The elevator close button isn’t a placebo. It’s just not for you. The “non-functioning” button is there for firefighters/emergency response staff, because in emergency mode the elevator stops operating on its own.
I am imagining ramps that would make to footpaths more like speed-humps. Cars have suspension, rather than legs, true.
Sometimes, the buttons only work at night, when signals switch to a traffic demand based timing system. I’ve also run into a few mid-block crossing zones that immediately begin a red light cycle for traffic when pressed. These buttons do work. I’ve pressed them. I’ve made the experiment and I’ve learned to alter destiny.
The buttons on the crosswalks here in Alpharetta, GA actually beep when you press them, then produce a lower-toned beep as a confirmation. I’ve noticed that most of the traffic lights here don’t allow for pedestrians during normal operation. If you stand there to watch the lights change, you’ll never get the opportunity to walk across until you press the button.
We’re neighbors! That was going to be my example, as well. The lights on Riverside are the same, they won’t go to a pedestrian cycle if the buttons aren’t pressed. At Gate 2/3 (and it’s this way near my home in Encino), if a car triggers the light, it only stays green for 7 seconds. If a pedestrian does, it’s green for nearly 30.
That’s when the elevators work at all - they sometimes just switch them off until everyone pays their electricity bill.
I wonder how much influence WB brought to bear on Burbank to make those lights as friendly as possible to Warner employees stepping out for lunch. I can’t remember the last time I was at another intersection where the pedestrians were given such a head start.
Burbank’s other traffic lights bug the hell out of me. They seem designed and programmed to keep drivers in Burbank as long as possible, catching every single red light. I have found one single stretch where driving at the posted 35mph limit gives one a series of green lights: westbound Victory Blvd after it crosses north of Burbank Blvd. Everywhere else, Burbank wants you to sit there and enjoy the smell of the idling cars in front of you. Also, for the longest time their WALK signals had no visible countdown, as so many LA signals do, and the green light would turn yellow the very instant the DONT WALK signal stopped flashing. By way of contrast, DONT WALK signals in the City of L.A. (including North Hollywood) would stop flashing a predictable interval before the light would turn yellow, thus providing the canny driver with a better guess about whether he should or should not attempt to beat the light. Burbank’s lights removed that critical little interval, making it that much harder to gauge the immediacy of the coming yellow light.
Plus, Burbank has too many traffic cops, IMHO. And there was a time about 10 or 15 years ago when my finances were kinda tight and I got pulled over three times in a week for expired tags (and consequently temporarily expired insurance). CHP pulled me over on the freeway in Riverside County, LAPD near Van Nuys, Burbank PD in Burbank. Got three tickets for the same violation. The fines cost me under $100 in Riverside, about $130 in Van Nuys (City of L.A.), and over $1200 in Burbank. In fact, the Burbank fine was more than the fine for a second-offense DUI.
I kinda hate Burbank for stuff like that.
Crosswalk buttons:
I don’t have a car, so I spend a lot of time walking and waiting at bus stops near interactions. Along with most of the other people commenting, I have seen many intersections where the Walk cycle will not show up unless someone presses the crosswalk button.
Are you sure? I think I remember an intersection that had a countdown timer but did not always include the Walk cycle and another that a button press would trigger the Walk indicator even if the parallel traffic had a green light. (I don’t live in the city where I walked a lot, so unfortunately I can’t double-check my memories.) There were also intersections with countdown timers that had no crosswalk buttons at all, but I could see a crosswalk button being disconnected without being removed.
Thermostats:
I had an office as a graduate student where the thermostat did absolutely nothing, but it was quite obvious. The problem with it was that it made a loud hissing noise unless you pushed on it and turned it to just the right spot. People enjoyed walking into other offices, bumping the thermostat, and then running away. One time it was so bad that you could hear it in the stairwells on either side (~100 ft away) even with the door closed. We hit it until it quieted and then put duct tape around it to muffle the sound and prevent people from messing with it. Facilities and maintenance thought this was a great idea and offered us more tape. Another office had the same problem, and as a joke, placed “toxic gas” signs on the door … the department secretaries were not at all amused.
I feel yah, man. Considering this new crosswalk they’re putting in across olive, I imagine the city very much loves WB, and that sort of influence is probably tangible.
You should wave to me if you’re ever near Stage 15. I’m the crazy glasses guy with the long hair.
Hey! I used to be the crazy glasses guy with long hair. But I just got it cut last week. So now I’m the slightly shaggy glasses guy over in Bldg 44. I’ll keep an eye out for you.
Same in San Diego – the city that hates pedestrians so much that half the intersections have chains blocking the curb from the sidewalk to discourage crossing (maybe common in some places, but nowhere else I’ve lived before) – no way are they going to waste time on a pedestrian cycle where they do have pedestrian crossings if nobody is there to push a button.
Most thermostats installed today in commercial buildings are either placebos or they can only change the temperature by a degree or two at most. Its mostly because we find people over-react. If they are cold, they don’t just turn it down a degree or two…they crank it to “55F”. If they are cold, they crank it to “90F”. Unlike your residential system that is just on/off, this will cause a chiller plant to go into overdrive and really start delivering the cold. This is a huge waste of energy and often causes the space to quickly over-shoot the truly desired temperature. Thus the occupant cranks it all the way up forcing boilers, furnace or some other heating system to kick in to heat the space back up that is just finished cooling.
Basically, people are dumb and your controls treat you as such. Sorry if you are one of the few responsible users.
Oh, the bag of ice on the thermostat won’t work, either. That box on the wall is just a controller. The thermostat is usually buried in ductwork far from where you can mess with it.
Actually, this reminds me of the ultimate placebo story. When I was first starting out, we had a very “difficult” secretary who was never happy as she was, uh, gravitationally challenged and always warm. The day she discovered that the temperature in her space was controlled by the thermostat in her boss’ office, holy terror let loose.
Well, the head of maintenance didn’t panic, he just encouraged her to take a day to work in another area while he installed a “thermostat” for her. On the appointed day, he took an old box fan, beat the blades to a pulp and installed it in the plenum above the drop ceiling above her desk. He turned it to “full” and ran the power cord down to a spot on the wall where he had cut an opening. He then pulled out a 60 minute timer and hooked power up to it and to the fan. So now when the timer was turned all the way on, it ran the box fan for 60 minutes. He put the ceiling back together and then covered the timer with something that looked like a dial thermostat.
When she returned, he showed her how it worked. They walked over and he showed her that the space was “85F”. He then turned it down to “65F” and we heard a whirring noise start above her desk. She sat down pleased as a peach. The rest of the summer, she would get up once per hour, declare “Look its up in the 80’s.” turn down her “thermostat” and then sit down pleased as a peach. He gave her perceived control without messing up any of the air-side balance or spending more than about $50.
I really wish our thermostats at work were non-functional. I work in a hospital where each patient room has it’s own individual temperature control. Some people like their rooms at strange temperatures. At least I work in the birth center and have the excuse of telling people “It’s kind of warm/cold in here for the baby, I’ll just adjust your thermostat.”
I see they mentioned the placebo T-stat. In my experience, those are pretty rare. (I’m a mechanical engineer, HVAC design.) I’d say the 2% number is closer to correct, although dummy thermostats are more common in low-end (read “sleazy”) office buildings. Higher end buildings generally don’t go in for such shenanigans, either because they’re actually reputable or because it’s more trouble for them in the long run to keep track of such things.
I remember one job where they had a large conference center, with 20+ conference rooms of various sizes served by only 5 or so air conditioning units. (There are of course better ways to do it. This was stupid, but cheap.) This was one of the aforementioned low-end buildings. They evidently had gotten tired of getting complaints when one conference room was in use while the room with the t-stat was empty (thus having little heat load, and nothing to activate the t-stat and air conditioning). So some bright boy went in and installed a dummy thermostat in every single conference room. Then, sometime later, he left (reason unknown, likely fired) without telling anyone which were actually the real ones. That kind of thing happens all the time. Maintaining secret knowledge is a good way (for certain values of “good”) to assure job security- or so some types think. They have no incentive to share said knowledge on the way out the door, and often keep it hidden out of spite or simple apathy.
Long story shorter, we came in later to redesign the conference center, and had to document the existing systems. We had to actually know which t-stats were active. Nobody was willing to pop the thermostat off the walls- we aren’t allowed (for Reasons), and the building maintenance staffers available were scared little bunnies afraid to touch anything more complicated than lightbulbs, lest they be blamed when something didn’t work. Cue a long bout of calculatus elimitatus, with one poor guy on the roof (it was summer in Houston- he definitely drew the short straw) holding a cellphone and watching AC units, while three others went from thermostat to thermostat saying “Did the RTU turn on? How about now?” By the time we were done, we were all ready to strangle that oh-so-clever former building engineer.
In more prosaic cases, in cases where the building didn’t keep the mechanical plans (incompetence, or deliberately destroying out of spite when a building changes hands and the staff gets laid off- happens far too often), we often count thermostats as a way to check our work during surveys. See a t-stat, there must be some associated equipment somewhere nearby. It is frustrating to have 7 thermostats, and only be able to locate 6 units.
Needless to say, I’m definitely not in favor of placebo thermostats.
On an unrelated note, +1 on the above comment about close door buttons and elevators in fire control mode. Firemen generally want full control of the elevators, in the cases where they can actually be used. They don’t want the elevator to close in their face if they need to leave quickly. Often, during construction for a full-building remodel, they’ll also switch the elevators to manual/fire operation, and station some guy inside the elevator with a radio to drive it up and down. Evidently it’s sufficiently useful for time/cost/security/damages/something to merit paying a guy to sit inside an elevator all day.
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I think this information may be Highly geographically contextual. At least here in Qld (Australia), crosswalk buttons being hit quite quickly lead to the lights changing for the pedestrians. If the button hasn’t been pressed and the lights are set to auto-timers, the pedestrian light won’t go on, and this affects turn lights for drivers.
Uh, are most of the people saying the elevator buttons in the USA don’t work from NY City, Chicago, L.A. or something? A good 80% or more of the buttons I’ve pressed in the elevator has caused the door to close immediately. No delay. Yea, the ones that do delay have always been suspicious. Older buildings. Grumpy guards.A touristy building.
The placebo button story is one that I see rewritten & refurbished every so often. Some places do intentionally make a placebo button, for example putting a thermostat in an office building that gives the illusion of control when everything is actually operated remotely half a continent away. I’d argue that the majority of non functioning buttons are a problem of wear & tear, and the placebo effect wasn’t even planned.
But the cross walk button? Improper installation & programming maybe, but never an intent. Crosswalks are dangerous and the lights are there for a reason. In my home town, pressing the cross walk button on a minor side street caused red lights for all of the traffic and walking lights for all four corners. For the major streets it caused a longer red light & more time to cross.
