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The Placebo Effect Not Just On Drugs
dvdme writes "It seems the placebo effect isn't just valid on drugs. It's also a fact on elevators, offices and traffic lights. An article by Greg Ross says: 'In most elevators installed since the early 1990s, the 'close door' button has no effect. Otis Elevator engineers confirmed the fact to the Wall Street Journal in 2003. Similarly, many office thermostats are dummies, designed to give workers the illusion of control. "You just get tired of dealing with them and you screw in a cheap thermostat," said Illinois HVAC specialist Richard Dawson. "Guess what? They quit calling you." In 2004 the New York Times reported that more than 2,500 of the 3,250 "walk" buttons in New York intersections do nothing. "The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on."'"
I read an article in the Washington Post ~20 years ago about people waiting in lines. A hotel was constantly receiving complaints about the speed of their elevators. They kept tweaking the elevators, but the complaints continued to roll in (despite the quantifiable improvements). Rather than continuing to pursue the problem with technology, they turned to psychology and installed mirrors in the elevator lobby. Seems that if people have something interesting to look at (to them at least), the time passes more quickly and they do not notice that the elevators are slow. After they made this final change, the complaints stopped. I think about this every time I see a mirror in an elevator lobby.
In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they're not.
"most elevators installed since the early 1990's, the close door button has no effect"
and yet i frequently use the close door button to real effect in nearly every elevator i have been in in the last fifteen years including ones installed since 2000.
meanwhile, some news claims aren't factual but people believe they are because they are made by news agencies.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
the close door buttons DO work in our building (FWIW we have Otis) but there's a trick which I've experimentally confirmed: something has to trip the sensor between the inner & outer doors to make it think someone has gotten on or off. I can consistently (100x out of 100 tries) replicate the following behavior: if elevator stops on floor w/nobody waiting I simply waive my hand in the gap, press the close button & the doors immediately close/elevator continues - press the button w/o something having tripped the sensor & it just sits there till its normal timeout period.
individual results may vary but I've successfully been doing this for 10+ yrs at my current employer...
I keep voting and nothing new happens.
You joke, but during the Suharto regime in Indonesia (1967 - 1998) they held elections and a large part of the population thought they lived in a democracy as a result. They had a very large, and politically diverse, number of parties and they allowed them all to have rallies etc.
Come election day, nothing ever changed and the people were more content than they would have been without the illusion of political contention, it was very educational to watch.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
When I was a young-hacker, I worked as a bellman.. It was slack work except when tour busses came in and then it was a scramble to get luggage up to the rooms. It meant multiple trips with a full cart and no passengers... What I couldn't handle was the long rides down to the lobby stopping at 10+ floors to pickup additional passengers... I soon discovered that if I held the 'door close' button while the elevator was descending, it would stop at the floors where people had pushed the 'down' button but the door wouldn't open. The elevator would stop. Hesitate for about 1.5 seconds, and then start moving again. The unfortunate drawback was that outside of the car, the 'down' light would go out and the waiting passengers would have to press it again to call for another elevator. I then learned that I didn't have to hold the door-close button. If I felt the car slow down and managed to press the button before the car came to a full stop, I could trigger the override.
Eventually, I got a copy of a master key (which I still have) that allowed me to just put the elevator in service mode and didn't have to override anything.
With a straight face, yes Al Gore would have gone to war with Iraq in his first term.
The Clinton/Gore administration were hawkish on Iraq from 1993 on. The escalation of bombing radar, C2 and C3 nodes in the Northern and Southern No-fly zones were all Clinton policies. Desert Fox was a Clinton administration operation, and the Democrats were fired up in 1999 to start a war with Serbia and invaded Haiti in 1995.
Al Gore ran in 2000 as being more interventionist abroad than George W. Bush did
http://www.ontheissues.org/al_gore.htm
http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Al_Gore_Foreign_Policy.htm#Internationalism
Following the loss in 2000, Gore went to an oppose Bush policy mode from the spring of 2002 which continues.
I'll add another to your list. I'm a very small government conservative (against Department of Education, against even a large standing army, etc.). But I support socialized healthcare. Why? Because it's the only feasible pathway away from employer controlled healthcare. We've already killed the biggest noose employers put around their employees (pensions), the last big thing is health care. Once you strip that away from the employer you will see TONS of people starting up that small business they've always wanted to. Nothing will be better for capitalism in America than socializing healthcare. Mark my words. It's coming, and it'll be great when it happens.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
I'll add another to your list. I'm a very small government conservative (against Department of Education, against even a large standing army, etc.). But I support socialized healthcare. Why? Because it's the only feasible pathway away from employer controlled healthcare. We've already killed the biggest noose employers put around their employees (pensions), the last big thing is health care. Once you strip that away from the employer you will see TONS of people starting up that small business they've always wanted to. Nothing will be better for capitalism in America than socializing healthcare. Mark my words. It's coming, and it'll be great when it happens.
You state a problem ("employer controlled healthcare is a noose around employees") and jump to a solution ("make it free for everyone").
Why not come up with a solution that is better aimed at the problem? Like: Pass a law that says, "you want to be in the Health Insurance Game (i.e. Wellpoint, Cigna, Humana, Aetna, United Health, etc), you are REQUIRED to accept pre-existing conditions, and offer insurance to individuals."
In fact, the government could require standardization of plan offerings across the industry (much like the government dictates what "grade A Extra Large Eggs" are). The industry group - representatives from Wellpoint, Cigna, etc. (not the government "death panels") could define what a Plan A "The Insurance Company takes all the risk" through Plan Z "Insured is willing to take more risk". If we were all looking at the same "industry norms" menu, we could make logical decisions for ourselves.
Since I'm really only concerned about catastrophic, I would like to buy a plan Z, and I'll deal with my own minor issues.
Imagine this: right now I have a prescription for a daily medication that the insurance company is only willing to pay for one every four days. So somehow, when faced with the "buy it for $117 or pass on it", I get by without it. I am making economic decisions. We all should be making economic decisions. Now, this isn't a life-or-death decision for me, it's addressing a minor inconvenience. But I'm good with that.
I fail to see how paying for any idiot to walk into an emergency room because they have a headache is going to spur entrepreneurship!