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Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 5:22 am
by Enzo
Pressing buttons.

I see buttons everywhere. Here we have an elevator, that is how we get to our fourth floor. If the elevator is out, I'll just stay downstairs. I find one of my knees hurts when going down stairs, and the other hurts when going up stairs.

I press the button and it lights. I hear the inner workings of the machine, and eventually, DING, the door opens. I know logic systems and relay systems, so I am aware that pushing the button repeatedly does not bring it sooner, but still, it is cathartic to press the button extra times. I am not alone in this. When I go to my cardiologist on the 7th floor of the hospital, I press the button for UP. Everyone who then comes along also presses the already lit button. And if impatient, several more times.

There are buttons inside the elevator, pick your floor, of course, but also open and close buttons. I have heard debate whether the door buttons really do anything. My experience is they indeed work as expected. Here in the home, the OPEN button will hold the door open or stop it in mid-closing. And the close button indeed closes the door, saving me oh endless extra seconds of waiting.

I live on 4, the top. I called for the elevator once, and up comes a lady. I expected her to get off, but she stayed on. "Going down?" I asked. Yes, she said. She was on 3, and the elevator was on the ground floor. SO she pressed UP because the elevator had to go UP to get to 3, or so she reasoned. She was genuinely surprised when it continued up to 4. I doubt my attempt to explain the arcane function of an elevator sank in.

Sitting at a traffic light, I looked to the side and a woman was standing at the light pole continuously pressing the WALK cycle button. I assume it was not ignoring her, but just playing hard to get. The light changed in our favor, and I never found out how the woman fared.

Sometimes my computer locks up, I have no idea why. I find myself pressing ESC repeatedly, and any other buttons I think might help. They never do, but what is a man without hope?

SOmetimes the news presses my buttons. I get angry at people in power screwing with people who have no ability to fight back. Wring can tell you I get upset. And those guys that rip off little old ladies with scams, I want to perform their sex change operations.

(Sorry, I have had maybe one too many vodka and limeade drinks. Tasty though)

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:20 am
by Мастер
Enzo wrote:I know logic systems and relay systems, so I am aware that pushing the button repeatedly does not bring it sooner


I’m not sure that that’s always true anymore. The building I used to work in had a bank of lifts, and sometimes one zipped right past us, even though the button was pressed. (Overloaded already? Part of some overall intelligent planning algorithm?)

So I think sometimes they have some microprocessor controlled planning system, and I’ve wondered if the number of times the button was pressed might be an input.

That’s for a bank of lifts, though. If you only have one, I don’t think it will matter.

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:39 am
by Heid the Ba
The Mem used to work in a building with a bank of lifts which did that, there was some programme which was designed to optimise efficiency and minimise waiting. Whether it did or not nobody believed it did.

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 10:22 am
by Lianachan
I used to do bits and pieces of work in a building near Manchester which still had an old paternoster. Weird to use, but no buttons!

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 10:41 am
by Heid the Ba
I have used these but not for about 20 years, they used to be common in Spain.

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 12:05 pm
by Arneb
My father once or twice took me for a paternoster joyride. I held onto him tight because I was fearing the cabin would be turned upside-down when it turned at the upper end. We survived.

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 2:13 pm
by Enzo
Last time I saw one of those I was a kid, but I remember being in some large warehousish place, and they had open steps version that ran continuous, guys grabbed a work order of some sort and stepped on the thing and off they went, through a hole in the ceiling. Now that I think about it, I think it was a large urban parking garage, and the valets used it to get to various floors.

I do recall as a kid in the early 1950s, some urban department stores downtown, and some office buildings, the elevators had operators. A uniformed guy ran the elevator. You enter the cab and tell, him your floor. He didn't have floor buttons, he had a large up/down lever. He'd sometimes have to tweak at the floor if he didn't stop dead on. The doors were not automatic. Arriving on a floor, the operator would first open the cab door, which was a metal lattice, like an expanding baby gate on a stairwell. Scissors gate? Accordion gate? ANyway, you could watch the interior of the elevator shaft moving by.

Open the inner gate, then a lever opened the outer door. I recall many of the outer doors had windows, so you could watch the cabs coming and going or even passing right by.

Some operators stood, some had a stool, and some cabs even had a fold down seat on the wall. Oh, I can't hear the sound track, but this shows most of it:

Watch on youtube.com

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 3:16 pm
by Lance
I've never even heard of a paternoster before. I never knew such a thing even existed.

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:22 pm
by Enzo
And if you ride one three times, it absolves you of your sins until your next confession.

Go in peace...

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:21 pm
by Lance
But will it try to bend me over its knee and pat my bottom, like Father did?

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:26 pm
by Arneb
I already told you it doesn't bend over. Just come in and be calm. Relax, boy.

Re: Buttons

PostPosted: Sat Sep 01, 2018 1:42 am
by Lance
Well, okay, I suppose... But, what are you going to do with THAT?