We need resilient systems that fall back to sanity when broken / discriminating. And not whatever.
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Oh, I see you disabled JavaScript. Keep up the good work, my fellow cleanweb person!
Notice that there might be trace amounts of JS, used for e.g. runnable JS code blocks and interactive demos. JS is not required for use of the website though, it’s only enhancing the existing functionality.
I like to see people practicing what they preach!
This is honestly pretty funny. This post is largely about software architecture and standards, and makes a valid point. But nobody (myself included) can think about anything but Mitch Headberg.
Another day on the Internet.
I remember one time being on vacation when the battery in my toothbrush died and I didn’t have my charger. I had started to get up to go down to the shop in the hotel lobby, and then realized I’m an idiot.
“An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.” – Mitch Hedberg
In software, it’s important to think about whether you should fail open or fail shut.
Mostly true, until the brakes fail and it turns into a slide XD
They could just connect the two in reverse and with a ratchet. More people go down => the other goes up. More people go up => it’s locked as a stair.
I miss Mitch 😢
I used to miss Mitch. I mean, I do now, but I used to, as well.
Same fantastic one liners.
Even more important for hardware, e.g. door locks
There are a number of videos online of escalators breaking and going down at high speed.
Anyone that works with escalators would never go up a broken escalators.
Why?
If any of the stairs are damaged and cannot stay attached correctly, there is a chance of falling into the machinery below, which will not stop just because a human is in the way.
If the failure is in the braking system, it can quickly turn into rapidly moving stairs, which can be very lethal.
Most escalators have multiple independent braking systems so that this doesn’t happen, but some poorly maintained escalators have been discovered with 2 or even all 3 systems disabled.
My understanding is that even if the brakes are working, it’s still not safe for maintenance people to have the public using them as stairs. And maybe to fix whatever is wrong they might need to disengage the brakes anyway.
Oh no… You absolutely can’t be doing maintenance on an escalator while people are walking on it. Not only unsafe, that’s just not going to work at all most of the time. The maintenance crew and the public would be in each other’s way.
On the other hand, when it breaks on a Monday, and the crew says they can be there to do the repair on Thursday, that means that it’s safe to use the escalator as stairs for a couple of days while you wait.
Escalators have brakes to prevent them from moving. If the escalator breakdown causes the brakes to fail, then it can accelerate enough to seriously injure people
Sure. But if the brakes have not failed… Then it’s safe to use for a reasonable period of time.
And how do you know that the brakes won’t fail?
If you’re afraid of this kind of thing, then don’t use escalators when they aren’t moving, that’s fine.
According to a quick Google search, there are 2-3 escalator related deaths per year in the US. That’s not just counting malfunctioning escalators, it also counts morons doing dumb things on escalators (and “within the US” includes every Florida Man out there).
You can worry about this if you like worrying, but it’s probably not worth it.
Multiple independent braking systems and adequate maintenance.
A single failure may cause the escalator to stop working, but it takes 3 failures in a row to make it catastrophic. Regular maintenance catches this failures before 3 in a row can occur.
And that regular maintenance has been put off before, causing instances of mass injuries.
My entire point here is that their insistence on laypeople going “eh, it’ll be fine” and using a broken escalator is stupid
