Logbot (Jan 09 2025 at 00:50): Logbot (Jan 09 2025 at 00:50):Rachel Plotnick joins us for the first show of 2025 to discuss her book "Power Button" and the research she did, and why we love/hate buttons so much. We also discuss her upcoming book "License to Spill" as well as the research she's doing on energy drinks. :link: https://changelog.fm/623
| Ch | Start | Title | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 00:00 | This week on The Changelog | 01:12 |
| 02 | 01:12 | Sponsor: Sentry | 02:04 |
| 03 | 03:23 | Start the show! | 00:16 |
| 04 | 03:39 | It's Rachel Plotnick | 07:03 |
| 05 | 10:42 | Buttons aren't cool | 01:48 |
| 06 | 12:30 | Beginning her button research | 02:59 |
| 07 | 15:29 | Push a button for my shower please | 06:19 |
| 08 | 21:48 | Good for nothing button! | 00:18 |
| 09 | 22:06 | Buttons are not dead | 01:40 |
| 10 | 23:45 | Sponsor: Notion | 02:14 |
| 11 | 26:00 | The underlying problem | 09:11 |
| 12 | 35:11 | Re-button-ifying | 01:35 |
| 13 | 36:46 | Placebo buttons | 05:20 |
| 14 | 42:06 | When should it be a button? | 04:55 |
| 15 | 47:00 | License to spill | 03:21 |
| 16 | 50:22 | Sponsor: DeleteMe | 02:28 |
| 17 | 52:50 | Reminded of The Truman Show | 00:59 |
| 18 | 53:48 | Who is this book for? | 02:57 |
| 19 | 56:45 | How do YOU eat Cheetos while coding? | 01:36 |
| 20 | 58:21 | What is obsolescence culture? | 02:56 |
| 21 | 1:01:18 | Rachel's research on energy drinks | 06:36 |
| 22 | 1:07:54 | H2 Hummer crab walk | 01:30 |
| 23 | 1:09:24 | Rachel on the internet | 00:56 |
| 24 | 1:10:19 | Closing thoughts and stuff | 02:12 |
Ricky Hussmann (Jan 09 2025 at 04:32):re: traffic signals that have flash detection or object detection. At least in my area these are both true. Flash detection is intended to assist with emergency vehicles approaching, and the vehicle detection is typically inductive loops for metal detection rather than weight to the best of my knowledge.
I’m not a civil engineer or anything, but in my microprocessor class over 20 years ago one of our projects was to study and model an intersection traffic light setup close to the engineering school.
Jamie Tanna (Jan 09 2025 at 08:06):Was it intentional there was no "this week on The Changelog" and "start the show" chapters on the ++ version?
Jerod Santo (Jan 09 2025 at 15:06):@Ricky Hussmann ok cool thank you for confirming I haven't been completely wasting my time/effort all these years :laughing:
Adam Stacoviak (Jan 09 2025 at 22:30):@Jamie Tanna I think I just took us into the show this time. I didn't think about it much since "It's Rachel" was the first chapter of the show.
Anthony Tibbs (Jan 11 2025 at 18:40):@Jerod Santo I think you score 2 out of 3.
1 - While I'm sure there are examples of fake / useless buttons, I can confirm that pedestrian buttons do (at least sometimes) have a purpose. In my area, if you don't push the button, there may never be a 'walk' cycle or the green light for the side street will last only 15 or 20 seconds (not enough time to walk across).
2 - Similarly, the vehicle detector loops are real, although they rely on electrical induction and not weight. Sensitivity has to be tuned to avoid false positives but also avoid missing vehicles. I learned as a kid that when cycling at these lights, it is important to get ahead of the sensor so that a big car can come up behind you to trip it, because our bikes generally didn't have enough metal to do the job. Motorcycles sometimes have issues too. And in some configurations you might have needed to cross multiple loops in succession to have it register (especially in left-hand-turn lanes, where they need to "weed out" inadvertent triggers from opposite direction traffic).
3 - Finally, while some lights do have detection cameras to allow emergency vehicles to take priority, these are commonly infrared-based and require pulses at a specific frequency to trigger. I think on the 'flashing headlights' front, that fits into the "wives tale" world. Maybe there was one light somewhere that did that, but I'm sure they quickly realized that was ripe for 'misuse'.
Last updated: Jan 13 2025 at 01:14 UTC