You are on any floor other than the ground or top, and want to call the lift. There is an up and a down button.
Turns out that for all these years Mrs C (and on a little wider investigation, others) think those buttons do one thing, and I (and on wider investigation nobody else yet) thinks they do another.
So I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Me: You press the up or down button according to which way you want to go
Her: no, you press the button to CALL it to you, so "up" if it's below you and "down" if it's above you.
Me: How do you know where it is?
Her: There's lights above the door to tell you.
Me: Not always
Her: Have you put the bins out yet, and there's hoovering to do you know, it's nearly Christmas.
Hmm. Which way do you think lift buttons work, chaps? And if you are surprised by one of these ways of looking at it, ask others in your circle and see if it's widespread, just out of interest?
Edit: I kind of hope we're both right, depending on ...um...techy stuff to do with lifts.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Sun 23 Dec 18 at 10:38
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Well, I’m definitely with you. And I know that’s right, as when the lift arrives it’s going the direction I want :) Does Mrs C often find that the lift’s not going in ‘her’ direction when it arrives...?
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Like it Crankcase..so typical of married life..anyway I take the nuclear option..
I press both up and down buttons ...well it works for me.
PS...I put the bins out Wednesday and did the hoovering yesterday.
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....as might this...
www.relate.org.uk/
;-)
Last edited by: tyrednemotional on Sun 23 Dec 18 at 11:07
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Same as you, up if I want to go up.
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Seriously had a senior manager complaining that it was a waste to have the button for the floor you are actually on, in the lift! I really wonder if she thinks there is a different lift for each floor!
Our head office has a number of lifts and an iPad like device where you select the floor that you want. It then tells you what lift to use based on the number of people going in the same direction. At rush hour it does make a difference.
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I read about a condition (the name I don't remember) but you press the button for the lift. The you press it again and again and again as if you think the lift is gonna come quicker. Which it won't.
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It only comes quicker if you press the (wrong) button very herd for a long time.
That's what Mrs Too does anyway.
8o)
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Slightly off topic, but I always smile when I get in a lift and notice it’s a Schindler’s Lift
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....do you know, I was going to post that some 10 minutes or so ago. :-)
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I always comment on that, but never about the consonant.
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It's a bit worrying that your wife hasn't noticed that her method frequently has her swimming against the tide.
I know several double-button-pressers. That just delays things. Lifts aren't usually great conversationalists but most know their job and some are quite clever.
My favourite though is the paternoster, which doesn't need to know very much at all.
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...funnily enough, the only paternoster I've ridden is in fact a Schindler's lift!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYbyaj4G9FM&feature=youtu.be
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>> ...funnily enough, the only paternoster I've ridden is in fact a Schindler's lift!
>>
>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYbyaj4G9FM&feature=youtu.be
>>
That's the only one I've been in too. I'm surprised there aren't more by now, it's been there 50 years.
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I was at Newcastle University when there was a fatal accident involving the Paternoster lift in the building where I had all my lectures. It was never used again.
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Just out of interest since my girlfriend was at Newcastle...
The fatal accident was 1975.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1243/PIME_PROC_1980_194_016_02?journalCode=pmea
The accident resulting in it being taken out of service was in 1989 and non-fatal.
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>> Just out of interest since my girlfriend was at Newcastle...
>>
>> The fatal accident was 1975.
>>
>> journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1243/PIME_PROC_1980_194_016_02?journalCode=pmea
>>
>> The accident resulting in it being taken out of service was in 1989 and non-fatal.
>>
>>
I was there in 1975. It was never used again in my time there (left in 1978) but I didn't return to test it out after I had graduated!
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I press them all - and get in the first to arrive. :-)/
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I used to work for a company in Germany that had a paternoster lift. It was of course more or less compulsory to "go over the top" and while doing so stand on your head to pretend that was how it worked if demonstrating its use to new starters...
When you then invited them to try it for themselves they were always nervous !
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British European Airways had two of them at their Heathrow base.
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I've now hoovered the bins, so thanks for your answers. I just need to find a judicious time to read them out. The year will need to start with a 3.
I did learn something though, thanks to the linked article. I didn't know about the lights staying lit and indicating which way the lift is about to go, or that both lights on mean "whatever you wish, sir, I'm at your disposal".
I have to be careful here. Once I read "on the Internet" that UK pedestrian lights have a rotating cone under the box the button is mounted in (you can google this, first hit) for the blind/deaf to know when the little man is green.
I announced this fact proudly and was challenged. On all the crossings we've subsequently checked (not that many, I admit) there has been no cone, and a certain uxorial smugness has appeared.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Sun 23 Dec 18 at 13:16
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. And I know that’s right, as when the lift arrives
>> it’s going the direction I want
Does that make a difference? Does an earlier call for one direction take priority over someone who wants to go in the opposite direction? Having stopped an up-lift, can you make it go down, or does it respond to the calls in order?
I've never actually thought about this, never normally bothering with lifts, but I think basically I'd agree with Mrs C - you call the lift from where it's coming, not from where you want to go.
Like a bus or a taxi :)
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I think that whichever button you press, and whatever the indication of direction inside the lift, then, unless there is a call from another floor, the lift will redirect as soon as you select the floor you want.
Certainly this is the case at our local Integrated Care Centre - Mrs Too has tested this!
Though not all lifts are the same.....
Last edited by: neiltoo on Sun 23 Dec 18 at 15:29
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Where she used to work they had a small lift, not used very much. She reports that on exiting at say the second floor, after the doors closed you could hear the lift disappearing to another floor, with nobody calling it. On returning to it, even if not used in the meantime, the lift would then not be where she left it, if you see what I mean.
I wonder whether in general for a busy lift there's some algorithm that assumes more people will call from the ground floor so it will "rest" there. And further, whether it even be might be time based, so that during busy times a system with multiple lifts might "know" it needs to service ground to floor ten more often, or some such, and deploy the lifts accordingly.
I suspect levels of complexity may, or at least could, lie hidden here.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Sun 23 Dec 18 at 15:40
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>> Where she used to work they had a small lift, not used very much. She
>> reports that on exiting at say the second floor, after the doors closed you could
>> I wonder whether in general for a busy lift there's some algorithm
Commonly I think. Multiple lifts will spread themselves around, and prioritise ground floors or upper floors for waiting according to when it is starting time or finishing time in offices for example.
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>> Commonly I think. Multiple lifts will spread themselves around
That's pretty cool. Are they programmed by someone initially doing a time and motion study, or is there some "learning intelligence" in an embedded system, or perhaps both of these are options?
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If a lift is en-route from one floor to another, it will stop at all floors where there is a call for the same direction. If you press both and insist on getting on the first lift, you may well go the wrong direction.
>>Multiple lifts will spread themselves around
Left to their own devices lifts will all gather together at busy times. As do buses. Therefore the lifts have algorithms to stop that happening.
The newer multiple lift systems with a single control panel will tell you which elevator to wait at, will schedule that elevator and only stop at those floors it schedules. Typically there are no floor buttons in the elevator. Press the wrong direction button on a floor, and you're going that way whether you like it or not.
Pressing both buttons merely causes unnecessary and unhelpful stops and slows the entire system down.
Guess who did a contract at Atlas Schindler in Rio?
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I just knew someone would have worked on lift systems here, which is why I posted. Thanks for that.
Hmm. Now, a way of factoring out double or "wrong" button presses, for efficiency? If Mrs C and Cliff in this tiny sample do it "wrong", then a bit of extrapolation to the world's lift using population results in a lot of people.
Maybe you'd need a camera and image recognition and all that, and it all gets out of hand for a fairly small and only faintly inconvenient problem.
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Ah well, if you are that interested.....
The simplest elevators, or those elevators installations where there is only one. are simple.
If you've got a call in the direction you are going keep going in that direction. When there are no calls in the current direction, go the other way. In both case always deal with the nearest.
When there are no calls then return to rest. The 'rest floor' can be set usually to the floor which has the most calls.
The next stage of complexity was to consider when an elevator would arrive at a floor and schedule accordingly. So if you called an elevator to floor 10, for example. If the elevator at floor 5 was already scheduled to stop and floors 6, 7, and 8, it might assign you the other elevator that, though further away, had only one intermediate step planned.
The problem with both of these is that the more frequently an elevator goes past your floor on the way somewhere, the better the service you will get. The basement, for example, is never passed and has to be scheduled on purpose. Typically that is why basements (including under office car parks) get such an awful service.
All of these systems involve some level of guessing.
Hence the newer installations where your request is changed from simply up/down and no further information is available until you get into the elevator and press a floor button. Now you must give an actual floor number before an elevator is assigned to your call.
This enables the computer to schedule all elevators based on their floor arrival time. Consequently whist you may wait longer to be picked up by an elevator, you will be delivered more quickly than had you been assigned the first elevator which may have had more stops to make.
In short, stop pressing the wrong buttons, it slows stuff down. The elevators know what they are doing.
p.s. a button is pressed or not pressed. It's a switch. It has no idea how many times it has been pressed, how hard you pressed it, or which curse words you used when you pressed it.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 23 Dec 18 at 16:10
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Thank you. That was indeed interesting. I do like a bit of faintly obscure stuff.
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>>
>> I suspect levels of complexity may, or at least could, lie hidden here.
>>
...see Sirius Cybernetics Corporation "Happy People Transporter".
;-)
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p.s. Do you know why elevators have mirrors?
It gives people something to do and something to look at and decreases their dissatisfaction at slow elevator rides.
True.
A similar reason for putting buttons at pedestrian crossings.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 23 Dec 18 at 15:57
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>> Does that make a difference? Does an earlier call for one direction take priority over
>> someone who wants to go in the opposite direction? Having stopped an up-lift, can you
>> make it go down, or does it respond to the calls in order?
>>
>> I've never actually thought about this, never normally bothering with lifts, but I think basically
>> I'd agree with Mrs C - you call the lift from where it's coming, not
>> from where you want to go.
Well, if you get in at the ground floor of an office block and people press floors 3,4,5,6,7,9 it’ll stops at all those floors on the way up so people can get out. If I get in at 5 when it stops and press floor 3 it won’t, in my experience, over-ride the already requested floors 6,7 and 9 before going to 3. But lifts may differ!
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What do the experts think about the policy of pressing the buttons on all the lifts, and then using the one that arrives first, or perhaps the one that arrives shortly after but doesn't discharge a surge of occupants?
Do they still use those suicide lifts with no doors that run continuously, and chop you in half if you try and slide under at the last minute?
I remember a school trip when there was much debate as to what happened at the top or bottom. Some boys argued that the cars were reversible and simply turned upside down as they went over a large wheel. Experiment showed that this was not true.
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On any sensible system with multiple lifts, the call buttons operate the system, not the individual lift, so it's unlikely they will all arrive.
It's possible that the programming will infer something from multiple presses - on a modern system there is a surprising amount of coding (relative used to work for Otis).
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The ones at the Hospital do that. One of the service lifts is dreadfully slow, so I generally try to get the quicker one.
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>> Do they still use those suicide lifts with no doors that run continuously, and chop
>> you in half if you try and slide under at the last minute?
>> I remember a school trip when there was much debate as to what happened at
>> the top or bottom. Some boys argued that the cars were reversible and simply turned
>> upside down as they went over a large wheel. Experiment showed that this was not
>> true.
>>
That's the paternoster lifts, see earlier in the thread.
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>> British European Airways had two of them at their Heathrow base.
They did, and apprentices, like me, always made a point of "going over the top"
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Unless medical conditions don’t allow, use the stairs. I only ever use a lift if it’s more than 6 flights...I’ve no idea where that random number comes from.
A nice bit of cardio free of charge doesn’t do you any harm
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Managed the Belfry Tower in Bruges last week. 366 steps to the top!
Tower is high for something built in the 13th century.
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>> Managed the Belfry Tower in Bruges last week. 366 steps to the top!
>>
>> Tower is high for something built in the 13th century.
Was up and down various parts of White cliffs round Dover on Friday, My fitness tracker reported an elevation change of +250 metres, my thighs agreed.
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Was that the Fan Bay Deep Shelter?
I did that in the summer time, those steps are a real killer! Nice and cool in the tunnels though.
I can't imagine running up and down them during a raid to man the guns.
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Nah I was checking out filming spots on the line from Dover Priory to Folkestone east. The hard from Samphire Hoe was closed due to rough seas and high tide (and a cliff fall) so It meant some of the hard work up and down footpaths.
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The Swaffham wind turbine at around 70m tall has a public viewing platform below the turbine room. 300 steps up a spiral staircase and the thing rocks with a whoosh every time a blade passes the column. I felt sorry for the member of staff that had to accompany every group of people that climbed it.
I see it's now closed to the public.
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>> The Swaffham wind turbine at around 70m tall has a public viewing platform below the
>> turbine room. 300 steps up a spiral staircase and the thing rocks with a whoosh
>> every time a blade passes the column. I felt sorry for the member of staff
>> that had to accompany every group of people that climbed it.
>>
>> I see it's now closed to the public.
>>
I don't think this turbine was closed to the public;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z1admiqNtg
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A nice bit of cardio free of charge doesn’t do you any harm
Humping GP notes all day...that's my cardio !
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>> A nice bit of cardio free of charge doesn’t do you any harm
>>
>> Humping GP notes all day...that's my cardio !
>>
And what, may I ask, does GP Notes think about all this humping?
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>> I used to work for a company in Germany that had a paternoster lift. It
>> was of course more or less compulsory to "go over the top" and while doing
>> so stand on your head to pretend that was how it worked if demonstrating its
>> use to new starters...
>>
>> When you then invited them to try it for themselves they were always nervous !
>>
With my ruddy knees I'm struggling to keep upright!
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We're on 30th floor of 32 in our NY hotel. This morning I got to front door and realised I'd left my hat in the room. Took best part of twenty minutes to get up and down again, mostly because, judged by number of stops with nobody boarding, the chambermaids seemed to press both buttons whatever direction they wanted to go.
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>> We're on 30th floor of 32 in our NY hotel. This morning I got to
>> front door and realised I'd left my hat in the room. Took best part of
>> twenty minutes to get up and down again, mostly because, judged by number of stops
>> with nobody boarding, the chambermaids seemed to press both buttons whatever direction they wanted to
>> go.
>>
Ah well, perhaps next time try the only lift urban myth I’m aware of. Hold the button for your floor plus the ‘>< close doors’ button and it’ll go straight to your floor ;)
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I was on the 30th floor of the Venetian Hotel in Vegas, they had "the jersey boys" on on the main theatre, so the lift music was songs from the show.
About three years later someone offered me free tickets for "the jersey boys" in the UK. I told them to stuff it where the colonoscopy goes.
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To be fair, that's a long time to be stuck in a lift.
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OOOooo Someone got a new wit kit for xmas.
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>> You're half right.
Its a good one
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Lifts and their buttons - PeterS
