Gee. We got Donald Trump because people's dishwashers don't work worth a d**n? If only I'd known.
Our dishwasher gets used 5 or 6 nights out of 7, at least. Very smooth. Quiet as the grave when it runs. And it gets the dishes, glasses and pots and pans really clean, too. Been doing this for a number of years now with no problems other than a broken plastic support boss for a tray slide.
Why heck, if I'd known this was the problem I'd have invited all the neighbors to come on over and use the darned thing, too.
See? You missed your chance at influencing the election.
The examples could easily have included furnaces and water heaters, tbh. Those, too, have become unserviceable and more expensive due to the regulatory state, leaving normal citizens without options that might save money.
Know all about that, since in the last 18 months I've replaced both our furnace and hot water heater. The hot water heater included a $300 additional expense to swap out the 20+ year-old-and-still-perfectly-good 3" steel chimney exhaust flu with a new 4" steel flu to "bring it up to code". No choice about it, as the company wouldn't install a new heater without "everything being up to code." On which I call BS. But all the lame-brained regs in all the gin joints in all the world would never have caused me to vote for Donald Trump.
Does government need reform in virtually every area of its existence? Hell yes, it does. But meaningful reform and malevolent, bone-headed destruction are two different things.
OK. I've cleared my own throat now. So back to my regularly scheduled programming of incisive wit and classic Tomfoolery.
Rant on, friend, and know you are in good company. I’ve got even less use for this pre-corrupted bunch than for the last ones.
It was the first election I didn’t see even a fringe-party candidate who was worth voting for.
I’m just trying to puzzle out how it is we got here Spoiler: It was a long, arduous slog of faceplants and pratfalls. I think one of the problems, which DOGE only pretends to address, is a federal government that wants to dance at every wedding and cry at every funeral. The imperial remit seems to extend to the stars and beyond.
Handing control of this unwieldy, unrestricted Leviathan to the gallery of inept, narcissistic oafs and rogues is going to have long-lasting and expensive consequences.
Late into the comments for reasons that are a hilarious essay by itself…maybe tomorrow…but….yes.
The following figures are not exaggerated one iota…(what’s an iota?)
In my career, I inspected >10,000 of each type of appliance….>30,000 in aggregate if you just count the big 3 (range, DW, frig), and >70,000 if you’re including everything. New ones suck. Old ones don’t.
If you dismantle an old Maytag (I have) you will discover absolute genius in industrial and mechanical design.
Maytags had a well-deserved reputation for reliability. We had a pair of Maytags for about 16 years. My parents had their Maytag washer and dryer for a lot longer -- 30-40 years maybe.
The ACLU had an interesting tweet this week. It argues the civil service serves as a check on presidential excess. That's a polite way of saying "unaccountable".
As long as they can make rules without accountability, they will. Congress doesn't want to be held accountable, so they allow this to happen. That's why I like what is happening to the CPFB. Senator Warren tried to keep control from Congress, and forgot someday we could elect a Trumpy president. But on the bright side she'll be able to fundraise off of it, so it isn't a total loss for her.
It's notable that some of the first people that Trump and Musk fired were the Inspector Generals, the people previously responsible for preventing and detecting waste, fraud, and abuse in their respective government departments. The last thing they want is any kind of independent oversight.
Similarly, Musk's fintech bros want the CFPB neutered because the last thing they want is any kind of oversight of their businesses.
I get the personal animosity against Elizabeth Warren, but we've already seen what happens when the guardrails over the financial industry are removed and corruption in government is a massive problem across the globe.
I don't disagree there shouldn't be guardrails, but shouldn't the CFPB be accountable to someone? They had racked up tremendous reserves, so they could spend even if their funding got cut. I like agencies who report to someone other than themselves.
They remind me of our former secretary at our monthly meeting. I explained he had two problems: one was he was self-managed (where no one in the meeting could hold him accountable), and two, his boss was an a-hole. It took people awhile to get that second one.
Fair enough, but that would be a much stronger argument if there was any evidence to suggest that this administration was even remotely concerned about accountability. Rather, it seems that they are dedicated to removing that function wherever possible.
I agree that watchdogs need to be watched. However, that doesn't mean that the best solution is to murder the watchdog.
I don’t want to bore this wonderful group with book-length comments, so I’ll limit my regulation views to this. Federal agencies don’t seem answerable to anyone, and don’t have to ever show that their regs were successful in addressing the problem they intended to address. This is where evil and greedy capitalists win out much of the time. They are accountable to shareholders, and that drives innovation and fair prices that customers can choose or not. Not perfect, but accountability and the right incentives go a long way toward good solutions, products, and yes, regulations.
It's a shame that what they are doing now to supposedly address those problems will mostly reflect discredit on the sensible principles you outline: that government agencies should be held accountable, and that having competition tends to impose accountability on businesses on behalf of the consumer.
Yet. Modern life in America post-Electric age (1880-1950), was built on Federal funded R&D. Internet. Satellites. Fiber optics. Lasers. Microwave communication. Semiconductors. Transistors. Vaccines. Many drugs. Funded Magnetic Resonance...
Still. Jobs. Gates will be the Henry Fords we remember.
I guess I think of investing and regulating as two separate functions. No question govt funding is part of these fantastic solutions, but companies spent a ton to bring them to market, make them affordable, innovate as needed, etc.
We are at the Kruger Brothers Academy this weekend, my husband as a student, me as a volunteer.
They are some of the most welcoming, kind, hospitable and wise people you will ever meet. And musicianship - skills and taste taking the banjo far outside its usual habitat. ("Tasteful" and "banjo" do not often go together in the world of banjo humor).
You posted one of their songs here in the past—still wonderful! I thought of it a month later meaning to ask for the name again, and it slipped my mind anytime I was in comments…as these things go.
We saw them in Chapel Hill 25 years ago. It was the best concert we have ever attended - bluegrass, classical, klezmer, jazz, all fun and erudite and down to earth.
My really cool mariachi band experience was in the late '90s when I spent Christmas in Mexico City, where my sister and brother-in-law were living at the time. A few days before Christmas, a group of us visitors were doing the tourist thing (weather appx 72 degrees) at the pyramids outside of town, and afterwards we had lunch in a restaurant located in a cave. (Just did some googling, and my memory is accurate.) There was a mariachi band that performed by our table, and when they learned my (other) sister could sing, they accompanied her in a lovely rendition of "Silent Night."
No, that one was not on the agenda. We did go to Lake Xochimilco and ride in one of the brightly painted boats around the islands where the poinsettias are grown.
I woke up thinking we got Trump because for as long as I can remember (30 years?) no one had the wherewithal to deal with an embarrassingly disfunctional immigration system.
It seems to me that it’s multi-faceted government failure.
Listened to the Dispatch weekly roundtable podcast earlier this morning, and they were extemporizing on the theme, too. David French was pointing out a similar pattern with regard to people’s faith in government institutions caused by departments working harder for activists with niche causes than for the general citizenry.
I've read several pieces recently that are stunning in their inability to grasp that insulting people and name calling protest marches are at the root of the problem.
But that must mean that things aren't really anything to be concerned about. Right?
When one resorts to insulting people and calling them names, one is losing the argument, if one hasn't already in fact lost it. That is if one even had a legitimate argument to make in the first place. And in what passes for American political discourse these days, that is one very big "if" on about as many occsions as not.
And while a certain someone would have us all believe there has now been - and will continue to be - so much winning that we're all gonna' get sick of it, about all I see and hear most anywhere I look and listen these days is copious amounts of losing. Both figuratively and literally.
It would need more embellishment. Something along the lines of:
""Blood morning. The kind of morning that said to you that the rest of your day was going to be bad. Real bad. The kind of morning where the sun rose in fits and starts, painting dark red stains across the clouds that were already casting a shadow across my doorway. A doorway that now featured the willowy blond dame who was about to turn my life upside down. Slowly, I reached for a cigarette."
Now that he's changed his post, would I have to give Phil H a writing credit?"
I agree with the gist of this, but I also think that, while we're complaining about the regulators, we shouldn't be letting the manufacturers off the hook if their products aren't living up to expectations.
The energy efficiency of appliances has become a way to differentiate one product from another. It's also just one more thing that can go wrong. My clothes dryer has to meet the regulator's requirements for normal use. However, those requirements don't dictate that it then has to provide a range of "economy"-related features that require the latest technologies and break down over time.
RE: "...we shouldn't be letting the manufacturers off the hook."
No. But with a certain tech bro in the position he now occupies, would it be all that surprising if he soon imported his business model from China, since I don't think there are any tariffs yet on imported business tactics?
One product seems no better than another. Every time somethings breaks, I change manufacturer, same crappy performance. I'm on my 3rd cooktop and 2nd oven in a dozen years. (I hate my fridge and wish it would break.)
We just replaced our oven this summer. It was the original which came with the house (1971). It was a 26" oven, built into custom cabinets. After three weeks, we found a 27" model that fit...with a 1/4" to spare! We helped the installer slide it in. He was appreciative.
It works fine. We avoided all the latest and greatest features. Katie is happy, which is all that matters.
Yeah, even my old stove does that. But I know it's not communicating stuff about me to the outside world, and that (not communicating) is one thing I require of my appliances.
I'm trying to imagine what a "baking mode" even is. I'm familiar with bake, broil, and various temperature settings. Can't think of anything else that would be worth the trouble of trying to figure out what the manual says about it.
Our kitchen is narrow. When we replace the refrigerator, they also have about 1/4" in the doorway to slide it in. It's a challenge, but they make it work.
Katie roots for appliances to work because we have to measure so close!
I scrape/rinse the dishes, run them thru the dishwasher for a couple hours, hand dry the damp and drips when I have time. The washing machine pretends to wash clothes with a quarter cup of tepid water and a Tb of lowsuds detergent. The dryer needs an extra 20 minutes after the “very dry” cycle ends. I don’t even complain anymore.
We got a fabulous Bosch dishwasher about 5 years ago at Lowes. On sale. Maybe $750. Stainless. Has no electric heater. Uses the hot water to heat the stainless tub interior. And that dries the dishes. It's a true step up. Ultra quiet. Efficient. Superb cleaning.
We do have to run the hot water in the sink next to it to "prime" the hot flow before we start it
That's what I have, old model, very quiet, takes forever. I,ll try priming with the “hot” faucet and maybe it will work better. My main complaint is that the dishes don't dry very well.
A few years ago, I woke up one morning to find that my seven-year-old refrigerator had decided overnight that it would no longer keep things cool. I called a repairman, who charged me $150 just to show up at my house and tell me that he couldn't fix it because the motherboard was fried and it would cost as much as a new refrigerator to replace it. When I went to the appliance store, the sales guy told me that seven years was now the average life expectancy for this type of fridge.
When I was at university in the 80's, I rented a house that had a refrigerator built in the 50's. It had two features: It kept stuff cool and it had a compartment that would freeze stuff. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that it's still doing both of those things somewhere.
My mother had an ancient Frigidaire that kept on chugging, first in the kitchen, then in the basement, for over 60 years. It finally went to Good Will, still working.
Our electric company was providing cash prizes for customers to sell them old, inefficient refrigerators. They presumably did so by passing along federal funds for energy efficiency.
Energy efficiency is fabulous—don’t get me wrong. But it ultimately leads to more things sold that collectively consume more energy. That’s Jevon’s Paradox, and it is the way of the world.
There's two aspects to energy efficiency. There's the "save the planet" movement (that went way over the top a few years ago) but there's also an economic aspect (energy costs money).
That second piece has been with us for decades, long before the first came along to annoy people. In most appliance stores there are promotional signs up in front of various products touting how little energy they use and many of us probably use those numbers when we're deciding which product to buy (although very few will ever actually crunch the numbers to figure out if the promised energy savings will pay off over time).
As an added differentiator, some products will boast about having some sort of proprietary system with a name like "Intellificiencizer" that the marketing department dreamed up. If they haven't done this already, I fully expect to see "AI-driven" appliances in the stores coming soon.
Good morning, everyone. Mid-30sF with the sun coming up, might be 50 later. We'll be leaving for Charleston midday-ish for the Southeast Wildlife Expo.
Last night, after a day of unexpected baby care as Drama Queen and husband went to Winston-Salem to look at a used vehicle, my husband and I saw Sam Bush in concert. I had my eyes closed for most of it, because I was exhausted - the opening act didn't start until 8:00! - but the sounds were spectacular.
The opening band was "Into the Fog". They were unusual in that the string bass player was the lead singer. He has a great voice and fine articulation. It's common in live shows to be unable to understand the lyrics, but that wasn't a problem with Into the Fog.
Sam Bush is called the 'King of Telluride' for his annual appearances at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado. All 52 of 'em. Long may he reign.
That’s what I was thinking… fairly common in pre-Elvis popular music, more recent rockabilly, some jazz-pop crossover… It’s just not usual to play them with a bow rather than pizzicato.
I wonder if the jazz/rock/‘grass “bass fiddle” is different from the concert bass. I think concert violins have a more curved bridge than the country fiddle.
"But when the DOGE faction promises to smash those smug and self-satisfied parts of the government, many citizens are generally willing to suspend judgment and see how things turn out."
Unmemorable John is right though that there are dangers to unbridled enthusiasm for slash/burn. Trump is no knight in shining armor, at best a low-rent facsimile. Good idea to keep an eye on the silver.
It seems the agencies assigned to come up with all these regulations are never done. Enough is never enough because they have the job after all to keep at it. I'm praying my washing machine keeps going.
We've had our Kenmore Front loading dishwasher and dryer for 25 years. Kenmore (Sears), would bid out their appliance builds to GE and Westinghouse back in the day. Well 3 decades ago. Our 1990s Westinghouse is AAA.
I don’t think front-loader buyers are all that much happier in recent years. It’s the insane water-saving standards that appear to assume we all live in the middle of the Sahara and water is more precious than gold. It’s the federal gov’t’s heavy-handed, top-down, one-size-fits-all attitude that gets my ire.
It’s like they’ve reverse-engineered Henry Ford: “Customers can have an automobile in any color they want so long as it’s black.”
Our Thermador is 18 years old. The circuit board or some electrical issue has caused the bread/warming oven to not work. Main oven and gas burners are still excellent. Appliance support and repair can't be found for it. Np. Adapt
Gee. We got Donald Trump because people's dishwashers don't work worth a d**n? If only I'd known.
Our dishwasher gets used 5 or 6 nights out of 7, at least. Very smooth. Quiet as the grave when it runs. And it gets the dishes, glasses and pots and pans really clean, too. Been doing this for a number of years now with no problems other than a broken plastic support boss for a tray slide.
Why heck, if I'd known this was the problem I'd have invited all the neighbors to come on over and use the darned thing, too.
See? You missed your chance at influencing the election.
The examples could easily have included furnaces and water heaters, tbh. Those, too, have become unserviceable and more expensive due to the regulatory state, leaving normal citizens without options that might save money.
Know all about that, since in the last 18 months I've replaced both our furnace and hot water heater. The hot water heater included a $300 additional expense to swap out the 20+ year-old-and-still-perfectly-good 3" steel chimney exhaust flu with a new 4" steel flu to "bring it up to code". No choice about it, as the company wouldn't install a new heater without "everything being up to code." On which I call BS. But all the lame-brained regs in all the gin joints in all the world would never have caused me to vote for Donald Trump.
Does government need reform in virtually every area of its existence? Hell yes, it does. But meaningful reform and malevolent, bone-headed destruction are two different things.
OK. I've cleared my own throat now. So back to my regularly scheduled programming of incisive wit and classic Tomfoolery.
Rant on, friend, and know you are in good company. I’ve got even less use for this pre-corrupted bunch than for the last ones.
It was the first election I didn’t see even a fringe-party candidate who was worth voting for.
I’m just trying to puzzle out how it is we got here Spoiler: It was a long, arduous slog of faceplants and pratfalls. I think one of the problems, which DOGE only pretends to address, is a federal government that wants to dance at every wedding and cry at every funeral. The imperial remit seems to extend to the stars and beyond.
Handing control of this unwieldy, unrestricted Leviathan to the gallery of inept, narcissistic oafs and rogues is going to have long-lasting and expensive consequences.
Speaking of imperial remits...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/nyregion/doge-migrant-hotel-shelters.html
"City leaders said on Wednesday that they noticed $80 million had suddenly gone missing from city bank accounts."
They "*>noticed<*" $80mil was "missing" from the city's bank accounts??!!!
NOTICED?!!!
Late into the comments for reasons that are a hilarious essay by itself…maybe tomorrow…but….yes.
The following figures are not exaggerated one iota…(what’s an iota?)
In my career, I inspected >10,000 of each type of appliance….>30,000 in aggregate if you just count the big 3 (range, DW, frig), and >70,000 if you’re including everything. New ones suck. Old ones don’t.
If you dismantle an old Maytag (I have) you will discover absolute genius in industrial and mechanical design.
Maytags had a well-deserved reputation for reliability. We had a pair of Maytags for about 16 years. My parents had their Maytag washer and dryer for a lot longer -- 30-40 years maybe.
I inherited my Grandma's. She used it for 30 years, and I used it for another 25. Essentially, the mechanical design didn't break. Ever.
The ACLU had an interesting tweet this week. It argues the civil service serves as a check on presidential excess. That's a polite way of saying "unaccountable".
As long as they can make rules without accountability, they will. Congress doesn't want to be held accountable, so they allow this to happen. That's why I like what is happening to the CPFB. Senator Warren tried to keep control from Congress, and forgot someday we could elect a Trumpy president. But on the bright side she'll be able to fundraise off of it, so it isn't a total loss for her.
It's notable that some of the first people that Trump and Musk fired were the Inspector Generals, the people previously responsible for preventing and detecting waste, fraud, and abuse in their respective government departments. The last thing they want is any kind of independent oversight.
Similarly, Musk's fintech bros want the CFPB neutered because the last thing they want is any kind of oversight of their businesses.
I get the personal animosity against Elizabeth Warren, but we've already seen what happens when the guardrails over the financial industry are removed and corruption in government is a massive problem across the globe.
Why is any of this a good thing?
I don't disagree there shouldn't be guardrails, but shouldn't the CFPB be accountable to someone? They had racked up tremendous reserves, so they could spend even if their funding got cut. I like agencies who report to someone other than themselves.
They remind me of our former secretary at our monthly meeting. I explained he had two problems: one was he was self-managed (where no one in the meeting could hold him accountable), and two, his boss was an a-hole. It took people awhile to get that second one.
Fair enough, but that would be a much stronger argument if there was any evidence to suggest that this administration was even remotely concerned about accountability. Rather, it seems that they are dedicated to removing that function wherever possible.
I agree that watchdogs need to be watched. However, that doesn't mean that the best solution is to murder the watchdog.
I don’t want to bore this wonderful group with book-length comments, so I’ll limit my regulation views to this. Federal agencies don’t seem answerable to anyone, and don’t have to ever show that their regs were successful in addressing the problem they intended to address. This is where evil and greedy capitalists win out much of the time. They are accountable to shareholders, and that drives innovation and fair prices that customers can choose or not. Not perfect, but accountability and the right incentives go a long way toward good solutions, products, and yes, regulations.
It's a shame that what they are doing now to supposedly address those problems will mostly reflect discredit on the sensible principles you outline: that government agencies should be held accountable, and that having competition tends to impose accountability on businesses on behalf of the consumer.
Yet. Modern life in America post-Electric age (1880-1950), was built on Federal funded R&D. Internet. Satellites. Fiber optics. Lasers. Microwave communication. Semiconductors. Transistors. Vaccines. Many drugs. Funded Magnetic Resonance...
Still. Jobs. Gates will be the Henry Fords we remember.
I guess I think of investing and regulating as two separate functions. No question govt funding is part of these fantastic solutions, but companies spent a ton to bring them to market, make them affordable, innovate as needed, etc.
This is pretty much my general mindset and belief, too, fwiw.
What else can I say?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We are at the Kruger Brothers Academy this weekend, my husband as a student, me as a volunteer.
They are some of the most welcoming, kind, hospitable and wise people you will ever meet. And musicianship - skills and taste taking the banjo far outside its usual habitat. ("Tasteful" and "banjo" do not often go together in the world of banjo humor).
Carolina in the Fall
https://youtu.be/6HdRYq_lIUU?si=JS0MxtHFmx6dHG4a
Watches the Clouds Roll By
https://youtu.be/dOsouhunRFM?si=5AC_LqQ_PEQVIqQE
They are nice. I guess I'm a set in my ways music lover. Give me 15th century to late 1990s. Or any new thing from the 60-70s genre musicians.
I liked their song. But, I'm still Flatt and Scruggs as tops. And for me, I'm playing some Chopin, or Mozart to relax. Or Elton/Queen/Beach dudes etc
You posted one of their songs here in the past—still wonderful! I thought of it a month later meaning to ask for the name again, and it slipped my mind anytime I was in comments…as these things go.
We heard the Kruger Brothers some years back in Yadkinville.
We saw them in Chapel Hill 25 years ago. It was the best concert we have ever attended - bluegrass, classical, klezmer, jazz, all fun and erudite and down to earth.
Mexican bands use them, too. They call it "contrabasso."
A couple restaurants still hire a mariachi band to go around to tables. It's pretty cool
My really cool mariachi band experience was in the late '90s when I spent Christmas in Mexico City, where my sister and brother-in-law were living at the time. A few days before Christmas, a group of us visitors were doing the tourist thing (weather appx 72 degrees) at the pyramids outside of town, and afterwards we had lunch in a restaurant located in a cave. (Just did some googling, and my memory is accurate.) There was a mariachi band that performed by our table, and when they learned my (other) sister could sing, they accompanied her in a lovely rendition of "Silent Night."
Nice CC. Did you visit the Basilica of the Lady of Guadeloupe?
The people supplicated and crawling up the steps was a wonderful sight
No, that one was not on the agenda. We did go to Lake Xochimilco and ride in one of the brightly painted boats around the islands where the poinsettias are grown.
There's plenty of business for mariachis around here.
I woke up thinking we got Trump because for as long as I can remember (30 years?) no one had the wherewithal to deal with an embarrassingly disfunctional immigration system.
But this appliance mess didn't help.
It seems to me that it’s multi-faceted government failure.
Listened to the Dispatch weekly roundtable podcast earlier this morning, and they were extemporizing on the theme, too. David French was pointing out a similar pattern with regard to people’s faith in government institutions caused by departments working harder for activists with niche causes than for the general citizenry.
He wrote a NYT subscriber only opinion essay on the loss of empathy, a generalized theme, amongst Christians.
One of my progressive Facebook friend posted this yesterday. 🙄https://www.2greenenergy.com/2025/02/12/sue-republican/
I've read several pieces recently that are stunning in their inability to grasp that insulting people and name calling protest marches are at the root of the problem.
But that must mean that things aren't really anything to be concerned about. Right?
Rule of thumb, at least for my thumbs:
When one resorts to insulting people and calling them names, one is losing the argument, if one hasn't already in fact lost it. That is if one even had a legitimate argument to make in the first place. And in what passes for American political discourse these days, that is one very big "if" on about as many occsions as not.
And while a certain someone would have us all believe there has now been - and will continue to be - so much winning that we're all gonna' get sick of it, about all I see and hear most anywhere I look and listen these days is copious amounts of losing. Both figuratively and literally.
And I'm really good and sick of that.
Good morning. 10 degrees here, with a high just under 32. But it’s supposed to be sunny.
The mothership is reporting on the summit between Trump and the populist prime minister of India.
We’ve got twice your temperature. But it’s meant to rain all weekend.
Why is it bloody? I'm hoping its just a typo and you haven't moved on from doors to something more sinister...
What’s bloody? Did I oversleep?
Well, in a sense. Phil's initial missive said "Blood morning" instead of "Good morning." Then Edith Burton came to his rescue.
One of the benefits of supporting Team EB.
When I saw that, I thought it would a great opening line for an old-time detective novel:
"Blood morning. The kind of morning that said to you that the rest of your day was going to be bad. Real bad."
That's pretty good. :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5xk54JEIg
Thanks! Great - lyrics, pickin' and overall execution.
Willie before the braids! 🙂
That's excellent. You should enter that in the Dark and Stormy Night competition.
It would need more embellishment. Something along the lines of:
""Blood morning. The kind of morning that said to you that the rest of your day was going to be bad. Real bad. The kind of morning where the sun rose in fits and starts, painting dark red stains across the clouds that were already casting a shadow across my doorway. A doorway that now featured the willowy blond dame who was about to turn my life upside down. Slowly, I reached for a cigarette."
Now that he's changed his post, would I have to give Phil H a writing credit?"
Edith Burton must have wrested control back from Tim.
I see what you did there. I'm not impressed. Also not surprised.
Typo? What typo? 🙂
Damn, you found the edit button...
But no one's found the Oy button yet, have they? Just sayin'...
You have hurt me to the quick.
Quick! Let me call you an ambulance!
My good friend Edith "Edit" Burton! 🤣
I agree with the gist of this, but I also think that, while we're complaining about the regulators, we shouldn't be letting the manufacturers off the hook if their products aren't living up to expectations.
The energy efficiency of appliances has become a way to differentiate one product from another. It's also just one more thing that can go wrong. My clothes dryer has to meet the regulator's requirements for normal use. However, those requirements don't dictate that it then has to provide a range of "economy"-related features that require the latest technologies and break down over time.
Not everything needs a microchip.
RE: "...we shouldn't be letting the manufacturers off the hook."
No. But with a certain tech bro in the position he now occupies, would it be all that surprising if he soon imported his business model from China, since I don't think there are any tariffs yet on imported business tactics?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/tech-companies/takeaways-tesla-has-sued-chinese-customers-and-journalists-and-won-almost-every-time/ar-AA1yTKGT?ocid=BingNewsSerp
They used to use small electric clock motors for timers!
In Medical devices... electronics and software are often involved in the failures
One product seems no better than another. Every time somethings breaks, I change manufacturer, same crappy performance. I'm on my 3rd cooktop and 2nd oven in a dozen years. (I hate my fridge and wish it would break.)
We just replaced our oven this summer. It was the original which came with the house (1971). It was a 26" oven, built into custom cabinets. After three weeks, we found a 27" model that fit...with a 1/4" to spare! We helped the installer slide it in. He was appreciative.
It works fine. We avoided all the latest and greatest features. Katie is happy, which is all that matters.
"Avoided all the latest and greatest features" probably means it won't try to talk to you, right?
It doesn't talk, but it chimes when you turn it on and when you set a timer.
I'm fine with chimes....A different model 3/8th" wider offered 6-8 different baking modes. Katie wanted one: Bake.
Yeah, even my old stove does that. But I know it's not communicating stuff about me to the outside world, and that (not communicating) is one thing I require of my appliances.
I'm trying to imagine what a "baking mode" even is. I'm familiar with bake, broil, and various temperature settings. Can't think of anything else that would be worth the trouble of trying to figure out what the manual says about it.
Retrofitting built-in appliances can be troublesome. I,m glad you found something to fit! And that Katie is happy!
Our kitchen is narrow. When we replace the refrigerator, they also have about 1/4" in the doorway to slide it in. It's a challenge, but they make it work.
Katie roots for appliances to work because we have to measure so close!
I scrape/rinse the dishes, run them thru the dishwasher for a couple hours, hand dry the damp and drips when I have time. The washing machine pretends to wash clothes with a quarter cup of tepid water and a Tb of lowsuds detergent. The dryer needs an extra 20 minutes after the “very dry” cycle ends. I don’t even complain anymore.
As almost a half century owner of all appliances, I might suggest a hotter hot water.
My machine heats water but not very hot.
I,ve noticed that these machines are much easier on clothes, but that's the best I can say for them.
We got a fabulous Bosch dishwasher about 5 years ago at Lowes. On sale. Maybe $750. Stainless. Has no electric heater. Uses the hot water to heat the stainless tub interior. And that dries the dishes. It's a true step up. Ultra quiet. Efficient. Superb cleaning.
We do have to run the hot water in the sink next to it to "prime" the hot flow before we start it
That's what I have, old model, very quiet, takes forever. I,ll try priming with the “hot” faucet and maybe it will work better. My main complaint is that the dishes don't dry very well.
One of my many pet peeves is the overuse of digital electronics in consumer goods, shortening their lifespan.
BTW, did my comments drive you to change your handle?
No, that was a comment by me, a few days ago. And I never said he was unmemorable.
A few years ago, I woke up one morning to find that my seven-year-old refrigerator had decided overnight that it would no longer keep things cool. I called a repairman, who charged me $150 just to show up at my house and tell me that he couldn't fix it because the motherboard was fried and it would cost as much as a new refrigerator to replace it. When I went to the appliance store, the sales guy told me that seven years was now the average life expectancy for this type of fridge.
When I was at university in the 80's, I rented a house that had a refrigerator built in the 50's. It had two features: It kept stuff cool and it had a compartment that would freeze stuff. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that it's still doing both of those things somewhere.
My mother had an ancient Frigidaire that kept on chugging, first in the kitchen, then in the basement, for over 60 years. It finally went to Good Will, still working.
Probably not because those fridges killed (a kid who climbed in couldn’t climb out.)
Our electric company was providing cash prizes for customers to sell them old, inefficient refrigerators. They presumably did so by passing along federal funds for energy efficiency.
Energy efficiency is fabulous—don’t get me wrong. But it ultimately leads to more things sold that collectively consume more energy. That’s Jevon’s Paradox, and it is the way of the world.
Actually it's smart for power companies to recycle old refrigerators.
The reason is it provides low cost capacity expansion. That's the net delta from the kWh old - new savings.
One of the southern California energy companies did this.
Refrigerators also have a lot of Freon to recycle. Freon is used as the PU foam blowing agent because it increases thermal insulation
There's two aspects to energy efficiency. There's the "save the planet" movement (that went way over the top a few years ago) but there's also an economic aspect (energy costs money).
That second piece has been with us for decades, long before the first came along to annoy people. In most appliance stores there are promotional signs up in front of various products touting how little energy they use and many of us probably use those numbers when we're deciding which product to buy (although very few will ever actually crunch the numbers to figure out if the promised energy savings will pay off over time).
As an added differentiator, some products will boast about having some sort of proprietary system with a name like "Intellificiencizer" that the marketing department dreamed up. If they haven't done this already, I fully expect to see "AI-driven" appliances in the stores coming soon.
And "AI driven" would be my cue not to buy the appliance.
Perhaps an added incentive. 🙂 On the plus side, it does seem to be an effective differentiator.
Good morning, everyone. Mid-30sF with the sun coming up, might be 50 later. We'll be leaving for Charleston midday-ish for the Southeast Wildlife Expo.
Last night, after a day of unexpected baby care as Drama Queen and husband went to Winston-Salem to look at a used vehicle, my husband and I saw Sam Bush in concert. I had my eyes closed for most of it, because I was exhausted - the opening act didn't start until 8:00! - but the sounds were spectacular.
The opening band was "Into the Fog". They were unusual in that the string bass player was the lead singer. He has a great voice and fine articulation. It's common in live shows to be unable to understand the lyrics, but that wasn't a problem with Into the Fog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DlDQJNUR28
And then, of course, Sam Bush, who is an old guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIN7xc_dEtE
Sam Bush honors John Hartford!
A good time to remember there are Long Hot Summer Days
https://youtu.be/-pmdN43cH-8?si=jfRuy_4HvN3DeKWN
Nice. Nothing better than live music.
Me too. I love it. I’d see much more of it if it was available late afternoon or early evening!
“…and with his Diddy-wah diddle”. Hah!
Sam Bush is called the 'King of Telluride' for his annual appearances at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado. All 52 of 'em. Long may he reign.
That opening act sounded great. While I'm sure it has been done, I don't ever remember a string bass being used by a band.
The upright bass is standard issue bluegrass.
That’s what I was thinking… fairly common in pre-Elvis popular music, more recent rockabilly, some jazz-pop crossover… It’s just not usual to play them with a bow rather than pizzicato.
I wonder if the jazz/rock/‘grass “bass fiddle” is different from the concert bass. I think concert violins have a more curved bridge than the country fiddle.
The bridge is different as you say. Also, bluegrass instruments have "straings", instead of "strings."
Mandolin, electric guitar, and string bass was an unusual combo.
"But when the DOGE faction promises to smash those smug and self-satisfied parts of the government, many citizens are generally willing to suspend judgment and see how things turn out."
Count me in.
Obama: the gift that keeps on giving.
Unmemorable John is right though that there are dangers to unbridled enthusiasm for slash/burn. Trump is no knight in shining armor, at best a low-rent facsimile. Good idea to keep an eye on the silver.
There are so many ways that Barack Obama’s presidency led to Donald Trump.
It seems the agencies assigned to come up with all these regulations are never done. Enough is never enough because they have the job after all to keep at it. I'm praying my washing machine keeps going.
I really hate my top loading non agitator washing machine. I wish I had gotten a front loader.
We've had our Kenmore Front loading dishwasher and dryer for 25 years. Kenmore (Sears), would bid out their appliance builds to GE and Westinghouse back in the day. Well 3 decades ago. Our 1990s Westinghouse is AAA.
I don’t think front-loader buyers are all that much happier in recent years. It’s the insane water-saving standards that appear to assume we all live in the middle of the Sahara and water is more precious than gold. It’s the federal gov’t’s heavy-handed, top-down, one-size-fits-all attitude that gets my ire.
It’s like they’ve reverse-engineered Henry Ford: “Customers can have an automobile in any color they want so long as it’s black.”
Unless Trump/DOGE stops them, your gas range is next in their crosshairs. Some cities already ban installation of new gas appliances or new gas lines.
I have a 25 yo Viking gas stove that’s never given me a problem. It’s a workhorse.
Our Thermador is 18 years old. The circuit board or some electrical issue has caused the bread/warming oven to not work. Main oven and gas burners are still excellent. Appliance support and repair can't be found for it. Np. Adapt
Thus far, President’s Trump and Musk don’t seem concerned with excessive regulation of household appliances.