selling the Seaport property didn’t help.
he
seems harmless, not racist, not fascist, not a lunatic technocrat, there's a lot of things Not wrong with Magoo, it seems.
But that one weird repetitive thing he does, damn, that can just suck the life out of your day
Eastie
They had a large factory in East Boston, near the airport, with a big (naturally) light-up sign on top. It was right near the airport; you couldn't miss seeing the sign when you were leaving the airport and taking the Sumner Tunnel. I think the building is now condos on Porter Street.
Sylvania, I think, had a light bulb factory in Lynn, on the Lynnway, and another in Danvers. It seems to have been a local tradition.
Really?
I could have sworn they'd already sold off the bulbs back when I worked
for them. We were "Imagination At Work" by then, no longer "Bringing
Good Things To Life".
Now I know!
And now a word from Ned Ludd.
So, looks like GE is selling everything, including the naming rights, for any light bulb made by any sub-contractor anywhere.
Took them long enough...
https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/09/investing/ge-selling-lighting-business/...
https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/news/companies/general-electric-light-b...
I have LCD lights, mostly. I control them with switches I access through the magic of walking over to a wall. I can control all my light by simply flicking a switch. All of it. Amazing.
I can control all heating needs by simply walking over to a wall and touching a thermostat. I can even program it to set the heat at different levels for different times. I'm not worried about the battery going dead and the system shutting down when I'm not around because there's a mechanical thermostat (think the old round Honeywells found everywhere until fairly recently) wired in parallel, set to 45 *F, or whatever I want.
I have mechanical locks on my doors. You want in? Knock or have a key.
Oh, you can control your thermostat and door locks from your smart phone? WHY??
Smart light bulbs? Smart refrigerator? What the hell are people thinking?
WHY??
ANYTHING ONLINE can and eventually will be hacked.
I'm sorry, I don't want a totally internet enabled house.
Earlier thread about Cumbies, etc wanting unlimited liquor licenses had an interesting twist in it...the requirement that all alcohol sellers have driver's license scans to 'stop kids from buying alcohol'.
Well, I guess they cannot get it from their over twenty one friends. I wonder how long before that scanned information winds up in the hands of lawyers involved in alcohol related cases (both sides, by the way) and insurance companies. Or foreign hackers.
Please don't tell me it won't happen. You know it will.
Following this tangent...
Not sure what this has to do with the main post, but I have Hue lights that can be controlled by a switch and my phone. So I can do exactly what I've always done or I can walk to my bedroom and turn on or off most lights in the house. I could live without it for sure... but I could also live without lights!
As for hacking, they definitely could be hacked and any vector should be tightly controlled, but my phone, computer, and router are more likely targets. Everyone has a router, not everyone has Hue lights.
I do agree though with the premise that the benefit should outweigh the risk. I think most people look only at the benefit and ignore the risk. Most people are way more likely to get hacked via email or a shared drive than IOT devices... although that will probably change as time goes by and filters become better.
Yup
' I think most people look only at the benefit and ignore the risk. '
Most people might not realize that an IOT fridge is an internet enabled fridge. Consider the irony of an attack through an IOT lightbulb.
You have. Most won't.
Licenses
For under $200, you can get a very nice fake ID that will fool most scanners. Or so I kept hearing at licensing hearings in the Before Times.
Kinda.
It might fool a person. The mag stripe says otherwise. For that you need either a real license or the ability to spoof someone else's license.
Nope ...
At least, if you believe bars and restaurants who have been called before the licensing board, who say that even the magnetic strips can be spoofed now.
There is one thing that has resisted counterfeiting to date, but finding it would require a jeweler's loupe.
I just looked at my license.
No strip. All 3D barcode now. So, know the system, make a fake. Above my pay grade. Way above...
LCD lights??!
ROFL! You're truly in the dark, friend.