Things that don't make sense

[PhotonWrangler]

OP - Finding yourself in a elevator with no working illumination (and no flashlight) sounds like the opening scene of a late night horror movie... BTW what kind of a flash-a-holic walks around without 1 light on them?

A dumba$$ flashaholic! I was between EDCs at that time - couldn't locate my P3d-CE and hadn't bought my next one yet. And as Murphy would have it I didn't have a keychain squeeze light with me either.


On the bright side, it gave me a reason to replace my P3D with a better one.

 

[jugg2]

Most large buildings use a chilled water system to provide A/C so freon flow and oil return are not issues.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Why do teenagers walk down the middle of the street instead of the sidewalk?

 

[Monocrom]

Why do teenagers walk down the middle of the street instead of the sidewalk?

Because their parents never bothered to emphasize good manners to them.

 

[AMD64Blondie]

Air conditioning not installed in every apartment of an apartment building.(The hallways have A/C,but the individual apartments don't). Eek!! The temperature is supposed to hit 98 today(Monday) here in Portland,OR.
I'm seriously thinking about having a window A/C installed.It would be more money/month,but today has me slightly crazy from the heat.It's already 64 degrees F at 4:00 AM.Bah humbug!!

 

[jtr1962]

Air conditioning not installed in every apartment of an apartment building.(The hallways have A/C,but the individual apartments don't). Eek!! The temperature is supposed to hit 98 today(Monday) here in Portland,OR.
I'm seriously thinking about having a window A/C installed.It would be more money/month,but today has me slightly crazy from the heat.It's already 64 degrees F at 4:00 AM.Bah humbug!!

I've never understood this myself. Why don't these apartment buildings have central air conditioning instead of every apartment having a window unit? In the long run that would cut the energy costs in half, if not more, while keeping the apartments at the same temperature. Even in brand new buildings you see window units. It makes absolutely no sense. Office buildings are always centrally heated and cooled. It should be no different for apartment buildings. In fact, it should be required, especially in new buildings. Moreover, there are tenant regulations regarding the temperatures a building must be kept at during winter, but not in summer. Again, it makes no sense. Excessively high temperatures can be even more detrimental than cold ones. You can always put on more clothing to keep warm. With heat, past a point, nothing more you can do.

 

[Monocrom]

I've never understood this myself. Why don't these apartment buildings have central air conditioning instead of every apartment having a window unit? In the long run that would cut the energy costs in half, if not more, while keeping the apartments at the same temperature. Even in brand new buildings you see window units. It makes absolutely no sense. Office buildings are always centrally heated and cooled. It should be no different for apartment buildings. In fact, it should be required, especially in new buildings. Moreover, there are tenant regulations regarding the temperatures a building must be kept at during winter, but not in summer. Again, it makes no sense. Excessively high temperatures can be even more detrimental than cold ones. You can always put on more clothing to keep warm. With heat, past a point, nothing more you can do.

Makes perfect sense from a monetary point of view. Central air in an office building means all the workers are comfortable enough to work efficiently for their boss. They're making money for him, so he provides them with plenty of cool air.

In an apartment building, central air becomes the responsibility of the landlord. Having it installed costs more than having each tenant buy their own, seperate, window unit. If the central air system breaks down, landlord is responsible for getting it fixed. Major bucks. If an individual window unit breaks down, that's the responsibility of the tenant who owns that unit. While things such as heat and running water are legally classed as the responsibility of the landlord to provide them, A/C (ironically) is not. It's not classed as a necessity. Landlord isn't responsible for providing A/C, so why should they take on the extra expense?

Maybe there are decent landlords out there. But in NYC, we have the type of scumbags who refused to released personal items of 9/11 victims to their families, until they were paid for all the months left on the lease. Not just 9/11. You die, your estate gets sued for back rent. Nevermind the fact that if you own property in NYC, you'll have about as difficult a time renting it as a crack dealer would have peddling his drugs in the inner city.

Still, considering the type of low-life scumbags landlords tend to be, I prefer having my own window unit. Could you imagine how long it would take a landlord to fix a malfunctioning central air unit? Yeah, you could call the City. Report him. Force him to comply. But that's still going to take at least a few days. If the A/C in my bedroom malfunctions, I can get it replaced the next day. Possibly even that day.

 

[jtr1962]

Agreed that most NYC landlords are lower life forms than the cockroaches infesting their buildings. Still, quite a few rental units include utilities. Being that central air has way lower operating costs than window units, I tend to think it would be in the landlords interest to install it when utilities are included.

On the downside, sure, it's a pain when it breaks. However, in this instance that means the entire building is hot, so the landlord will have hundreds of screaming tenants. Hard to ignore that.

And yes, in my opinion A/C should definitely be classed as a necessity. You'll see how quickly the landlord installs central air if that were the case. Incidentally, the same system can also provide heat in the winter, saving maintenance on a boiler. Yes, it's a huge capital investment, but also one which has a payback time of a few years. Ditto for things like triple pane windows. The reason you don't see as much retrofitting of these things is the skewed economics of city housing. When the tenants pay for heating/cooling, the landlord obviously has no incentive to make the building more efficient. When the landlord includes these things with the rent, the tenants have no self-interest in being conservative. In fact, they likely view running the A/C 24/7 as a way to stick it to their landlord. I say have the tenants/landlord split the costs 50/50. This gives both an incentive to upgrade.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

PhotonWrangler

A lineset refers to the refrigeration piping as you accurately guessed! I should have explained that better in my first post. My apologies 😳

I haven't posted a lot lately and I'm just getting back into the loop of things around here! It's so good to be back! 😀

Thanks for the explanation, Jugg. And welcome back to CPF! :wave:

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Here's another puzzler that I learned today...

We have an older vehicle that needed a replacement gas cap, so we went to the parts store and asked for a gas cap for a 1999 model vehicle. This is the model year that it was advertised (and sold) as.

Got the part and discovered that it didn't fit, so we went back to the store to straighten it out. The clerk said that it must be a 1998 vehicle, and asked us what model year was on the sticker inside the door. It turns out that the sticker said it was a 1998 model, which is the year that it was actually built, not the year that it was advertised as being. And when we tried the 1998 version of the cap, it fit perfectly.

So it kind of makes sense to me that the 1998 part fit, but it makes no sense in terms of determine which replacement parts are actually correct for any given model year. And it certainly doesn't seem fair to consumers to be causing this confusion in the first place!

 

[will]

Just started reading this thread and I know it was way back at the beginning but I can answer the question of why dairy is located at the back of the store haha.

The refrigerated stuff is towards the back so the linesets to the cases don't have to be so long. Long linesets in refrigeration is an equipment killer.

The reason dairy is at the back of the store - MARKETING -
Same reason the Pharmacy is at the back of the store.
You have to walk through the store, this in turn will get a certain amount of impulse buying.
Same reason high profit items are located at eye level on shelves.

I don't know from Linesets, but most stores have the freezers in the middle of the store. The cooling units are generally mounted on the roof, this is in single story buildings.

 

[Monocrom]

The way some folks function with a lack of common sense.

Two examples:

1) Guy on youtube reviewing the old-fashioned, plastic, U.S. military canteen. He gave it good marks overall. But actually took off points because it started to melt when he put it right by his camp-fire. Yeah . . . He took points off because a plastic canteen began to melt when it was placed right by an open flame.

2) Guy standing next to me at a Sporting Goods store while looking at Travel Wallets. His girlfriend standing right next to him. He begins to laugh and tell her that those wallets are worthless. He then tells her that his father advised him to get one before he went to Europe on vacation a few years back. He told her that every time he had to pay for something, he ended up reaching down into his pants and pulling out money. He felt foolish. That's what he told her. And she didn't even correct him. His dad probably just assumed that his son would use some common sense to figure out how a Travel Wallet actually works.

What honestly doesn't make sense to me is how these folks and others like them are able to function day-to-day with an absolute lack of common sense. :shakehead

 

[RBR]

...

What honestly doesn't make sense to me is how these folks and others like them are able to function day-to-day with an absolute lack of common sense. :shakehead





Here are a few samples that not all of them do.

:devil:

http://www.darwinawards.com/

But you are right, sometimes it´s strange how some of these folks come through the day.
On the other side these guys are doing something for the economy, feeding whole branches like lawyers, reviewers and product liability specialists/departments.

Cheers

RBR

 

[jtr1962]

1) Guy on youtube reviewing the old-fashioned, plastic, U.S. military canteen. He gave it good marks overall. But actually took off points because it started to melt when he put it right by his camp-fire. Yeah . . . He took points off because a plastic canteen began to melt when it was placed right by an open flame.

I might have also, not because it melted when placed by the fire, but because a canteen shouldn't be made out of plastic in the first place. It's a given that in the field sometimes the water you find will be questionable, and you'll need to sterilize it by boiling it. Easy to do with a metal canteen held over a fire, impossible with a plastic canteen. But yes, stupid to even put it by the fire in the first place (unless he was too dumb to notice the canteen was made of plastic).

Aother thing which doesn't make sense, and which I'm becoming increasingly annoyed at, is the next quarter mentality in the business world nowadays. It seems like nobody plans in terms of years or decades any more. It's always what expenses can we cut now so we show more profit next quarter, even if it guts the company and causes it to fail 3 years down the road.

 

[RBR]

Employees holding shares or investing mediately in the stock market do not make sense to me, at least as long as they work for a stock corporation.

They crack the whip on their own backs / saw themselves on the limbs they are sitting on.

Cheers

RBR

 

[Monocrom]

On the other side these guys are doing something for the economy, feeding whole branches like lawyers, reviewers and product liability specialists/departments.

Cheers

RBR

More like these guys are simply promoting a sue-happy atmosphere, and getting rich off of their own lack of common sense, or even stupidity. When a company gets sued and has to settle out of court, they don't just eat the cost of the lawsuit. They often raise prices or fire employees (or both) to make up the difference. Fired employees don't spend as much as they used to when they had jobs. A reduction of consumer dollars. Raised prices speak for themselves.

 

[Monocrom]

I might have also, not because it melted when placed by the fire, but because a canteen shouldn't be made out of plastic in the first place. It's a given that in the field sometimes the water you find will be questionable, and you'll need to sterilize it by boiling it. Easy to do with a metal canteen held over a fire, impossible with a plastic canteen. But yes, stupid to even put it by the fire in the first place (unless he was too dumb to notice the canteen was made of plastic).

To me, it's like taking off points because the Smart Car won't hold you and three of your friends in comfort. Like taking points off because your new Corvette gets horrible fuel-economy. It's not as though either one is being sold as something it's not. Walk into any surplus store, pick up a G.I. issue canteen, or not even that much. Just look at it. It's blatantly obvious if it's the plastic or the metal version. If you just want to toss in a couple of water-purification tabs, the plastic is fine. If boiling is preferred, you get the metal one. But you don't take off points from the plastic one because it's plastic and you get surprised that it behaves like plastic when put near an open flame.

If your girlfriend or wife hates spiders and you know that, you don't get one of those plastic ones, put it on the bed, and then get to be surprised when she walks in and starts screaming her head off. Really?? You were surprised? Doesn't work that way. You also don't get to be surprised if she has a bad temper, and decides to slice up something other than dinner after the little joke you pulled.

Plastic spider: $1.50
Emergency Room bill: $3,150
Happy wife: Priceless.

 

[RBR]

More like these guys are simply promoting a sue-happy atmosphere, and getting rich off of their own lack of common sense, or even stupidity. When a company gets sued and has to settle out of court, they don't just eat the cost of the lawsuit. They often raise prices or fire employees (or both) to make up the difference. Fired employees don't spend as much as they used to when they had jobs. A reduction of consumer dollars. Raised prices speak for themselves.

This has been meant more in a sarcastic way.

:wave:

These things are a result of the US jurisdiction and legislation in my opinion, which is directly encouraging such attitudes/behaviours/calculations.

So the lack of common sense is directly expedited / cultivated by this system, being a bonenhead simply pays sometimes.

Cheers

RBR

 

[beerwax]

a plastic canteen can take small knocks without denting so may look better after some time in the field. its probably less likely to crack than alluminium and less likely to get a deformed opening leading to inability to seal. and its more affordable. so while i understand taking points off because its not alloy some points might need to be added back because its plastic. there are some very good plastics out there.

 

[Monocrom]

a plastic canteen can take small knocks without denting so may look better after some time in the field. its probably less likely to crack than alluminium and less likely to get a deformed opening leading to inability to seal. and its more affordable. so while i understand taking points off because its not alloy some points might need to be added back because its plastic. there are some very good plastics out there.

Indeed.

Main point is, you don't take points off because of the nature of the thing. If you like natural blondes with blue eyes, you don't ask out the cute red-head with green eyes. At the same time, you don't treat her like garbage because she wasn't born a blonde or doesn't have blue eyes.