This is why we should all leave the EU

[rolycat]

If people want to spend their money on 2kW hair dryers or 1000cc motorbikes and the fuel for them then regardless of me agreeing with their choice I defend their right to choose.

BTW I happen to have a 1000cc motorbike and it is f**king awesome.....

The miserablist pricks of the world who don't have 1000cc motorbikes feel better about it when no one else is allowed to have one.

What the more rabidly right wing contributors to this thread seem incapable of understanding is that the world is not divided exclusively into lovers of freedom and 'miserabilists'. I too have owned powerful motorcycles and enjoyed riding them.

But where do you draw the line with this 'freedom'?

Should we reintroduce leaded fuel in the spirit of liberty and freedom of choice?

The Ethyl Corporation spent decades burying mounting evidence that tetraethyl lead was a neurotoxin. Without government intervention they would almost certainly still be poisoning us with it.

[nctnico]

You didn't read the comments explaining the limit on vacuum cleaner power, which also explain why you don't really need a 2300W hairdryer when most of the world copes with 900W just fine

Missing the point. The world copes just fine without such nitpicking intrusive egomaniacal regulation. Especially when the whole premise of such restrictions is based on the false (actually fraudulent) premise of AGW.

Well governments learned from Greenpeace that preaching hell & destruction works better then trying to be sensible about not wasting energy. No matter how you look at it: we in Europe depend largely on Russia and the middle east for energy. Needing less energy makes it easier to come up with alternatives and lessen our dependancy on instable governments/regions. But hey, that would be a sensible reason.

I'm glad about the discussion on hair dryers. It appears there are more women on this forum than I expected!

[Rufus]

No shortage of hot water either but I'm rather pleased I don't have to stand around waiting twice as long to make it.

When did we start talking about heating water?  Is this to do with kettles?

When you started talking about + 200v countries and disproportionately large demand from appliances.

I sometimes dry my hair with a 3kW fan heater - nothing goes wrong. There is nothing to go wrong with a high powered hair dryer anymore than there is to go wrong using two half powered ones. The more power the faster it gets the job done.

Fallacy.  I have used ~1000-1200W hair dryers that I had to hold farther away because it generated too much heat to be useful in close proximity.

Fallacy because you have used some crap high power hair driers?

Perhaps Mr Coray quoted in the Telegraph article who makes his living drying people's hair knows better. He likes his 2.1kW driers and sums up with "The more powerful, the faster the blow dry – it’s as simple as that.” 

But, he is just some ignorant member of the general public. He needs someone smart and informed like you to tell him it is a fallacy and that SOMETHING IS WRONG even though he and his customers have managed not to notice it.

[miguelvp]

@mojo-chan, I thought you couldn't wait to leave the UK or did you change your mind and you rather stay in Europe?

[SirNick]

Fallacy because you have used some crap high power hair driers?

Fallacy because a crap high-power hair dryer can't put out more heat than a quality high-power hair dryer.  Assuming the same input voltage, heat is a product of resistance.  Any inefficiency would only result in more heat, which in this case is a useful product.  So, you're telling me that the tool in question, that isn't even the highest power available, is a poor example because it converts energy to heat too efficiently? 

Perhaps Mr Coray quoted in the Telegraph article who makes his living drying people's hair knows better. He likes his 2.1kW driers and sums up with "The more powerful, the faster the blow dry – it’s as simple as that.”

Out of curiosity, I Googled some hair dryer selection tips.  I found http://www.the-best-hair-dryer-reviews.com, which was ranked very high in the results.  Like many other guides, it recommended "moar power", but "less heat".  Hm.  Most of what I read was practically a carbon copy from one site to the next, so I'll just pick on these guys for a minute, since they had excellent placement, and lots of info.

Power. 2?000 watts – recommended if you’re looking for a hair dryer that heats well with a sufficient airflow to dry your hair fast.

Yet:

The power of hair dryers ranges from 1300 to 2200 watts. Please note that it’s not advisable to rush towards the most powerful models: if it’s for everyday use, you should be careful as unnecessarily powerful dryers might damage your hair or even irritate your scalp.

And, curiously:

The temperature of the hair dryer. If it’s hot, it means its resistance is depleted and thus might overheat or even damage the hair.

OK, maybe I can see why maybe having a 2kW dryer is wise - so as not to run out of resistance!

They also offered this stellar advice:

It must be said that DC Motors are manufactured in China and AC Motors in Italy, which says it all in terms of quality. Therefore they cannot be compared knowing that a 1600 Watt AC is equivalent to a 2000 Watt DC.

Who can argue with that logic?

In closing, your honor, do I think that.. maybe.. the hair salon guy is not qualified to understand the finer points of Ohm's Law and whatnot?  Yeeeaaah, I kinda think so.

But, he is just some ignorant member of the general public. He needs someone smart and informed like you to tell him it is a fallacy and that SOMETHING IS WRONG even though he and his customers have managed not to notice it.

YES!  You're starting to get it! 

[zapta]

What the more rabidly right wing contributors to this thread seem incapable of understanding is that the world is not divided exclusively into lovers of freedom and 'miserabilists'. I too have owned powerful motorcycles and enjoyed riding them.

But where do you draw the line with this 'freedom'?

Very good point. Freedom is not a binary feature and there is actually a continuum with freedom on one end and oppression on the other. Some people try to push the needle toward more freedom and some toward more oppression. This is how you get the division into the two camps. Hopefully freedom will prevail.

Leaving the EU is one way in which Britons can increase their freedom.

[rolycat]

What the more rabidly right wing contributors to this thread seem incapable of understanding is that the world is not divided exclusively into lovers of freedom and 'miserabilists'. I too have owned powerful motorcycles and enjoyed riding them.

But where do you draw the line with this 'freedom'?

Very good point. Freedom is not a binary feature and there is actually a continuum with freedom on one end and oppression on the other. Some people try to push the needle toward more freedom and some toward more oppression. This is how you get the division into the two camps.

Hopefully freedom will prevail.

Hopefully the right amount of freedom will prevail.

I really hope you don't want individuals to be free to murder without consequence, or corporations to be free to poison people for profit.

Limiting the freedom to harm others is not oppression, it is civilization.

Leaving the EU is one way in which Britons can increase their freedom.

Now there we have a meeting of minds. The EU is a bloated monstrosity of dubious economic value with far too little democratic accountability.

[dannyf]

But, he is just some ignorant member of the general public. He needs someone smart and informed like you to tell him it is a fallacy and that SOMETHING IS WRONG even though he and his customers have managed not to notice it.

A more likely scenario is that the smartie-pants types think they know so much precisely because they actually know so little.

[Rufus]

Fallacy because you have used some crap high power hair driers?

Fallacy because a crap high-power hair dryer can't put out more heat than a quality high-power hair dryer.

But a crap hair dryer can put out the same amount of heat in less air, perhaps you were mistakenly using a paint stripper.

<snip> irrelevant stuff about being able to find crap on the internet.

[gildasd]

What the more rabidly right wing contributors to this thread seem incapable of understanding is that the world is not divided exclusively into lovers of freedom and 'miserabilists'. I too have owned powerful motorcycles and enjoyed riding them.

But where do you draw the line with this 'freedom'?

Very good point. Freedom is not a binary feature and there is actually a continuum with freedom on one end and oppression on the other. Some people try to push the needle toward more freedom and some toward more oppression. This is how you get the division into the two camps. Hopefully freedom will prevail.

Leaving the EU is one way in which Britons can increase their freedom.

This shows to some degree that you are trying to shove your american centric concept of "Freedom" down everybody's throat.
Different places in  the world have different realities. One reality in Europe is that we are somewhat energy poor.
So If I am limited, as a consumer, to a 900W hairdrier, instead of a marketing friendly 2500W, this is just a small part of our nations struggle to slowly gain back every last grain of energy independence.
Or you might call it "Energy Freedom" in Murica, then paint your face blue, put on a skirt with no undies and  run around screaming while waving a plastic sword.
Until the cops come around to shoot you to protect "Freedum"

As Europeans, our governments will have to continue groveling to the Gulf states, Russia and America until we gain this freedom.

And this far more important than the freedom to burn my head of with a leafblower/heat gun combo.

[zapta]

This shows to some degree that you are trying to shove your american centric concept of "Freedom" down everybody's throat.

Freedom is a universal human value. Nothing American centric about it. It's sad that you see freedom as some foreign concept.

One reality in Europe is that we are somewhat energy poor.

Some more than others, France for example is an electricity exporter. Micro managing people life is not the only solution.

As Europeans, our governments will have to continue groveling to the Gulf states, Russia and America until we gain this freedom.
And this far more important than the freedom to burn my head of with a leafblower/heat gun combo.

Nice play on words. It's the old its-for-your-own-benefit argument.

[zapta]

They can always find someone to say what they want. It reminds me of the time when the EU said that bottled water couldn't claim to cure dehydration, and they managed to find a few doctors who apparently hadn't read the ruling to condemn it.

Those EU bureaucrats sounds like a bunch of busy bodies that tell everybody how to live their lives. Reminds me mayor Bloomberg's attempt to to limit the size of soda cups sold in NY.  Luckily the courts sided with freedom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_soft_drink_size_limit

[TerraHertz]

Rather than making ludicrous and unsubstantiated claims, could you point to a single scientific body with national or international standing which holds the phenomenon of anthropogenic global warming to be either false or fraudulent?
In case it needs to be spelt out, this excludes denialist propaganda factories such as the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Not wanting to derail this thread into _that_ argument, I'll just link to my 'global warming' archive of article links, sequential from around 2008 (when I realized Earth's archaeological CO2 vs temp record is flatly incompatible with the fundamental assumptions of AGW, and started looking into it) to present. Links mostly saved sequentially by date, newest at the bottom.
http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_links.txt
http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_quotes.txt
http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_stuck_ship_irony_info.txt
http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_CRU_emails_links.txt

A couple of amusing examples just in the last few days:
* Australian BOM caught red-handed dishonestly manipulating Oz temperature data records to create an apparent strong warming trend over the last century, while the original raw data actually shows a slight cooling trend. Then they were caught lying _again_, when making claims about their justification for the manipulation.
* Receding Swiss glaciers inconveniently reveal 4000 year old forests – and make it clear that glacier retreat is nothing new.
 


Getting back to hair driers, those cheering the 'ban it' mentality still aren't addressing the point that if you force people to use lower powered dryers, then the driers will just be used for longer. Basic physics - it takes a fixed number of joules to convert a set amount of water (in the hair) to vapor (in the air). Since the goal of someone using a hairdryer is to dry their hair, they'll just keep going until it is dry. So with a low power dryer they will simply use it for longer, with the same total energy use.

Same is probably true to some extent with vacuum cleaners. Less suck = more running it back and forth on the carpet. The 'less power --> longer use resulting in similar total energy consumption' relationship is probably more fuzzy (fluffy? cat-furred?) than with hair dryers. Conceivably the total energy consumption for a given cleaning job could even be higher with a less powerful vacuum cleaner. The banning mentality never takes the law of unintended consequences into account.

Someone mentioned paint strippers - yes, I wonder how any regulations to ban 'high power hair dryers' would differentiate from paint strippers and other such hot air blowers? I have a hot air gun that has adjustable power (don't they all?) and could be used as a hair dryer I suppose.
Personally I never use hair dryers for hair, despite having lots of hair. What I do use them for sometimes is heatshrink tubing and locating heat-intermittent electronics faults. For which the choice of power needed is mine, not some regulation's.

And in winter every cold evening I use a hairdryer for bed warming.
Personally I don't like electric blankets; prefer just a big pile of quilts. But getting into a cold bed isn't so fun. Getting into a cold bed and then immediately pointing a really high power hair dryer around under the blankets, warming up both myself and the bedsheets, is great. Just have to avoid airflow obstruction, and that's easily done by holding the dryer by the back end, with the fingers in a tent around the intake. But for this purpose, power and lots of it is best.

Do you imagine the ban-it freaks will make exceptions for that usage?
No I don't think so. Regardless that it only takes less than a minute to get nice and toasty.

[Kjelt]

@TH: you,re whole argument ignore the facts from the past that existing technology can be made more efficient thus requiring less energy to have the same end result.
Example: airconditioner with the new inverter technology. And yes there is a theoretical and practical limit to the efficiency of each technology, but we have not reached that by far for hairdryers and vacuuum cleaners.
Even the 50 year old or more handdryer technology was just changed by Dyson for instance. But it takes more money to investigate in new technology then using old technology. R&D for new technology creates new high paid jobs in the EU instead of a lot of jobs in China

[zapta]

Do you object to this kind of regulation?

Of course. If you have a law against false advertisement just use it. No need for a law for each particular case.

As I said, they are utopian busy bodies that micro manage people lives. Cherish your freedom.

...Clearly there is a need for it as your own ignorance on this issue has demonstrated.

Going personal is lame.

[SeanB]

Hairdryer is more about volume of air moved than heating it. You move a lot of warm air at something just above body temperature to dry hair. Having air at above 60C will degrade the hair when it is dry, and this leaves split ends and at worse burnt and brittle hair. Older Salon driers use 400W max, and move a lot of air to get the whole lot dry in around the same time, just keeping it under 50C all the time.

More power will mean you either have it further away to mix with cold ambient air or you are making your hair brittle.

Funny thing with the motors is that the last Bonfilioli AC motor I bought was actually made in Vietnam. The last DC motor was made in India. The last motor I had rewound was rewound in South Africa, and worked perfectly when put back in service. The oldest motors i have running in regular service are made in West Germany though, and have been running for over 40 years with absolutely no maintenance on them at all, aside from regular checks for loose connections in the terminal blocks. I had to convert one to external fan though when it was converted to inverter drive, as I was unhappy with the cooling it would have from the integral fan at low RPM, so added an external 120mm fan that replaced the fan. That actually moved more air than the original cooling fan.

[gildasd]

As Europeans, our governments will have to continue groveling to the Gulf states, Russia and America until we gain this freedom.
And this far more important than the freedom to burn my head of with a leafblower/heat gun combo.

Nice play on words. It's the old its-for-your-own-benefit argument.

Yeah, a play on words but also bloody reality.
And for the very same reason I object to people buying gasguzzlers. Their little appendage replacement mobile reduces the energy freedoom of the whole continent.
"But "Freedom" man" That ain't freedom, at best it's consumer choise and availability.
Freedom is my president being able to say "Fuck You" to Putin and telling him where he can put his gas.

In fact, you are so pushy for the so-called "freedom to waste energy and dig our trade deficit" that I would not be surprised you work for Gazprom, a speculative fund, BP, Exon, or have a closet wish to do so.

[zapta]

[And for the very same reason I object to people buying gasguzzlers. Their little appendage replacement mobile reduces the energy freedoom of the whole continent.

Objecting is one thing, outlawing is another. I am sure other people object some decisions that you make in your life.

Freedom is my president being able to say "Fuck You" to Putin and telling him where he can put his gas.

If that president stands for justice only when it's convenient he is a merchant, not a leader.

In fact, you are so pushy for the so-called "freedom to waste energy and dig our trade deficit" that I would not be surprised you work for Gazprom, a speculative fund, BP, Exon, or have a closet wish to do so.

You are wrong again.

The concept of personal liberty is threatening to some people. That's sad.

[gildasd]

Liberty, as a concept, cannot be absolute;

No liberty = Communist state.
Too much liberty = Sierra Leone around 1998

It must have a grammar, a code, a structure. a way for it to available to all.
It can be a magic book, sacred tablets, laws, rules or the "Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy" etc. You cannot have freedom without a method.
It's nuts to think that in can be the same at a molecular level (you or me) and at a macro level (humanity).

Absolute freedom is a void, it's freedom from freedom, it just does not make sense if you study it from a application point of view and not as an dogmatic or orthodox concept.
Concepts are great, and I imagine the way you define freedom is great. But in real life, you will find that you willl need to break your "freedom" rules.

As an example, if I type on this keyboard with absolute freedom I get:
"mkljerg)'tuipg,jia"hjt)^rçikfdsjg,eîonjbpe^rogqepinpemalazijfzandersonifjo^difftit'sngzkngz"
But If limit my freedom by applying "rules" such as grammar and spelling I get:
"I like Pamela Anderson's tits".

And for Pamela Anderson's tits sake, this is a electronics forum.
Electronics is all about using rules (Ohm's law etc) to have the freedom to do whatever you want.

[zapta]

Liberty, as a concept, cannot be absolute;

It doesn't have to be absolute, just push the needle toward more freedom, not toward more oppression as this EU regulation does.

[gildasd]

Liberty, as a concept, cannot be absolute;

It doesn't have to be absolute, just push the needle toward more freedom, not toward more oppression as this EU regulation does.

Then I might suggest you look in your back garden instead of pissing on our bushes.
I can, if I wanted to, strip naked, paint myself blue, run to the police station and shout like a maniac while standing on the bonnet of one of the patrol cars.
At most I risk being laughed at, end up on the Police station Facebook page and get told to go home.
Can you do that? In freedom central USA?

I value that kind of freedom far more that not being able to buy a de-orbiting thruster to dry my hair.

[zapta]

[It doesn't have to be absolute, just push the needle toward more freedom, not toward more oppression as this EU regulation does.

Then I might suggest you look in your back garden instead of pissing on our bushes.
I can, if I wanted to, strip naked, paint myself blue, run to the police station and shout like a maniac while standing on the bonnet of one of the patrol cars.
At most I risk being laughed at, end up on the Police station Facebook page and get told to go home.
Can you do that? In freedom central USA?
[/quote]

We have our own issues with attacks on personal liberty. I mentioned earlier the example of the soda cup size limit. In another example, my supermarket is not allowed to give or sell me a plastic bag with handles.

Oppression is a general problem. Nobody is immuned. Just recognize it and help pushing the needle away from oppression. This EU regulation pushes in the wrong direction.

[SirNick]

Getting back to hair driers, those cheering the 'ban it' mentality still aren't addressing the point that if you force people to use lower powered dryers, then the driers will just be used for longer. Basic physics - it takes a fixed number of joules to convert a set amount of water (in the hair) to vapor (in the air). Since the goal of someone using a hairdryer is to dry their hair, they'll just keep going until it is dry. So with a low power dryer they will simply use it for longer, with the same total energy use.

No, as usual, there's a point of diminishing returns.  While your reasoning is not technically wrong, it just fails to account for the upper bound (diminishing returns) and the typical consumer's ignorance prevents them from realizing such a point exists.  I'm not trying to say people are hopelessly stupid (although sometimes is as does), but not everyone understands the physical process, and at what point it becomes subject to external limitations.

Paint strippers have a higher threshold, and below a certain point they will be ineffective, so by necessity they have a higher power requirement.  Matching the appropriate tool to the job and moderation are the takeaways here.

More power will mean you either have it further away to mix with cold ambient air or you are making your hair brittle.

Ah, but sir!  Who would knowingly give up the freedom to have dry, damaged hair?

Really, though, gildasd hit the nail on the head here by pointing out the concept of "energy poor".  You can't have all freedoms at once, because by preserving one freedom, you tend to take away another.  Most of America (with occasional exceptions) won't have any frame of reference for this.  Your power outlet may not be capable of >2000W, but you can pull 1800W all day and all night, and that's not really a big deal.  But, speaking to some online acquaintances about things I take for granted (like choice in hard drives for a NAS, based on single-digit differences in idle wattage) has made me more aware of how things like this really make a difference to some people.

I.e.: Freedom is not a boolean value.  And also a finite resource.

[owiecc]

We have our own issues with attacks on personal liberty. I mentioned earlier the example of the soda cup size limit. In another example, my supermarket is not allowed to give or sell me a plastic bag with handles.

Do you really think this is a good example of attack on freedom? I think that was an attempt to not solve, but maybe mitigate, one of the biggest problem of America and most of "advanced" societies–obesity. It was a minute step, but a step in right direction.

We also have a ban in few cities on plastic bags in Poland. People were used to getting those for free. Consequently ll these bags ended up on landfills. Cities introduced minimum price so people switched to reusable bags. Problem of trashy bags solved. In Denmark I never saw these free trashy bags with handles.

Shouldn't you rather mention the Patriot act?

Don't you feel there is a limit on what you can do? Is driving a huge SUV freedom? Yes. Is driving a huge SUV, knowing that it burns a lot more fuel that a smaller car and knowing that you don't really need, but you just feel like having it, freedom?

[tom66]

Same is probably true to some extent with vacuum cleaners. Less suck = more running it back and forth on the carpet. The 'less power --> longer use resulting in similar total energy consumption' relationship is probably more fuzzy (fluffy? cat-furred?) than with hair dryers. Conceivably the total energy consumption for a given cleaning job could even be higher with a less powerful vacuum cleaner. The banning mentality never takes the law of unintended consequences into account.

This is why we need energy efficiency ratings on as many products as possible. The average consumer going into a shop cannot tell whether Vacuum A with 900W motor, or Vacuum B with 2000W motor will be the most economical, quickest, or efficient device.

Provide the consumer with that information, and they will begin to make informed choices. For now, it's just a "bigger is better" drive.

And yes, if the manufacturers design the product well, they can suck more with 900W than 2000W.

Same for hairdryers. Ever felt how hot the rear of the dryer runs? What if they altered the air path to direct more of the exhaust air towards the hair? Altered the fan design to more efficiently direct air over the heating element? And what about improving the insulation on the outside of the device? All those things can add up to improvements in efficiency. The overall heating produced by the device may be less, but more will be directed towards the hair, meaning overall efficiency can go UP.