Gas Powered Alarm Clock Receives Energy Star Certification

A 2010 GAO report of this very flawed government operation ( and which ones aren't) documents submission of fictitious products to the program to expo se the de facto self-certification by industry.

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Gas-Powered Alarm Clock ? Product description indicated the clock is the size of a small ge nerator and is powered by gasoline. ? Product was approved by Energy Star without a review of the compa ny Web site or questions of the claimed efficiencies

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred
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Yeah but how much energy cost could you save yearly by buying that brand in preference to other models of gasoline-powered timepiece? Bet it was at least 25%

Reply to
bitrex

If it's the only commercially available gasoline-powered alarm clock then it's by default the most efficient one, yeah? Stamp that shit "Energy Star", case closed. It's not government's job to tell me what kind of power source I'm supposed to use for my alarm clock.

If the gasoline-powered alarm clock catches on market forces will naturally drive technological innovation that will lead to ever more compact and efficient internal combustion timepieces.

Reply to
bitrex

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It was probably agency administrative lawyers mindlessly interpreting the c ertification guidelines and going down the checklist. "Yep, everything is i n order on this one. Stamp it."

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

Or they're more saavy than you think and read and understood the intent of the troll submission just fine, and did the only thing any reasonable person would do when subjected to such a clumsy ruse which is play it completely straight.

"Gas alarm clock? Sure. Well looks fine to me." LOL!

GAO is acting like a government self-certification initiative that relies on manufacturers to self-police being "vulnerable to fraud and abuse" is some kind of bug or non-ideality in the program. That's actually called a feature and as far as I can tell looking at the paper everything is working just fine as it was designed to, no "mindlessness" involved they're just doing their jobs as they were defined.

Some folks think it's also the job of police officers to run into an active shooter situation too, to be a hero and save lives and are derelict in their duties for just sitting around on their ass outside. Nope. Not their job either.

Have to pass different laws if one wants them to do a different job.

Reply to
bitrex

That is to say it would be a flagrant violation of the Constitution to hold police officers criminally liable or negligent for failing to actively defend the persons of individual citizens.

Reply to
bitrex

I suspect dead smoke detectors could make radioactive EHT batteries running a pendulum clock electrostatically. But I would have reservations about such things being on sale.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

I saw one of these as a kid, could probably be ICE powered if you scaled it up a little bit.

Reply to
bitrex

So you can lie. but if you get caught there will be much pain. like for Volkswagen lying about emissions.

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Reply to
Jasen Betts

meh, take a quartz clock movement and run it off a thermpile fired by a gasoline cacalytic converter (like a pocket warmer)

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Reply to
Jasen Betts

5 days too early! I think this is probably more suited to posting on April 1st.
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Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

They didn't lie. They detected the test regime and tweaked their engine to game the tests. Same thing has been done with lots of other products. (computer compilers and interpreters spring to mind as an example)

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Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

I'm intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter

Reply to
bitrex

Don't think it's directly comparable, the EPA Clean Air Act/CAFE standards are _legal_ requirements, and it's not a self-reporting situation, it's the EPA that's running the tests at their own labs with their own equipment.

Are there criminal penalties for sending the Energy Star program bogus self-reported data? Idk did anyone get fined millions of dollars or do any prison time for sending them the bogus data in the study above? How would you even get caught? It's self-enforced I doubt any bureaucrat at the Energy Star office is running around like Sherlock Holmes in the secret lab doing independent testing they're not at all required to do given their job description. Do you do a ton of extra work for free that's not required by your employer? I can't say I do that routinely, personally.

That is to say if you game Energy Star you're a jerk but self-enforcing standards are designed to be gamed, situation normal. If the EPA catches you trying to game their own testing regime your company has committed a _crime_

Reply to
bitrex

.."gas powered alarm clock"..==.."fart powered"..===..Energy Star.

Reply to
Robert Baer

that seems to be the usual assumption. But didn't they do it because they & many other makers could not meet what were presumably unrealistic requirements?

Reply to
tabbypurr

If ICE powered it, it would be illegal in California.

Reply to
krw

Sure, and it's "natural", "organic", and all that good stuff. It doesn't even cause global warming. What's not to like? We need more of it!

Reply to
krw

ones aren't) documents submission of fictitious products to the program to expose the de facto self-certification by industry.

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Actually, methane does cause global warming, and human cattle raising is re sponsible for quite a lot of the extra methane in the atmosphere. It's gene rated in the bovine digestive system ... Kangaroos would be a much better g razing animal.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

The main purpose of the program as I understand it isn't to enforce arbitrary efficiency standards of an absurd nature. The idea seems to be to facilitate the operation of the market by allowing consumers to make informed choices, whether you're "good" or "bad" is ideally determined by what the benchmark performance numbers of similar products on the market are.

There are some bare minimum standards for various product categories like washing machines and fridges and TVs and computers but a cursory examination doesn't make it look like any of 'em are a particularly high bar. It's like walk into any Best Buy what appliance _doesn't_ have an Energy Star logo on it.

I don't think it's the Federal government's job to tell you whether you can buy a gasoline alarm clock or not, but I think it's fine for government to give a friendly reminder that you're free to buy what you like but you're _retarded_ for buying such a product and try to put a ballpark dollar value on the label as to just how retarded you are.

Reply to
bitrex

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