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Comment by nothercastle | Hacker News Reader

Energy star like CAFE for cars was well intentioned but ended up driving all sorts of undesirable design practices to hit the ratings. Manufacturers especially in the high end chase the highest rating and design appliances that do a poor job of cleaning to hit the low water use target. In the end we all end up eating a bunch of unwashed detergent to save a gallon of water or using 10 gallons to pre and post rinse. That being said a lot of these problems could have been updated into the standard instead of killing it but industry groups didn’t allow that so now it’s going to die and everyone losses.

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> but industry groups didn’t allow that so now it’s going to die and everyone losses.

The fact that "Industry groups" like a regulation is an indication that they have managed to turn it into a means to reduce competition.

My dishwasher from the 1990s dried much better than the one I got in 2021, which required rinsing each dish after washing to get rid of the soap taste. It then broke after only 1.5 years. My new one is better, but still leaves dishes pretty wet and I still have to rinse a lot of cups to get rid of the soap residue.

Nothing to do with energy star. Modern Bosch Dishwashers use less water, wash better, and dry better, than your old 1990s washers.

In the same way that people think low-flow toilets are why their sh1t doesn't flush, instead of the proliferation of multi-ply super-thick toilet paper that are almost as bad as paper towels. It doesn't matter how much flow you have, if you flush a wad of cellulose that won't instantly dissolve like single-ply or thin-two-ply, you'll need to break out the augur.

And really, if you don't have a Toto Washlet or Japanese toilet, you're missing out. You barely need any toilet paper at all, and don't walk around with fecal particles wiped against your skin all day.

That is not related to energy star. This is the state of modern products. I have found that the price tier of well performing appliances usually has an above average price.

This is the dilemma: some things need regulation, but they need good regulation that evolves over time, and you can’t just throw money at that, you need good leadership to oversee it.

Deleting it is not a solution.

Part of it that allowing industries to essentially self regulate means consumer interest are never part of the regulation.

[citation needed]

I believe it; it's like the first decade or two of low-flow / flush toilets which were generally just terrible and ineffective.

Hopefully, like the toilets, a new standard rises that is based around how effective something is at it's primary job _first_, with efficiency in other areas then measured after completing the intended task.

The appliance industry found a hack to prevent or at least greatly delay consumers rejecting bad products by creating thousands of skus for nearly identical products that made identifying lemons nearly impossible. Similar to how Chinese brands on Amazon have the same name for 100 different nearly identical items.

> thousands of skus for nearly identical products that made identifying lemons nearly impossible

Also to prevent price-matching.

That too, tvs do that as well but at least it’s somewhat possible to compare and review them

That is where I expect care in product development. A standard is a number to hit and if a manufacturer takes care in their work the consumer should experience no degradation in quality.

Well said.

I have one of those "low-flush" toilets. I have to flush it twice, so I end up using more water than a regular toilet.

Looking at the averages, that's still less water.

This is a great microcosm example of this admin’s whole strategy.

There’s some issues with the current regulations. So instead of doing the work to fix the issues, they just abruptly cancel the entire program.

Baby. Bath water.

Canceling is easier than fixing, it may turn out to be easier to rebuild during the next admin than it would have been to fix so that’s one ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak outcome.

Yea, phoenix rising from the ashes or whatever. It's just kind of amazing how many people are convinced that "cancelling" is actually the "fix".

> during the next admin

During the what?

Trump isn’t seeking another term, he’s also quite old. There will be a next administration even with the most pessimistic outlook

Can't seek. Banned by Constitution.

Many things that are currently happening are also banned by the constitution.

Such as? Curious about examples that aren't currently winding their way through court challenges (as the Constitution intended).

There's bad stuff happening, but it's also being vigorously legally challenged -- and will sure as hell be challenged by Congress if House and/or Senate changes hands in 2026.

Deportations and indefinite imprisonment without due process comes to mind.

Disregarding SCOTUS decisions also.

Both of which are currently the subject of ongoing court cases.

Or are you thinking about an example that isn't?

> Both of which are currently the subject of ongoing court cases.

That’s a relief. It’s a good thing that he follows court orders against him, otherwise this situation where he doesn’t follow court orders against him would be a problem.

Examples?

If you're specifically talking about Garcia, that case is still active: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/05/08/trump-administrati...

And Trump is ignoring the courts. So now what?

I wasn’t going to challenge the poster on that but yeah there are legal hurdles. They aren’t immutable since we’re willing to using state of emergency and war declaration to sidestep normal safeguards. Death and disability old age is at the moment immutable.

As he said himself, “there are methods”.

Which is incorrect. It wouldn't be the first time he has failed to uphold the Constitution, and given his recent speed run to autocracy it won't be his last.

He literally has “Trump 2028” gear for sale on his official website and has explicitly said that he’s not joking about a third term.

> Trump isn’t seeking another term

Let’s look at it a different way—if he were seeking another term, would it look any different than what we are currently seeing him do?

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