Heatballs

The EU (the actual device itself, which runs Europe) came out with this big rule....banning the sale of light bulbs.  Their intention was to switch everyone over to energy efficiency....by force.  If you made a bulb with 60 watts of power....you were banned in Europe.  It was a simple deal.

It was a shocker to some folks when this news came out.  Frankly, a couple of Germans actually took it with a bit of hostility and anger.  They thought the open market ought to determine things, and not the EU.

So this German guy....Siegfried Rotthaeuser sat around of thought of a nifty way of getting around the EU law.   Basically, they are still importing and distributing 75 and 100 watt bulbs in Germany (from China).

Siegfried and his brother-in-law....paused over these larger bulbs, and then realized that they weren't really light bulbs....they were "small heating devices."

Siegfried then created a new product called "heatballs."

You can see where this is going.  A German will not be forced down.  Once their mind clicks into turbo....they are out to maneuver around any stupid limits that you put in their way.  You can imagine the brilliance here.....heatballs.  Who would have dreamed something like this up?  And even if the idiots of the EU took him into court....he's prepared to show that 95 percent of a normal bulb....is heat.  There can't be a argument in any court in Germany.  I suspect that dozens of judges are sitting there and hoping their local court will be the place where they can rip up the EU folks.

The cost of heatballs?  They are discounting for around 1.70 Euro (roughly $2.40) each.  The boys were active in the first four days....selling all of the ordered batch of 4k.  You can figure they raked in $4k for their effort....and I suspect they've got the Chinese plant producing 100k more.  It'd be helpful if they had this all registered so they'd own "heatballs" completely.  I suspect a couple of companies are hoping to create "nuke-balls", "hot-balls", and even "turbo-balls".....just to carry the joke on.

I have to respect that brilliance that can come out of German engineers....even if they aren't really inventing anything new but a name.