Posted on

The Honest Button

The crosswalk button at the corner of my downtown intersection has an LED above it that lights up red and says “Wait!” when you press it. The traffic signal does not change any faster. No wire runs from the button to the signal timer. The LED is connected only to the button itself, and it does the single job of telling the pedestrian to wait. A reader who pressed one of these recently described pushing it three or four times rapidly anyway, because it’s fun. They are correct on both counts. The button is fun. The button is also a different kind of object than the placebo buttons it replaced.

Continue reading → The Honest Button

Posted on

The Placebo Button

The elevator in my building has a door-close button that does nothing. I learned this the way everyone learns it, which is to say I pressed it for years under the impression that it was speeding up my departure. The button lights up. It makes a small click when pressed. It provides every sensory signal of function. What it does not do is close the door any faster than the door was going to close on its own. The elevators in most American buildings installed since 1990 have door-close buttons wired to nothing, because the Americans with Disabilities Act requires the door to stay open long enough for a person using a wheelchair or walker to enter, and the button that overrides that requirement is accessible only to the fire department with a key.

Continue reading → The Placebo Button

Posted on

How to Button Your Pants and Other Covenants of Urban Living

Today, I will share three observed examples of people doing absolutely the wrong thing in public and how these bad behaviors adversely affect others.

First on the list is knowing how to properly button your pants.  I saw a rather large fellow on the street the other day struggling to zip up his pants so he could button them.  He was doing it all in the wrong order.  First, you have to button the pants, then you pull up the zipper.  If you zip first and button second, you risk breaking the zipper.  Sure, it may be a little harder to suck in the gut first before the buttoning, but zipping and then sucking in only delays the real moment of truth.

Continue reading → How to Button Your Pants and Other Covenants of Urban Living

Posted on

Why You Button a Scene

There’s an old theatre chestnut — that is basically misunderstood — that goes a little something like this:  “Every scene needs to end on a button.”  Sometimes you’ll even see a director pacing at the back of the theatre asking out loud, “How do I button this scene?”

Continue reading → Why You Button a Scene

Posted on

Google Goofs Google Docs

There’s nothing I hate more than when a company “improves” their product to only make it dumber and less friendly than it was before the improvement.  Today’s case-in-point are The Google — who decided to goof with how a Google Docs file is saved and then released from view.



















Continue reading → Google Goofs Google Docs

Posted on

Futile Button Mashing in New York

When I was growing up in New Jersey, I would dream of one day driving a car and being able to go wherever I wanted. I knew that it would be years before I would actually be able to steer and control an actual car but there was a way in which I could exert some kind of power over not just one car but many cars at once — the crosswalk button at most intersections.
Pressing that button gave me a dramatic injection of power and, as I have now learned, a dose of unwitting, medicinal, gullibility.

Continue reading → Futile Button Mashing in New York

Posted on

Lapel Semiotics: The Problem with Obama Buttons

Barack Obama, in an attempt to appeal to as many niche political groups as possible, has splintered his support so much that — in the end — there is no single coalition of minds that leads to results instead of mere yearning. Here is one of the lapel buttons for sale on his website:

Continue reading → Lapel Semiotics: The Problem with Obama Buttons