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August 05, 2005
lift meme
There's an idea going around at the moment of a lift or elevator hack - press Door Close at the same time as the floor you want to go to, and the lift will go straight there, without picking up anyone else.
It's an idea that's been around for a long time, but has recently catapulted itself around the Internet due to this posting. Then, the typical blog echo chamber started, BoingBoing, Make, Engadget, Gizmodo, all amplifying the idea, without any fact checking, or even questioning. Technorati has about 100 mentions of the thedamnblog.com article, and delicious has 205 links, none of which question the authenticity or probability. Until now.
I love it because it's not true. Yet again, people are taking the stuff they see on the Internet at face value without any critical thought. Not only that, it's a clever myth, as it's hard to prove or disprove - after all, you might just be in the wrong kind of lift. Or the lift engineer might have turned it off. In reality, most lift journeys are uninterrupted, apart from skyscrapers. Did you get lucky or did it work?
It's about information hidden in plain sight, and gives the idea that you can rule over others in a typically mundane daily situation. Secret knowledge. People want to believe.
Of course, this hasn't stopped me from trying it in every lift.
What I am suprised at is that lift manuals don't appear to be easily available on the Internet. It should be expected these days that all information becomes public, if you look hard enough.
Comments
Like everyone else out there, it didn't occur to me to check the hoax sites to see what they had to say about this. But then, who knows if they are true either? :)
Posted by: London Dan at August 6, 2005 01:41 AM
Another way to hack a lift is by overweight. I did this with some friends of mine and it worked, we went straight to the bottom without any stop on the way, unfortunately the bottom is below level zero, so the door couldn�t open and we had to wait for 20 minutes. Probably not the best hack around, but at least it works ;-)
Posted by: S�ren M�rk at August 10, 2005 11:57 AM
The other lift I'd like to see this work for is at the Tate Modern - OK, so buggies and wheelchairs take priority here, but when people get in who are only going one floor up when they could easily have walked, and you're trying to get to the Members Room, I really start to grind my teeth.
The solution would be a fast-track lift that goes to the top two floors only, if you're not interested in the art and just want to get to the members room or the restaurant!
Posted by: Alison at August 10, 2005 12:07 PM
I have to say that this hack does work as I have been using it in my busy workplace for many years before I saw this posted online, My building is 30 floors and I work on the 28th and have never been stopped since I started using this in 1995, I learned this from watching an elevator mechanic that was doing some maintence on the lift use it. Also according to your post, that website muesum off hoaxes does not look too factual, if you read the comments it is of mixed reviews, and with all the other sites that posted this website that I saw I read the comments on them and most of them conclude that it works, So I would think you should do some more research online, cause that site you posted has no facts to back up that its fake , against that I for a fact know it works, and a lot of diffrent people that posted comments on other sites said it worked -Jane
Posted by: Jane at August 14, 2005 12:45 PM
