I’m having a hard time determining exactly what this button is supposed to do:
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I worked in a hotel during college that used placebo thermostats in the conference rooms. The real thermostat had a locked opaque vented cover. The visible thermostat wasn’t hooked up to anything. We always started the conference rooms on the cool side because they would warm up once people got in there. Men’s and women’s businesswear often tends to be designed such that men’s is warmer than women’s. If you are talking formal wear, men’s is definitely warmer (coat or jacket) than women’s (bare shoulders and arms, etc.)
The other problem is that people tend to think of these control systems that if they turn it REALLY up or REALLY down it will make the change faster. So we would go into a room to clean up and find that the thermostat had either been turned all the way up to 85 or down to 55, and then forgotten and left that way. It was more cost-effective to remove the local control option.
I’ve noticed Pedestrian crossing buttons serve two purposes on my local intersections. One, they let the light know that there is a person there, even if there isn’t a vehicle to trigger the light with the electromagnetic sensor installed in the street. Two, they keep the light lit green for longer to allow enough time for a slow human to make it across safely.
Furthermore, the “Close” button on the elevators in the building I am in now actually work. No doubt there are placebo buttons in the wild, but more often the not, the buttons we push on a daily basis are actually wired to something.
It’s just a giant science experiment really. The mice will be along shortly to gather the results.
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It’s been suggested that 90% of office thermostats are placebos.
Especially if it makes a noise when you push the button, right?
Oh man, my previous favorite buttons were those new ones you see at crisswalks that give a little haptic click when you push them. So satisfying!
Sadly, they have been replaced by my new favorite button which is the new taptic trackpads on the new MacBooks. I feel conflicted about this because I am not confident that it actually qualifies as a button, as it doesn’t actually move…
One cool feature is that you can inform the button of the level of your impatience by pressing more than once. Swearing, however, is ineffective, as most buttons are not equipped with speech-to-text.
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In some places the placebo button is in the voting booth. Yes, King Nuttzoo was reelected for the 34rd time as King of the World by 98% of the vote.
The one next to my workplace even tells me “Wait.”
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Also, in many cases the idea of placebo buttons is mixed up with the fact that sometimes buttons exist, but aren’t connected for other reasons.
For example, some areas in my city don’t have traffic buttons at all, the crossing signals are entirely automatic. When a particular intersection is converted to full-auto, they’ll eventually replace the pole and/or remove the switch box, but it might not happen right away, as that costs money, but leaving a non-functioning button there costs them nothing.
Elevator door close buttons, commonly associated with “placebo buttons”, are invariably functional by default, but in some areas many buildings have the ‘close’ button disabled to prevent asshats from closing the door either on somebody.
I use crossing buttons and bicycle signal trigger buttons everyday that certainly do work.
The big intersection with nothing to trigger the left hand turn light if you are a bicycle and a blind curve on the other side of the intersection causes me to use the crosswalk. At 2300 nothing happens unless to use the button for the cross walk.
At the intersection outside work, if you don’t push the button for the straight through light, it won’t switch no matter how long you wait.
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