Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with elevators

Ooh, what's inside there?

sixcolors — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:43:46 -0800

So what's inside areas that are closed off to the public, in buildings? I know places like hospitals have certain areas that are closed off to the public because they are morgues, have hazardous materials inside, or whatever...but there's other places I have trouble guessing why they restrict access.

Some examples:

On my campus, the library, business, and education buildings have areas where students and sometimes faculty aren't allowed. Same thing with the dorms, but it is even weirder. Some of the stairwells are locked. Isn't that a fire hazard? One of the dorms obviously have a fourth floor, yet no one lives up there, and you can't get there from the stairs or elevator.

Not too long ago, I looked at the floor plan of my favorite casino, and noticed that there was at least five rooms that didn't have a number or name.

As for elevators...I sometimes see keyholes instead of buttons on certain floors. It's usually the very top or very bottom floor(s).

I don't know if this is urban legend or not...I heard that the 13th floor in some buildings aren't open to the public. Superstitious much?If that's true, what's there?

Human-sized microwave ovens

halespawn — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:02:48 -0800

Is there such a thing as a "walk-in" microwave oven? The rather interesting noise my company's elevator makes reminds me of an old episode of Millennium, where people were roasted alive in an "industrial-size" microwave oven. Do such things actually exist, and if so, what are they used for? How easy might it be to retrofit an elevator car into such a device?

Why no stairs in office buildings?

kenko — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:04:19 -0800

Why are there frequently no non-emergency stairs in office buildings? Is it so unheard of that one would want to take the stairs, and not the elevator, from the first to the second floor?

Examples of mechanical or software placebos?

grumblebee — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 11:11:04 -0800

Part One: I've heard people say that the "close doors" buttons in elevators don't work. They certainly don't seem to do anything in my building. Do they not work because of poor design or are they literally (purposefully) not hooked up to anything?

Part Two: Are there other examples of mechanical (or software) placebos? I've heard that the "progress bar" you see when Windows boots doesn't actually mean anything. Microsoft just discovered that people were happier if there was some sort of animation going on while their computer was starting up.