@nsaspook

Nice link. Great discussion.

 

In all honesty, I hadn't considered this issue to be too relevant (other than its political implications) until I read this:

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ot-so-harmless-and-could-damage-human-health/

 

Could you please share your conversion factors? If you haven't done the math on the emissions, what odds are you giving on the bet?

This is a WAG.

 

Some regulations are way too strict but sometimes and by sometimes I mean every day people say <snip> the police and build <snip> like this.

This is in my mothers apartment and I still ain't sure what the flying squirrel they were thinking. And it is illegal as well. At least a meter from a sink unless there are special circumstances.

Mod edit, no profanity please.

 

This is in my mothers apartment...

Why'd she put it there?

 

Why'd she put it there?

Well she was an independent contractor in the seventies and it was the norm

 

Now it's TV defeat devices.

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...e-energy-efficient-in-tests-than-in-real-life

“The purpose seems to be to pass the peak luminance measurement test and then reduce luminance (and power) to get a better energy label ranking when the on power is measured,” the correspondence says. “All very clever and it is not dimming so much that it makes a huge difference, but does the commission consider this an acceptable practice or is this a non-compliant activity?”
...
More testing is planned to establish whether manufacturers are gaming television testing procedures. But “it wouldn’t take much for an unscrupulous manufacturer to install software to detect the unique ‘signature’ of the test and to then have the unit go into some sort of eco-mode and produce superior results (ie lower energy use) that wouldn’t occur under normal usage,” Horowitz said.

 

Those cads. Let's take the Samsung engineers and officials out back and give them 40 lashes with a cat-o-nine tails.

Where's a yardarm ... we can string them up!

 

“If deception is proved for TVs, there’s bound to be a fresh hoard of angry customers à la Volkswagen.”

So people are going to be upset that their TV is brighter and more vivid than it should be?

Personally I have never once considered power consumption a issue when buying a television or any other home electronics device or anything else for that matter. Well okay I have but it's always been on the other end of concerns asn in, 'how do I turn this damn things power up so it can work the way I want and expect it to?'

I have a 63" Vizio monitor in my living room that has that stupid brightness control that whenever it senses I am wanting a HD movie and want the brightness and contrast at its best the damn thing dims itself down unless I manually go in and and defeat in the settings and even then when in manual picture settings mode it still wont let me have 100% control of the brightness or other picture quality functions.

Cripes when I want to watch a good action movie I want radiation burns at 10 paces from the screen brightness and a sound system with so much wattage the whole rural neighborhoods electrical power dips every time something blows up!

 

I have a 63" Vizio monitor in my living room that has that stupid brightness control that whenever it senses I am wanting a HD movie and want the brightness and contrast at its best the damn thing dims itself down...

This is part of how they get away with the 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

 

Do you notice that the brightness control does not make the TV shows any more intelligent.

 

This is part of how they get away with the 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

Writing 1E+22:1 instead would've been more ergonomic and made this planet greener too...

 

Some people will b!tch if they were hung with a new rope.

Who set the testing standards? Who controls the tv once it's in the consumer's hands?

Remember WVU's statement that the diesels could have emissions 40 times greater. Well, is it or isn't it? Being the whistleblower, does WVU get a portion of the fines? I could be 12 years old, but I'm not. The evidence may show excessive emissions, the tests will change to reflect a hindrance to those who cheat ... even those who bought after market products for their diesels. All they proved was an anomaly. Till someone tracks down the code, it remains an anomaly. Do I think they cheated? Quite possibly. Did some independent people review WVU's work to guarantee it was done properly? I haven't heard of anyone. The CEO fell on his sword, which could be a PR move to show the board has taken some action.

The same with Samsung. You have three parties involved, the manufacturer, the broadcaster, and the consumer. The standards to measure were set by the regulators. If you want different standards, change them.

Your computer may have an energy rating of X when it is setup a certain way. Once the consumer changes the setup, the energy rating could change.

Educate the consumer on ways to save energy, then get out of their way. You can be as green as you want. So can I. You'll take your battle into the body politics, change some laws, and add costs to the consumers products. You fight every opportunity for cleaner energy production when the word "nuclear" is mentioned, yet, places like France has 98% of their energy from nuclear sources. Sometimes I think some b!tch for b!tching sakes.

Hopefully, the truth will come out and we know definitively how the worked and end all the speculation.

With respect to ICCT's agenda, they have already issued a position brief patting the back of the EU for recommending RDE (Real Driving Emissions), the test being as close to real driving as possible, and urged the same "in use" compliance standards from the U.S. EPA. Samsung is now under the gun for "in use" compliance. You and your family could be next in line for accountability. Of course, the television repair people will have to charge more to repair the sets to ensure they are "in compliance", driving more consumers to procure new and increase the e-waste by dumping the old sets.

A member of ICCT, when asked if they felt vindicated by NPR, he stated vindicated was the wrong word. It's been reported that ICCT commissioned WVU to do the tests based on the earlier work in Europe. So, vindicated is the correct word, as they were hoping to confirm the earlier reports.

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/24/44305...in-west-virginia-caught-volkswagens-big-cheat
The International Council on Clean Transportation is a nonprofit that tries to provide independent science to government agencies that regulate the environment. It hired the university to do a standard emissions tests on diesel cars in the U.S. Volkswagen has been hyping diesel cars that are environmentally friendly and fuel efficient. Volkswagen had the boldest claims and the highest sales, but Thiruvengadam tested two VW cars and found that the claims of low emissions never panned out in the real world.

If it's not settled out of court, we might find the truth. If it's cheaper to settle, VW will, and the world will remain a mushroom, in the dark and fed $hit.

 

So they admit they cheated the system. The key piece of guilt was not the 40x emissions. The biggest violation was that their written description to the EPA that describes how their emissions control system works (essentially a block diagram of the logic) was deceptive. The certificate that goes with each new vehicle model requires this description.

VW had no way to argue that the software in the vehicle did not follow the logic flow that they said it did. Therefore, they admitted guilt. If you want to call that "falling on their sword", go ahead. I just think they are really bad at being Nobel Knights if they turn around and blame a rouge development team. But, hey, your view is your view. If it makes sense to you, run with it.

 

If you want to call that "falling on their sword", go ahead.

The CEO fell on his sword. Is that, plus the fines, all that the EPA will demand? If so, they will never find out how the cheat was done, but they will change the "testing protocol", trying to make it more "real life", but that too will fall short of reality.

The same actions will fall upon Samsung, once ICCT commissions another test.

The government already specified the tests and how to conduct them ... and yet they were fooled. Will Samsung's "in use" testing, already called a defeat device, succumb to the same PR nightmare and the same results? Probably.

 

The government already specified the tests and how to conduct them ... and yet they were fooled.

There is no "Fooling" involved. The current process with most government regulations works just like the IRS and your taxes. The company makes their own tests and files the results. Just like you do your own taxes and file the results. The key is, that most people make their best effort to do it right. The agency does spot audits but assumes most people do things right because the penalty is so big for blatant deception (fraud) that you just don't do it.

During the spot audit if you do it right, no problem. If you do it wrong and it is obvious that you made your best efforts, minor penalties and the errors are corrected. If you have defrauded the IRS, then all hell can break loose.

Like the IRS, the EPA allow (encourages) whistleblowers to alert the government agency of the problem. If you don't like the honesty-is-the-best-policy tact that the government has taken, you are free to campaign for higher taxes, bigger government and more verify-before-permitting. There are a few fools in this conversation and it is not the EPA.

 

Just kidding IRS.

 

Writing 1E+22:1 instead would've been more ergonomic and made this planet greener too...

You could compromise and use 10 sextillion:1.

 

You could compromise and use 10 sextillion:1.

But writing it that way will have to be accompanied by a NSFW ("Not Safe for Work") tag.

 

If so, they will never find out how the cheat was done

Could it be something as simple as :

IF road speed < X mph
   DO lowest-emissions engine burn
ELSE
   DO best-for-consumer engine burn

?
It could even be argued that such an algorithm would be beneficial in an urban environment by minimising emissions when the vehicle is crawling in heavy traffic.