{"id":184589768,"date":"2010-11-07T10:56:08","date_gmt":"2010-11-07T10:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=184589768"},"modified":"2010-11-07T10:56:08","modified_gmt":"2010-11-07T10:56:08","slug":"placebo-buttons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=184589768","title":{"rendered":"Placebo Buttons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>from Futility Closet by Greg Ross<br \/>\nIn most elevators installed since the early 1990s, the \u201cclose door\u201d button has no effect. Otis Elevator engineers confirmed the fact to the Wall Street Journal in 2003.<br \/>\nSimilarly, many office thermostats are dummies, designed to give workers the illusion of control. \u201cYou just get tired of dealing with them and you screw in a cheap thermostat,\u201d said Illinois HVAC specialist Richard Dawson. \u201cGuess what? They quit calling you.\u201d<br \/>\nIn 2004 the New York Times reported that more than 2,500 of the 3,250 \u201cwalk\u201d buttons in New York intersections do nothing. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<br \/>\n********************************************************************<br \/>\n[B&#8217; Spokes: Unlike here where you HAVE to push the &quot;walk&quot; button (and assuming the button actually still works.) Who again has the lower pedestrian fatality rate? Yep, New York.]<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/FutilityCloset\/~3\/-Ccv-of88ak\/\">https:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/FutilityCloset\/~3\/-Ccv-of88ak\/<\/a>oldId.2010110710560893<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from Futility Closet by Greg Ross In most elevators installed since the early 1990s, the \u201cclose door\u201d 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. \u201cYou just get tired of dealing with &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=184589768\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Placebo Buttons&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184589768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184589768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184589768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184589768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184589768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184589768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184589768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}