Traffic Light Therapy
Just started a new job (so far I’m enjoying it a lot (although it will be even better perfect when I can get a Cake based system (not that what is in place at the moment is bad - on the contrary it is very good - it is just that I am philosophically opposed to it…) in place… (although I really want to use a bit of Django sometime))). What comes with this is much longer walk to the office from where I park the car. My walk involves crossing some very busy and very inconveniently placed roads.
These roads have crossing points and if you are a pedestrian you get to press a button to let you cross, but the buttons do nothing - they have no effect on the traffic flow at all. All I can surmise is that the buttons are put in place purely to give pedestrians a something to do purely so they don’t scream in impotent fury at the traffic.
I know (in my heart) this to be the case, but I push the buttons anyway… out of some faint hope…
I am right aren’t I? The buttons really don’t do a thing?
August 12th, 2008 at
I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, the buttons do one (and exactly one) thing, and nothing else. When you press the button, the “walk/don’t walk” light changes when the traffic light changes. If you do not press the button, the traffic light will change, but the “walk/don’t walk” light stays on “don’t walk”. Pretty pointless piece of equipment, really.
August 12th, 2008 at
Hi. Same here that’s the way traffic lights normally work here too. But I think they just disable them at peak times, or even on really complicated junctions that the buttons are basically fake. Maybe it’s becuase if people thought the walk / don’t walk buttons were pointless, they would just ignore them and run accross rather than waiting…
August 12th, 2008 at
You’re working in Marsh Barton aren’t you?
You’re right, they do nothing!
August 12th, 2008 at
Hello no. Wouldn’t work there if you paid me. I’m in Taunton.
August 12th, 2008 at
Ah okay.
Getting more money then?
August 12th, 2008 at
Well. The ‘package’ (as they say) ain’t bad…
But what is nice nice is working with a seriously good designer. Sounds silly - but I had forgotten how satisfying just cutting up PSDs and building CMS templates can be.
When somebody has though about all the details properly everything just flows. I’m doing a biggish e-commerce site at the moment, and I have 4 PSDs for Homepage, Categories, Product List, Product Detail - everything has been thought out - it is so nice - a real contrast - you have no idea of the muppets I have had to deal with in the past year. Seriously some people have no shame.
But the really weird thing is that people pay for designs built by these jokers - all I can think is blackmail is the cause of it all…
A few months ago I built a site for an estate agency (timing sucks!) - it had some of the most elegant code I have ever written to do with searching, paging results and sessions to store search criteria - but the design I was given to work with is so bad I am ashamed, and I will never admit I had anything to do with it.
August 15th, 2008 at
Yeah, you need to full halves to make a whole, I guess.