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How Government Wrecked the Gas Can
- bob1029 6y agoAnd the plasma TV. I have a backup Panasonic plasma sitting in storage for when my current one goes out.
- caslon 6y agoIt wasn't government that destroyed plasma TVs; it was LCDs being significantly cheaper to produce and sell, and now OLEDs having eliminated most of the drawbacks of every other format.
- bob1029 6y agoShow me an OLED that lasts 100k hours and I'll put my plasmas on the curb for trash pickup right now. Also, it was definitely regulations that killed plasmas. I was working in retail when this all was going down. https://eepower.com/news/california-approves-new-energy-efficient-tv-regulations https://eepower.com/news/california-approves-new-energy-effi...
- caslon 6y agoModern OLEDs do last over 100k hours. http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2016/06/133_206377.html http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2016/06/133_206377.htm... California is a single state, and plasmas failed to keep traction anywhere, despite still being sold everywhere else. It was price that killed plasmas. That said, I don't recommend throwing out your plasmas. They're a neat technical artifact, like CRTs (which many people would argue are better than both plasma TVs and LEDs). Hold onto them!
- bob1029 6y agoIf you are Samsung or Panasonic, and the largest state economy in the wealthiest market on earth is talking about banning your products, you might start considering alternative strategies too, even if the other 49 economies don't care. California banning something is effectively a national ban for a lot of products. There isnt a manufacturer that makes TVs just for the US plains market. This is economically infeasible from a manufacturing standpoint.
- wil421 6y agoI went back to riding a horse because a horse’s lifetime is 30 years and I was only getting about 10 from my last car. Sarcasm aside, plasma TVs had horrible burn in, weighed a bunch, and suffered from reflection issues due to the glass screens. Not to mention LCDs quickly became much cheaper. The issues with OLEDs are either already solved or much better than when they first came out, such as burn in.
- nicbou 6y agoI found it weird that a generic foundation with a generic website would post such an unexpectedly opinionated article. Sure enough, it's politically motivated. > The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is a libertarian economic think-tank in the United States dedicated to the "economic, ethical and legal principles of a free society." FEE publishes books, daily articles, and hosts seminars and lectures. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Economic_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Economic_Educat...
- caslon 6y agoIf the tone of this article seems off to you, congratulations! You've got a good sense of media awareness. The FEE is funded by the remaining Koch brother and a foundation that gave the founding funds to the Ayn Rand Institute. Unsurprisingly, what follows is a very conspiracy-leaning article.
- jtbayly 6y agoIt's not conspiracy leaning. It's fact. Gas cans don't work because the government doesn't let you have a vent on them anymore. I used to have gas cans that work. Now I can't get one that works. Fact. Edit: And most of the attempts to work around the problems of auto-closing end up causing the user to get gas on themself in the process of attempting to make the stupid broken government-can to work.
- numbsafari 6y agoWhat do you call this? It works better than any can I had growing up. https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/no-spill-gas-can-125-gal https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/no-spill-gas-can-1...
- jtbayly 6y agoI call it the least worst option. I call it the requires-2-hands-to-accomplish-what-I-used-to-be-able-to-do-with-1-hand can. And no. It's not better than a simple spout and vent can.
- maxerickson 6y agoWhat are you doing with your other hand that is important during the 30 seconds you are pouring gasoline? I guess it's unfortunate for you that other people have different priorities in gas can design.
- jtbayly 6y agoYou can ask the ADA why this might matter. And no, this gas can still doesn't work anywhere near as well as the one I used to be able to buy. I'm still far more likely to overfill, just for example. And it's still far slower. Quit gaslighting me. Edit: I'm really out after this edit. What I mean by gaslighting is the absurd pretending that this new style of gas can works better than the old style. You want to know what I might be doing with my other hand? How about holding the lawnmower still? Or tipping the blower so that I can get the can nozzle into the proper hole and see when it's getting close to full? Especially with such a stubby spout, this sort of thing becomes even more important. Yeah. Quit gaslighting me. I'm not crazy for thinking the new cans are worse in every respect--even the best of them.
- jacknews 6y agoThankfully, I think a whole generation (and every one after) won't care about gas cans, or gasoline. Thanks in part to government policy, research funding, and subsidies, that have enabled market-based innoavtion in solar, batteries, etc, to the point of being practical alternatives. They might care about mega-corps blaming government for absolutely everything.
- ppf 6y agoAnd that might be the biggest plot twist - a government-mandated switch from something that works, to something badly thought out with large unintended consequences.
- jacknews 6y agoFossil fuels work if you want a big chunk of life on earth, and possibly humanity, to join them.
- ppf 6y agoI suppose it depends what you think is the bigger calamity - CO2 emission, or energy scarcity.
- jacknews 6y agoThere's no energy scarcity, only a choice of whether, and how, to produce or obtain it. For example, open-cast coal mines, and coal-fired power stations fed by them, are among the cheapest (and most environmentally damaging) ways to generate electricity from fossil fuel. it's now actually cheaper, over the lifetime of the installation, to cover that land with solar panels, than to dig it up and burn it. Fossil fuel, as the name suggests, is dead.
- ppf 6y agoThe only way that it's possible for energy-containing raw materials to be more expensive than complex, manufactured sources of energy generation, is government interference (and the corresponding lack of in the places that the solar panels and the like are actually manufactured, as well as an abundant source of fossil fuels to power that manufacture).
- pdkl95 6y agoThis article is unabashed pro-free-market, anti-government propaganda. From the author bio at the bottom of the page: >>> Jeffrey Tucker is a former Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is the Editorial Director at the American Institute for Economic Research, the founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, economics adviser to FreeSociety.com, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, and author of five books. FEE - libertarian economic think-tank AIER - free-market think-tank with publications titled "The Real Reason Nobody Takes Environmental Activists Seriously" and "Brazilians Should Keep Slashing Their Rainforest", and recently promoted 'herd immunity' without lockdowns as a COVID strategy. [1] freesociety.com - libertarian project Acton Institute - promotes laissez-faire economics in Christian framework Heartland Institute - conservative/libertarian think-tank known for working with Philip Morris to discredit the risks of "secondhand smoke" and promoting climate change denial. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_for_Economic_Research#Policy_positions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_for_Economi... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute#Policy_positions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute#Policy_pos...
- ppf 6y ago> pro-free-market, anti-government propaganda Indeed, it has become apparent that the supposedly liberal and free-thinking minds at HN are increasingly in support of government control of regulations and markets.
- kenmacd 6y agoAre you suggesting an entirely free-market approach is the right answer, with not even any safety regulations on products/industry? Also when did liberal and free-thinking mean someone was supposed to be in support of allowing costs to be externalized on to others?
- ppf 6y agoProponents of green energy and electrification of various domestic items are perfectly willing to support externalising various costs onto others, just to give one example. Edit: Allow a lithium mine, or a rare earth processing plant, or an electrical waste site, in your back yard, and be happy that it provides employment for those around you, and then we can talk.
- rognjen 6y agoIf you need further proof that the article is wildly biased, just look at the downvoted comments. At time of writing, all comments disagreeing with it are in the negative.
- josephcsible 6y agoMost people agreeing with an article means that it's biased?
- rognjen 6y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man Having all comments that disagree down voted means that it's biasedand likely astro turfed.
- josephcsible 6y agoIf an article said 2+2 is 4, and people commented "no, it's 3", "no, it's 5", and "no, it's 6", they'd all get downvoted. Would you say that article is biased and astroturfed too?
- thatguy0900 6y agoFor the record, I was watching Wranglerstar review videos on youtube in the background and saw a gas can comparison which led me down a rabbit hole that I found interesting enough to share. No astroturfing boogeyman here.
- JoeyBananas 6y agoDrill a hole in your gas can. Problem solved.
- 15charlimitdumb 6y ago^ drill a whole a small hole and add a cap for pennies https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U7YLKNU/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U7YLKNU/
- tmaly 6y agoI just unscrew the nosel and end up spilling gas all over the ground in an attempt to fill my lawn mower.
- Splognosticus 6y agoTook me a while to find a source that doesn't have such a blatant axe to grind, since they're evidently spamming this article everywhere. Turns out the spillage they're referring to isn't what we think of as spillage, but the fumes from the vents, which is why they're gone. https://web.archive.org/web/20140816134507/http://www.turfmagazine.com/article-2742.aspx https://web.archive.org/web/20140816134507/http://www.turfma... I rather suspect the real reason gas cans suck now is that this is the cheapest design that satisfies the requirements and nobody cares enough about gas cans to bother ordering one that works better.
- thatguy0900 6y agoFor the record, I was watching Wranglerstar review videos on youtube and saw a gas can comparison which led me down a rabbit hole that I found interesting enough to share. The video itself is a few years old. It's funny seeing the conspiratorial comments on here about downvote brigades and spamming articles, because I tend to think that way about things too.
- Splognosticus 6y agoYeah, I've heard people complain before about how gas cans suck now because California, but never cared enough to bother looking into it. It makes sense though that the regulations would be about air quality, since that's a significant issue in a state with such densely-populated areas.