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Minor things that bother you

Started by planxtymcgillicuddy, November 27, 2019, 12:15:11 AM

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tolbs17

THE BLUE EYES SCARE ME!!

They are too attrative for my taste. Brown eyes ftw


I-55

Quote from: tolbs17 on June 21, 2021, 12:01:48 AM
THE BLUE EYES SCARE ME!!

They are too attrative for my taste. Brown eyes ftw

With the human body being made up of mostly tans and browns, blue eyes just stand out too much, way too distracting.
Let's Go Purdue Basketball Whoosh

tolbs17

Quote from: I-55 on June 21, 2021, 09:11:01 PM
Quote from: tolbs17 on June 21, 2021, 12:01:48 AM
THE BLUE EYES SCARE ME!!

They are too attrative for my taste. Brown eyes ftw

With the human body being made up of mostly tans and browns, blue eyes just stand out too much, way too distracting.
Totally agree with you.

CNGL-Leudimin

Then you wouldn't want to meet me, as I have blue eyes.
Supporter of the construction of several running gags, including I-366 with a speed limit of 85 mph (137 km/h) and the Hypotenuse.

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jmacswimmer

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"How would they compete?"
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"Is Ditka driving?"
"Of course!"
"Then I like da Bear buss."
"DA BEARSSS BUSSSS"

texaskdog

Quote from: formulanone on June 13, 2021, 05:44:27 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 13, 2021, 03:22:47 PM
Quote from: GaryV on June 13, 2021, 01:23:03 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 13, 2021, 01:21:02 PM
The thing that turns off the turn signal in my car when I go around a corner broke recently so I have to manually turn off the turn signal now.

How old are you?  That's not supposed to happen until you hit geezer status.  I mean, that must be the only explanation of people driving miles down the highway with the turn signal going.


I drive a 12-year-old car, and have had it for 6 years at this point, since there's nothing else really wrong with it and I like it well enough that I'm not interested in trading it in and going back to having a car payment. Perhaps geezers have that same philosophy.

Might be a surprisingly cheap fix; probably just a bad turn signal stalk. Unless you drive something fancy...most vehicles are similar. It's not an extremely common issue, so even a used stalk much be a $30-50 part.

1) Disconnect the car's battery, 2) Remove about 6-8 screws that hold the upper and lower plastic shrouds of the steering column 3) it's pretty much a plug-and-play item from the little harness connector.

Might be out of blinker fluid

formulanone

Quote from: I-55 on June 21, 2021, 09:11:01 PM
Quote from: tolbs17 on June 21, 2021, 12:01:48 AM
THE BLUE EYES SCARE ME!!

They are too attrative for my taste. Brown eyes ftw

With the human body being made up of mostly tans and browns, blue eyes just stand out too much, way too distracting.

Some faults in the stars should never be repaired. I have hazel eyes, but my wife has blue eyes, so I'm only 99% biased.

If someone's natural colors scare you, then I think that qualm needs to be discussed with a doctor.

TheHighwayMan3561

Could be because I live in an area with a high Scandinavian-American population, but I never thought of eye color as strange, off-putting, or controversial.
self-certified as the dumbest person on this board for 5 years running

tolbs17


GaryV

"Don't it make my brown eyes blue"

Roadgeekteen

I don't have blue eyes but I like them
God-emperor of Alanland, king of all the goats and goat-like creatures

Current Interstate map I am making:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&mid=1PEDVyNb1skhnkPkgXi8JMaaudM2zI-Y&ll=29.05778059819179%2C-82.48856825&z=5

bm7

Automatic faucets in restrooms that require you to keep your hands almost touching the faucet in order for them to run.

SSOWorld

Quote from: bm7 on June 23, 2021, 01:32:20 AM
Automatic faucets in restrooms that require you to keep your hands almost touching the faucet in order for them to run.
Could be worse.  It could be *cringe* a manually operated faucet  :-o
Scott O.

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Ah, the open skies, wind at my back, warm sun on my... wait, where the hell am I?!
As a matter of fact, I do own the road.
Raise your what?

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renegade

Quote from: SSOWorld on June 23, 2021, 01:13:14 PM
Quote from: bm7 on June 23, 2021, 01:32:20 AM
Automatic faucets in restrooms that require you to keep your hands almost touching the faucet in order for them to run.
Could be worse.  It could be *cringe* a manually operated faucet  :-o
When I'm washing my hands, I'm not usually worried about that. 
Don’t ask me how I know.  Just understand that I do.

LilianaUwU

One of the things I really hate is when I'm coming back home from the grocery store and I got lots of heavy stuff, but I have to wait a full traffic light cycle because the person wanting to cross just before I get there didn't activate the pedestrian beg button.
"Volcano with no fire... Not volcano... Just mountain."
—Mr. Thwomp

My pronouns are she/her. Also, I'm an admin on the AARoads Wiki.

jakeroot

Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 23, 2021, 05:21:38 PM
One of the things I really hate is when I'm coming back home from the grocery store and I got lots of heavy stuff, but I have to wait a full traffic light cycle because the person wanting to cross just before I get there didn't activate the pedestrian beg button.

I am a big proponent of automatic walk during the day for this reason. It is extremely frustrating to walk in areas with fully-actuated signalization given that walk signs only come on when requested. Somehow they can detect vehicles using a seemingly-infinite number of ways, yet pedestrians are still relegated to running and hitting buttons hopefully in time. It's just stupid.

LilianaUwU

Quote from: jakeroot on June 23, 2021, 05:54:01 PM
Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 23, 2021, 05:21:38 PM
One of the things I really hate is when I'm coming back home from the grocery store and I got lots of heavy stuff, but I have to wait a full traffic light cycle because the person wanting to cross just before I get there didn't activate the pedestrian beg button.

I am a big proponent of automatic walk during the day for this reason. It is extremely frustrating to walk in areas with fully-actuated signalization given that walk signs only come on when requested. Somehow they can detect vehicles using a seemingly-infinite number of ways, yet pedestrians are still relegated to running and hitting buttons hopefully in time. It's just stupid.

Oh, but it's worse at the light near my house: people seem to refuse to use the button, leading to many times where I get frustrated because I can see people right next to the light, standing there acting as though there's no button.
"Volcano with no fire... Not volcano... Just mountain."
—Mr. Thwomp

My pronouns are she/her. Also, I'm an admin on the AARoads Wiki.

texaskdog

Quote from: SSOWorld on June 23, 2021, 01:13:14 PM
Quote from: bm7 on June 23, 2021, 01:32:20 AM
Automatic faucets in restrooms that require you to keep your hands almost touching the faucet in order for them to run.
Could be worse.  It could be *cringe* a manually operated faucet  :-o

No matter what you do you finish up and then the door handle opens inward.  Why wash at all then?

I-55

Quote from: renegade on June 23, 2021, 03:44:38 PM
Quote from: SSOWorld on June 23, 2021, 01:13:14 PM
Quote from: bm7 on June 23, 2021, 01:32:20 AM
Automatic faucets in restrooms that require you to keep your hands almost touching the faucet in order for them to run.
Could be worse.  It could be *cringe* a manually operated faucet  :-o
When I'm washing my hands, I'm not usually worried about that. 
Let's Go Purdue Basketball Whoosh

Scott5114

#2194
Quote from: bm7 on June 23, 2021, 01:32:20 AM
Automatic faucets in restrooms that require you to keep your hands almost touching the faucet in order for them to run.

Having worked for 10 years in buildings with automatic faucets (and toilets and soap and paper towel dispensers), I hate the damn things. Even on the same model of faucet, you can never tell where the hitbox for the sensor is going to end up, so you have your hands all soaped up and are just kind of doing arcane three-dimensional gestures in the sink, trying to find the proper somatic component of the spell that awakens the faucet monster. And then sometimes they don't activate at all. And then when you finally get them on, sometimes they're configured to shoot a burst of water for like five seconds before turning off, because the building owner is a cheap-ass and doesn't care that they're presenting an obstacle to basic hygiene. 

Paper towel dispensers are just as bad, if not worse, because at least faucets don't usually jam up. They also more uniformly exhibit tightwad behavior, so you're sitting there waving at the towel dispenser like you're on a float in a Thanksgiving Day parade, trying to accrue enough goodwill with it so that it can bear to part with enough towel to actually dry your hands.

Quote from: texaskdog on June 23, 2021, 08:06:44 PM
No matter what you do you finish up and then the door handle opens inward.  Why wash at all then?

Multi-user public restrooms (i.e. those other than single-occupancy lockable ones) shouldn't have bathroom doors at all unless 100% unavoidable due to space reasons. I prefer the bathrooms with the U- or L- shaped corridor connecting them to the outside world, so that the view is blocked into the bathroom from outside but you need not open a door to get in and out.

Quote from: jakeroot on June 23, 2021, 05:54:01 PM
Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 23, 2021, 05:21:38 PM
One of the things I really hate is when I'm coming back home from the grocery store and I got lots of heavy stuff, but I have to wait a full traffic light cycle because the person wanting to cross just before I get there didn't activate the pedestrian beg button.

I am a big proponent of automatic walk during the day for this reason. It is extremely frustrating to walk in areas with fully-actuated signalization given that walk signs only come on when requested. Somehow they can detect vehicles using a seemingly-infinite number of ways, yet pedestrians are still relegated to running and hitting buttons hopefully in time. It's just stupid.

If there's enough ped traffic to support that, I presume you mean. There are big chunks of Norman where if you were automatically cycling the lights for peds, you'd end up burning a lot of cycle time to benefit 0 more people. Not a lot of people who want to walk in 90°+/70+% humidity weather if they have a choice otherwise.

Vehicles are a lot easier to detect than pedestrians, simply because vehicles are a lot more uniform in their composition, construction, and behavior than humans are. Cars nearly always contain enough iron to be magnetically detectable. They nearly always appear in the lines between lanes, so they can be detectable visually. Meanwhile, pedestrians can be anywhere from 3 to 7 feet tall and weigh from 50 to 400 pounds and rarely travel in straight lines and wait in uniform places. They're not always shaped the same (some are missing parts, use things like wheelchairs, walkers, or canes, or are carrying things like grocery bags that distort the silhouette). And if your ped-detecting algorithm happens to choke on a certain type of person that happens to coincide with a protected class (like, say, a dark background making it so dark-skinned people aren't reliably detected), now you've got a civil suit you've got to deal with.

Ideally, whenever a button is used, it wouldn't matter where in the cycle the light is, the button would trigger the requested pedestrian cycle more or less immediately (which seems to be the case in Norman whenever I've used a ped button). Even if you had flawless pedestrian detection equipment, it would be a scant improvement over a button if the request isn't serviced in a timely manner, which I suspect is your real beef with button-actuated signals.
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jakeroot

#2195
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 24, 2021, 12:51:07 AM
Quote from: jakeroot on June 23, 2021, 05:54:01 PM
Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 23, 2021, 05:21:38 PM
One of the things I really hate is when I'm coming back home from the grocery store and I got lots of heavy stuff, but I have to wait a full traffic light cycle because the person wanting to cross just before I get there didn't activate the pedestrian beg button.

I am a big proponent of automatic walk during the day for this reason. It is extremely frustrating to walk in areas with fully-actuated signalization given that walk signs only come on when requested. Somehow they can detect vehicles using a seemingly-infinite number of ways, yet pedestrians are still relegated to running and hitting buttons hopefully in time. It's just stupid.

If there's enough ped traffic to support that, I presume you mean. There are big chunks of Norman where if you were automatically cycling the lights for peds, you'd end up burning a lot of cycle time to benefit 0 more people. Not a lot of people who want to walk in 90°+/70+% humidity weather if they have a choice otherwise.

Vehicles are a lot easier to detect than pedestrians, simply because vehicles are a lot more uniform in their composition, construction, and behavior than humans are. Cars nearly always contain enough iron to be magnetically detectable. They nearly always appear in the lines between lanes, so they can be detectable visually. Meanwhile, pedestrians can be anywhere from 3 to 7 feet tall and weigh from 50 to 400 pounds and rarely travel in straight lines and wait in uniform places. They're not always shaped the same (some are missing parts, use things like wheelchairs, walkers, or canes, or are carrying things like grocery bags that distort the silhouette). And if your ped-detecting algorithm happens to choke on a certain type of person that happens to coincide with a protected class (like, say, a dark background making it so dark-skinned people aren't reliably detected), now you've got a civil suit you've got to deal with.

Ideally, whenever a button is used, it wouldn't matter where in the cycle the light is, the button would trigger the requested pedestrian cycle more or less immediately (which seems to be the case in Norman whenever I've used a ped button). Even if you had flawless pedestrian detection equipment, it would be a scant improvement over a button if the request isn't serviced in a timely manner, which I suspect is your real beef with button-actuated signals.

First: yes, I am referring to areas with at least some pedestrian activity. Obviously we don't need automatic walk in the middle of nowhere. But cities do seem to interpret "some pedestrian activity" as meaning "eight square blocks downtown and nowhere else", and this is too often a poor assumption. Especially in areas with lots of transit or shopping. This rather suburban intersection near me has plenty of pedestrian activity, which may explain why the main road (Pacific Hwy) has automatic walk [at this intersection and every other intersection] during daylight hours.

Second: automatic pedestrian detection is not a new technology. There was a study about it performed in 2001 and published by the FHWA that showed them to be a rather successful technology. The use of either pressure-sensitive plates, microwave, or infrared were used to detect pedestrians, and they all seemed to perform quite adequately. The UK uses them already and refers to them as Puffin crossings.

Certainly in the intervening years, technology has advanced to where we can implement automatic pedestrian detection on a slightly-wider scale than a handful of intersections in decent-weather areas. Operationally, there would be advantages for vehicles too, as pedestrian detection could spell the end for minimum walk cycles (ie: walk sign remains on until the maximum time is reached or when no pedestrians are detected). Buttons and "detected" lights could also be used as backups.

Not saying this would be way better than automatic walk, but it would improve upon running for a tiny, often poorly-placed button.

hotdogPi

What if a pedestrian is detected, but he or she is waiting for a bus or Uber and not trying to cross the street?
Clinched, minus I-93 (I'm missing a few miles and my file is incorrect)

Traveled, plus US 13, 44, and 50, and several state routes

I will be in Burlington VT for the eclipse.

GaryV

Many times a ped pushing the button will make a change to what the signal does.  For example, the normally short cross-street timing may be extended because it takes a ped longer to cross the wide thoroughfare than the signal timing would usually allow.  Or it turns off the FYA left turn light for that cycle, so the ped doesn't have to worry about those vehicles.

If you put the timing to "Ped Signals Always" in the day, it could create unnecessary delays for a lot of traffic.  Unless you're in some place where every cycle there are pedestrians, it doesn't make sense.

hotdogPi

The only signal I know of in my area (Boston's too far away) that has pedestrians pretty much every cycle is VFW Highway/University Ave. in Lowell (on campus), and even then, only during times when there are classes (8 AM-6 PM weekdays, not during the summer despite summer classes existing, and definitely not during COVID-19). Downtown Lawrence and Haverhill get decent pedestrian crossings but not every cycle.

Note that I never press the button when I'm crossing streets myself; I wait for a gap in traffic, including checking for left turns. I'll often cross behind a car that's stopped if I think the light will turn green for that car soon, and I take strong advantage of medians.
Clinched, minus I-93 (I'm missing a few miles and my file is incorrect)

Traveled, plus US 13, 44, and 50, and several state routes

I will be in Burlington VT for the eclipse.

vdeane

The one spot I'm specifically aware of having pedestrian detection locally is at a RRFB where the Mohawk-Hudson Hike-Bike Path crosses a local road.  I presume there's less concern with false positives at the RRFB than there would be with a full signal.

There's bike detection on the Empire State Trail at US 4 and presumably other places too.  In the case of bikes, though, they're able to put loops in the pavement.  Pedestrians have to use a push button there, though the signal is only for the trail, so there's no waiting (in fact, if the signal hasn't been triggered in the last couple minutes, the bike signal will be green before the bike gets there!).
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.



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