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Posted by Jrh0203 12 hours ago

Elevators(john.fun)
921 points | 228 commentspage 8
jhallenworld 10 hours ago|
What this doesn't include: not all people are equal. Do you want the CEO of your new office building to have to wait behind a bunch of plebeians? At least one car is going to have to be reserved for the better people.
dbcurtis 10 hours ago|
This does happen. I also once worked on a destination-dispatch elevator system installed in a high-end condo building (high-end, as in concierge and parking valet for residents). Anyway... the resident's key card would of course automatically call a cab to take them to their unit's floor, but also the security system had entries for things like "dog owner" and "allergic to dogs" so that the DD system would never schedule them together for the same cab.
mallory854 10 hours ago||
Super interesting. I've always wondered how exactly they work.
cruffle_duffle 11 hours ago||
If you like elevator hacking don’t forget the seminal DEF CON talk by Deviant Ollam and Howard Payne: https://youtu.be/oHf1vD5_b5I

I watch it like once a year because it always tickles some part of me. Like all the different modes you can get an elevator into. The most fancy one people might encounter is when moving into or out of a building. The front office can give you a key to give exclusive control over an elevator so your movers aren’t waiting around on elevators. Put it in that mode and it will stop responding to calls from other floors. Only the person with the key can control the elevator. You get on, select the floor, door closes elevator goes, and then just chills there with the door open waiting for you. Annoying for the rest if the building (the building is down an elevator when in that mode) but is amazing for the person using it! But there are way, way more depending on the installation and function.

Fun fact: most elevator shafts are sealed at the top as tight as possible to prevent them from becoming a giant chimney in a fire. It never even occurred to me until I was in a mechanical room wondering “where is the hatch to look down the shaft?” The answer is “there is none, and it’s a feature not a bug.” You want to block all airflow so fire doesn’t chase up the shaft into neighboring floors. Who knew!

hasteg 10 hours ago||
Lol, love this post. Every single day when I take the elevators at the office I try and figure out what the algorithm is behind it. Been too lazy to just research it. Now I know!
zatkin 11 hours ago||
I think a small improvement that could be made is to have the dot representing the person be colored the same as a dot on each floor, which would obviate the destination floor for each individual.
soupspaces 11 hours ago|
Yes the visualization is great but overused and could also use a stop button. I would have also liked to see different kinds of plots.
yread 9 hours ago||
Our elevator doesnt stop for people who called it after it started on the way up. It only picks up people on the way down
tintor 7 hours ago||
I am amazed how in US closing elevator doors switch to opening if someone touches the door edge. This results in abusive behavior of people intentionally jamming their arms in the path of closing doors, and delaying everyone else inside the stopped elevator.
slater 7 hours ago|
That's the case with most elevator doors, worldwide...? If you put your hand in a closing elevator door, it's supposed to open again.
realaccfromPL 11 hours ago||
I absolutely adore this, I am always trying to guess whichever elevator will come in first in large crowded buildings. Thanks for this article.
prometheus1992 10 hours ago||
This is beautiful. By the end of it I started to feel like I was calculating complicated chess lines in a middle game.
proee 11 hours ago|
Don't forget the executive elevator algorithm (EEA), which uses a priority interrupt to take passengers directly to the top floor.
mekdoonggi 11 hours ago|
Also need to make sure you increase the speed going past floors 4 and 13 to avoid bad luck.
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