Internet of shit
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@PleegWat said in Internet of shit:
Problems with the overhead lines do happen, particularly during near-freezing if they get the chance to ice up.
You won't usually get too many problems on the lines if they're being used frequently, as the pantographs will clear the ice off (with some fun sparking). But on less busy lines…
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@dkf They only time I faced such an emergency-disembarkment of a train due to a failed overhead line was not at all in freezing temperatures, and on a major busy railway line near Frankfurt...
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@izzion said in Internet of shit:
@Gurth said in Internet of shit:
I kind of wonder where in the Netherlands a train could even stop in the middle of woods if it wanted to …
Just look for where bears are shitting
If there are no bears, follow the Pope.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Internet of shit:
on a major busy railway line near Frankfurt...
Filled to capacity with all the delayed trains?
A few years ago, I had reason to take some trains in Germany. Of the IIRC six I took in two days, all but one were delayed, and all for long enough that I missed each and every connection I had to make.
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@Gurth Regional train, not long-distance train ("ICE"). They are far more reliable.
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@Gurth said in Internet of shit:
A few years ago, I had reason to take some trains in Germany. Of the IIRC six I took in two days, all but one were delayed, and all for long enough that I missed each and every connection I had to make.
But I thought Germany stood for efficiency and getting things right! I've been lied to!
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@Gribnit said in Internet of shit:
@izzion said in Internet of shit:
@Gurth said in Internet of shit:
I kind of wonder where in the Netherlands a train could even stop in the middle of woods if it wanted to …
Just look for where bears are shitting
If there are no bears, follow the Po
peep.
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@Zerosquare said in Internet of shit:
But I thought Germany stood for efficiency and getting things right! I've been lied to!
To quote my former-conductor friend when I told him about that trip: “I keep telling people that [German trains run late a lot] but nobody ever believes me.”
It already started on the Netherlands side of the border: the German regional train arrived five minutes later than it should according to the timetable; that same timetable said it was to leave back towards Germany ten minutes after its intended arrival time. So what does the crew do? Of course, they leave ten minutes after actually arriving … And for much of that time, they weren’t doing much of anything, so I don’t see why they couldn’t have left on time instead.
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@Gurth said in Internet of shit:
And for much of that time, they weren’t doing much of anything
Maybe they were. I don't know what the engineer has to do to turn off the cab on one end, turn it on on the other and verify everything works before departing. But yeah, I would expect there to be at least a couple minutes of buffer in the turn around time to absorb delays. A properly made schedule always needs buffers to absorb delays.
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@Bulb said in Internet of shit:
I don't know what the engineer has to do to turn off the cab on one end, turn it on on the other and verify everything works before departing.
The length of a train is about 50 meters per carriage. This means walking to the other end of a train can take 5 minutes even if the platform is empty. But the platform is full of (dis)embarking passengers. You may also need to allow for time answering questions from passengers ("Is this the train to Frankfurt?" "No, that leaves from platform six." "At what time?" "Let me look that up.")
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@PleegWat said in Internet of shit:
The length of a train is about 50 meters per carriage. This means walking to the other end of a train can take 5 minutes even if the platform is empty.
That seemed a little long, so I looked up walking speed. 1.42 ms-1
A 6 carriage train of 50 m carriages should take about 3½ minutes to walk along. That's not hurrying, it's just the normal comfortable speed that people tend to prefer to walk at. Even at the laziest speed, you're still only talking 4 minutes. Taking 5 minutes is slow.Which given that we're talking about train crew is not very surprising.
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@dkf I figured a 10 carriage train, which I admit is on the long side.
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@PleegWat said in Internet of shit:
The length of a train is about 50 meters per carriage.
No, only about 25, maybe 27, depends on cars. 50 is way too much.
@PleegWat said in Internet of shit:
You may also need to allow for time answering questions from passengers
The engineer won't be answering those. The passengers probably won't be even able to recognize him. And the conductors don't have to walk to the other end.
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@Bulb said in Internet of shit:
The engineer won't be answering those. The passengers probably won't be even able to recognize him.
Depends on the operator. Dutch railways has their drivers in uniform, so they are recognizable.
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@PleegWat said in Internet of shit:
The length of a train is about 50 meters per carriage. This means walking to the other end of a train can take 5 minutes even if the platform is empty.
IIRC, it was one of these:
At that exact platform, so I think I got the right one :) Wikipedia says these are 90 metres long, so if it was a dual one like this, that would be 180 m. I’m fairly sure I can walk that in less than five minutes. Also, it wasn’t busy at the time.
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@Gurth said in Internet of shit:
At that exact platform, so I think I got the right one :) Wikipedia says these are 90 metres long, so if it was a dual one like this, that would be 180 m. I’m fairly sure I can walk that in less than five minutes.
At standard walking speed (I think that's a great new speed measure!) that's about 2 minutes.
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@Gurth said in Internet of shit:
I’m fairly sure I can walk that in less than five minutes.
Assuming there's nobody blocking the aisle...
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@Bulb said in Internet of shit:
A properly made schedule always needs buffers to absorb delays.
No! No! No!
Because all they try to show off with is the short time it takes from Major City 1 to Major City 2.
If you have to change trains there in order to get to Major City 3, well, that's your problem if there was any delay...
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Reason number...uh....
BIGINT_MAX
....is that a thing? Maybe? why having a "smart home" is a dumb idea.
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@Benjamin-Hall Number of tech enthusiasts who will learn the right lesson from this: 0
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Internet of shit:
why having a "smart home" relying entirely on a proprietary system supported by one company is a dumb idea.
It's possible to have a smart home and do it in a way that it doesn't stop working when one company goes out of business.
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@loopback0 Unfortunately, doing it that way requires some thought and effort, so it'll never catch on
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@hungrier said in Internet of shit:
@loopback0 Unfortunately, doing it that way requires some thought and effort, so it'll never catch on
Because for most people they'll get better results if they get some company to do it for them.
There's a business niche waiting there: third-party smart home consultancy.
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@hungrier Doing that requires, first of all, foregoing vendor lock-in, but vendor lock-in is what the smart home companies are in it for.
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@hungrier said in Internet of shit:
@Benjamin-Hall Number of tech enthusiasts who will learn the right lesson from this: 0
Are you sure it's not
-1
?
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So I can scan the qr code, download the app, open the app, scan the qr code with the app to tell it what elevator I'm at, and then call the elevator.
Or.
I can push the button.
Or you can push the button….. with your phone.
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@JBert Given the picture is making its rounds on the internet, it seems that now everybody can call the elevator. From anywhere.
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@cvi Somebody responded to that tweet saying that the app might use Bluetooth to talk with something in the elevator...
But I'm not going to hold my breath.
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@JBert That would make some amount of sense. But I'm going to guess that it isn't the case. At least based on the assumption the original tweet is correct when it says that you need to scan the QR code to tell the app which elevator you want to call. With BT, the app would only need to check what BT devices are in range...
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@cvi Two of such elevators nexct to each other? And you happen to connect to the neighbor's?
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@cvi The sign just says to scan the code to download the app. I doubt it would need (or could use) the same code again to identify a particular elevator.
But that doesn't make the idea any less ridiculous
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@hungrier
everybody is forgoing the obvious idea that the app is just call some operator that some big red button
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@hungrier said in Internet of shit:
But that doesn't make the idea any less ridiculous
No no no!
By using the app, you not need to push any button in the elevator. Hence you cannot catch covid in that way.
Anyway, do not forget to wear your FFP2 mask, in order to protect other people in other elevators.
Recommended by the CDC.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Internet of shit:
@cvi Two of such elevators nexct to each other? And you happen to connect to the neighbor's?
Frequently you still only have a single call button. You just get whichever elevator is closer/available/going in the right direction past you.
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@cvi said in Internet of shit:
whichever elevator is going in the right direction past you.
The amount of people who don’t understand that they should press the up or down button depending on which direction they want to go, instead of just pressing either or both (), or even get in when it’s going in the wrong direction…
Makes me wonder how we survived as a species.
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@cvi said in Internet of shit:
@JBert That would make some amount of sense. But I'm going to guess that it isn't the case. At least based on the assumption the original tweet is correct when it says that you need to scan the QR code to tell the app which elevator you want to call. With BT, the app would only need to check what BT devices are in range...
Call. If the elevator's on the top floor and you're in the parking garage you're probably not even in range.
This shit makes voice control seem sane.
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@topspin said in Internet of shit:
@cvi said in Internet of shit:
whichever elevator is going in the right direction past you.
The amount of people who don’t understand that they should press the up or down button depending on which direction they want to go, instead of just pressing either or both (), or even get in when it’s going in the wrong direction…
Makes me wonder how we survived as a species.I've seen elevators (in hotels) where you had to say what floor you wanted when you called it, and where it would only take you to the floors that your room key permitted. I've no idea if it let people share rides.
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@PleegWat said in Internet of shit:
Call. If the elevator's on the top floor and you're in the parking garage you're probably not even in range.
Maybe I'm ing here totally, but why would you want to put the BT thingy into the actual elevator cabin, and not just where the existing button is?
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@cvi the engineer, being a scarecrow, has not got a brain. If he only had a brain, he would no longer be a proper scarecrow. You can't expect a crow not to eat free brains.
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@topspin said in Internet of shit:
Makes me wonder how we survived as a species.
Aware of this, our ancestors were careful not to invent the elevator. Until the day someone thought he was more intelligent than everyone else...
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@Zerosquare said in Internet of shit:
Until the day someone thought he was more intelligent than everyone else...
...and called it a lift
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@dkf said in Internet of shit:
I've seen elevators (in hotels) where you had to say what floor you wanted when you called it, and where it would only take you to the floors that your room key permitted. I've no idea if it let people share rides.
We have those at work. You wave your card at the terminal and select the floor if your card allows more than one.
It lets people share rides just fine. Or rather makes them share rides—you select the floor and the terminal will tell you which lift to board—and if you board the wrong one, there is no button there to make it stop at the floor you wanted.
Also you can set default floor. Of course most people do that. See, my card allows the three floors our company occupies, plus ground floor, but I almost never go to the other two floors then where my office is. So I have it set that if I wave on the ground floor, it automatically selects my office floor, and on my office floor it automatically selects the ground floor. It makes the process for selecting the other two floors a bit weird though—I have to click the terminal before waving the card to prevent the automatic selection.
It's actually mostly convenient. Except the place where it shows which floors it will stop at is at a rather weird place in the door frame. And the scheduling algorithm occasionally acting dumb, in part because it is not able to change it's mind—see, if it thinks lift C will be down first, it tells you you will go with lift C, but then the people boarding it somewhere up take too long, so the lift B is down sooner. But because it has no way of telling you to board B instead, you still have to wait for C. Or you can wave the card again, sometimes it realizes it can switch to a different lift then.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Internet of shit:
@Zerosquare said in Internet of shit:
Until the day someone thought he was more intelligent than everyone else...
...and called it a lift
Never used one though. But I like the idea -- it seems less tolerant of user error.
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@cvi I remember still seeing one or two when I was a kid, but they were already on decline then.
The benefit is that they have bigger capacity, because there is one cabin after another coming. The downside is that they are quite a bit more dangerous. My aunt actually recently mentioned she's seen a fatal accident in one—someone rushed in, hands full, slipped, fell out and broke their head and died of it in hospital. They were also completely inaccessible to the disabled.
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@cvi said in Internet of shit:
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Internet of shit:
@Zerosquare said in Internet of shit:
Until the day someone thought he was more intelligent than everyone else...
...and called it a lift
Never used one though. But I like the idea -- it seems less tolerant of user error.
Lift is the Dutch word for elevator. Probably in other languages too.
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@hungrier said in Internet of shit:
@cvi The sign just says to scan the code to download the app. I doubt it would need (or could use) the same code again to identify a particular elevator.
The one visible is just a URL to the app download site. Each panel has bluetooth.
@BernieTheBernie said in Internet of shit:
By using the app, you not need to push any button in the elevator. Hence you cannot catch covid in that way.
Which is exactly how it's marketed.
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@Bulb said in Internet of shit:
@cvi I remember still seeing one or two when I was a kid, but they were already on decline then.
I'm pretty sure I've seen one as well, but I don't think I got to use it. (I don't even quite remember where it would have been.)
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@Bulb said in Internet of shit:
They were also completely inaccessible to the disabled.
This was not generally an issue before the 1980s or so, though.
That is to say, it almost certainly was an issue for anyone who was disabled, but nobody else cared overly much.