The Bitching Thread

[Ryllharu]

you can't afford solutions? deal with it.

That's an excellent way to get an engineering consulting firm fired from a job, and less likely to get future jobs due to a ruined reputation. Engineers get hired to find solutions, period. That's the whole reason that story keeps getting retold. The best solution is often the simplest, and the cheapest, requiring no technical engineering at all.

Sorry Xel, I can't agree with you here.

One group tells you that you'll have to tear down the entire face of the building to put in a faster elevator with automatic idle floor positions based on a 3 month analysis period of peak times and overall usage. Cost: Millions?, loss of tenants who require elevator for accessibility, etc. Complete in 6 months to a 1 year.

The other group tells you to install mirrors. Cost: $35 per floor, plus one in the elevator. $325 for labor. Complete in one day.

Who do you think is going to get called again, or referred to similar building owners?

edit:
Another real world example: Alaskan roads frequently cracked in the freeze/thaw, exacerbated by the road surface itself transferring heat to the permafrost. What did they do? Nothing fancy, just elevated the road on top of loose rocks that dissipate the heat to the sides rather than into the permafrost.

These aren't crazy technical solutions here.

[Xelbair]

That's an excellent way to get an engineering consulting firm fired from a job, and less likely to get future jobs due to a ruined reputation. Engineers get hired to find solutions, period. That's the whole reason that story keeps getting retold. The best solution is often the simplest, and the cheapest, requiring no technical engineering at all.

Sorry Xel, I can't agree with you here.

One group tells you that you'll have to tear down the entire face of the building to put in a faster elevator with automatic idle floor positions based on a 3 month analysis period of peak times and overall usage. Cost: Millions?, loss of tenants who require elevator for accessibility, etc. Complete in 6 months to a 1 year.

The other group tells you to install mirrors. Cost: $35 per floor, plus one in the elevator. $325 for labor. Complete in one day.

Who do you think is going to get called again, or referred to similar building owners?

edit:
Another real world example: Alaskan roads frequently cracked in the freeze/thaw, exacerbated by the road surface itself transferring heat to the permafrost. What did they do? Nothing fancy, just elevated the road on top of loose rocks that dissipate the heat to the sides rather than into the permafrost.

These aren't crazy technical solutions here.

Second case would be proposed pretty quickly - seriously - any geo-engineer would recommend something like that asap.

First case? Engineers proposed all possible technical solutions. installing mirrors to prevent people's boredom is NOT engineering solution - but a psychological one. I'm not saying that engineering ones are better - but you aren't seriously expecting engineers to find psychological solution?

@Ani - i'm refering to the example that Ryll posted without regard to Enkoujin's post.