Anyone encounter other fake buttons, controls, etc put there to fake us out? How about other things like elections?

You can stop pounding on the “Close Door” button on the elevator. They’re not there for you. Turns out that most of them don’t work unless you’ve a maintenance person or fireman with the special access key inserted. It’s just one of several different “placebo buttons” placed around our world that only give us the illusion of control.

Walk buttons? In Manhattan they’re totally useless, as the New York Times reported in 2004. And most office thermostats are dummies, not connected to any system at all. In 2003 the WSJ detailed how they’re just installed by HVAC guys who are sick of office workers calling them up and complaining about the temperature.




  1. jbenson2 says:

    Another example of “They’re not there for you”:

    The Obama administration

  2. jbenson2 says:

    And the mother of all placebos:

    “No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

    Unless your employer finds it too expensive and cheaper to pay the penalty and cancels the coverage.

  3. KDaver says:

    The brightness control on every TV..
    When ever your watching something stupid..It will not make it brighter..

  4. ® says:

    The buttons on the voting machine. No matter which ones you push, large corporations / Wall Street control the US govt.

  5. IndyMan says:

    I’ve taken the thermostats off the wall at work. Some of them are indeed just a hole and no innards.

    I think it’s lazy design or maintenance. Not a subversive intent.

  6. Greg Allen says:

    >> jbenson2 said, on November 6th, 2010 at 5:57 am
    >> Another example of “They’re not there for you”:
    >> The Obama administration

    Oh, Obama is WORKING for you. Non-stop.

    He’s just not spoon feeding you empty three-word slogans like the Bush Administration did.

    Clearly, Americans prefer the slogans over the problem-solving.

  7. Greg Allen says:

    >> # 2 jbenson2 said, on November 6th, 2010 at 6:02 am
    >> If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health

    Under conservative health care, you don’t get to chose your doctor. A health insurance bureaucrat does. (Just happend to me.)

    The conservatives fought like hell against Obama to keep that system in place — and they won.

    And now the cons are whining about what they demanded to get!

  8. Greg Allen says:

    How about those sidewalk crossing buttons?

    In most cases, they light doesn’t seem to change sooner or stay on longer.

  9. Greg Allen says:

    Tangential but…

    What about signing on those electronic pads?

    Even if people looked at those signatures (which I doubt they do) they are such a scribble they couldn’t possibly useful for identity analysis.

  10. Haliburton No-we-can't bot 5000 says:

    #4 – I was thinking the same thing.

    #6 – “He’s just not spoon feeding you empty three-word slogans like the Bush Administration did.”

    hahaha

  11. jbenson2 says:

    #6 wrote: He’s just not spoon feeding you empty three-word slogans like the Bush Administration did.

    You’re right. Obama is spoon feeding us with 19-minute long answers to simple yes/no questions. And the dumbocrats think this is a wonderful change from Bush.

    Even Obama admits he has a “messaging problem”.
    http://bit.ly/9RacDt

    And his critics (the majority now) say his comments are becoming “incoherent”.
    http://bit.ly/9flJdx

  12. bobbo, but to be fair says:

    We could add airport security as per the next/earlier blog post.

    JB: proving there is a web link supporting any bumper sticker slogan/smear attack the Puke’s vomit forth–most recently the 200 Million per day travel costs to India also on the blog.

    Pukes and their Followers: too stupid to believe which is 90% of their political power.

  13. Greg Allen says:

    jbenson2 said,

    Let me see if I understand you properly — the people who gave us Sarah Palin and George W Bush think Obama speaks poorly?

  14. Greg Allen says:

    How about the light-brown knob on the toaster?

    Even though it LOOKS like a rheostat, I swear it’s just an on-off switch.

  15. skeptic says:

    CFL’s and the illusion that they save energy.

  16. chris says:

    I’ve seen non-functional emergency stop buttons by the seats of a roller coaster.

  17. jbenson2 says:

    Bobbo wrote: JB: proving there is a web link supporting any bumper sticker slogan/smear attack the Puke’s vomit forth

    Bobbo, you are a blithering hypocrite. When someone nails your ass with an argument, your usual lame response is to say: “Citations please”

    When someone beats you to the punch with additional source material from the Washington Post and CNN, you try an irrelevant rejoinder which makes no sense.

    It is highly enjoyable to watch you squirm, however.

  18. jbenson2 says:

    Greg Allen wrote: Let me see if I understand you properly — the people who gave us Sarah Palin and George W Bush think Obama speaks poorly?

    Yup, along with millions of dumbocrats who have also seen the light. Obama is a one-term loser.

    By the way, your psychiatrist called. He wants you to increase your meds. Your B.D.S. is still raging out of control.

  19. Cursor_ says:

    #17
    “your usual lame response is to say: “Citations please”

    Don’t start with those facts again! Always you want to talk about facts! You liberals are all the same talk about facts. It is all the lying liberal media with facts facts facts! I’m sick of facts and people wanting sources and having to quote or link to documents that explain every little detail! The devil is in the detail people and that’s the devil! The devil is bad because he supports liberals, progressives, terrorists and Obama!

    Yea we get it. You only want nice short sound bites that positively reinforce your desire to believe in a nation that defeated the Nazis and only does nice things. Sure yea fine.

    And you can pour maple syrup on snow and eat it. Family Circus is good clean decent comic strip fodder, Ziggy is cool, wonder bread is awesome, twinkies are great, dockers are comfy, polo knits make you look faboulous and Donna Reed is the ideal housewife ideal.

    Nice wholesome lily white nuclear family living!

    Blah Blah Blah!

    Cursor_

  20. jbenson2 says:

    #19 – I don’t have a clue what you are trying to say. The only thing I can agree with is your final comment.

  21. bobbo, everyone should enjoy their own interests says:

    JB–fair comment. Absent having watched Rachael Madow’s show on all the right wing generated internet garbage, I might have responded differently. It was in response to the vortex generated by the wingnuts when they find anything at all written anywhere at all.

    Seems the $200 Million per day Obama trip to India was spawned by a news report (on line?) by some source in India. Was it fact checked?==No. Its just repeated by the usual goons as if it was the gospel with no need or desire to be factual. If it slams Obama, thats good enough, even when it is ridiculous on its face.

    Then we look at any of the contested issues: is the Globe warming? Is it caused by human activity? Are we running out of oil? Is Keynes a reputable economist or not? Was there any oil spilled at all in the Gulf? And sure enough, no matter what the subject, there is a sentence in cyberspace saying whatever you can imagine.

    So–having a link now can only mean you aren’t pulling monkey crap out of your own ass to post here, at least you are reading something. Not likely, but hope that if you read even more you might “sense” the consensus or critical thinking path that would lead you to the truth. Course, you would still have to drink that fetid water.

    Still, fair call–on both sides.

    Still true that your BS without a link is monkey shit, but that cannot be proved against by merely having a link from the great cybershere.

    I have often wished we could have “the truth button” which when pressed would motivate god to part the clouds and tell us what the truth is. Now, there would be a god I could get behind.

  22. Father says:

    That money you work so hard for, just green paper.

  23. CrankyGeeksFan says:

    Re: Elevator control illusion.
    The “Press for Emergency Call” button:

    Around 2003 on the campus of one of the 10 largest U.S. universities by enrollment, a technician was working on an elevator as I was boarding it. He told me that at least one-third of the “Press for Emergency Call” buttons in the elevators for the entire campus did not work and no one knew why.

  24. suluric ass says:

    The close door button is not there for you , but it is there for me.

    If you press it and the floor number it takes you
    to that floor with no stops for other people.

    Well now it is for you also.

  25. Tatsuwashi says:

    I live in Japan and the close door buttons DO work on elevators here. It is nice…

  26. seetheblacksun says:

    I live on Mars, and we don’t even have elevators. It’s all good…

  27. Greg Allen says:

    >> jbenson2 said, on November 6th, 2010 at 11:16 am
    >> Yup, along with millions of dumbocrats who have also seen the light. Obama is a one-term loser.

    “dumbocrats” — wow, with intellectual discourse like that, how can you conservatives possibly lose in 2012!

  28. Greg Allen says:

    >> Tatsuwashi said, on November 7th, 2010 at 1:55 am
    >> I live in Japan and the close door buttons DO work on elevators here. It is nice…

    I’ve noticed that in some other countries, the door buttons do work – and people use them routinely.

    But, in the building at my university here in the US, I don’t think the close door button works. The door certainly doesn’t close an faster when it’s pressed.

  29. jman says:

    On OTIS elevators if you punch close door button and the floor you want it will go directly to that floor with no stops. Life hack

  30. jbenson2 says:

    Greg Allen is upset with the word “dumbocrats”, but doesn’t bat an eye when it comes to all the demeaning variations of Republicans.

    What a hypocrite!


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