November 10th, 2001. A quick comparison.

I was sitting in my room listening to music, when all of a sudden I realized that I was shivering. I reached over to flip on my high-quality, Nova-issue heater and noticed that the heating elements look more like fluorescent light tubes than actual heating elements.

I think that I'd rather have an Easy Bake oven in my room than this thing. At least those have incandescent light bulbs in them. See, incandescent light bulbs are pretty inefficient as light sources, in that they release more heat than light (something like 80% heat and only 20% light, I think). But fluorescent light tubes are the opposite. They emit little heat and lots of light. Does it make sense that I have one in my heater then?

All this thinking was making me hungry, so I headed over to the kitchen to make myself some toast. This is when I noticed something really strange...

This is my room heater.

Please note the heating element.

This is my toaster.

Please note the heating element.