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The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

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Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have experienced a (partial) failure of this. On the takeoff roll, there’s a call out for “airspeed alive”. One day after leaving the airplane parked outside for a long weekend, I dutifully looked at a dead airspeed indicator and called out “airspeed alive” followed shortly by realizing the mistake and aborting the takeoff, but there’s a danger of looking and “seeing” what’s expected but not actually there.

Perhaps the call should be "Airspeed $X knots thus alive" to demonstrate that the airspeed is readable.

I like the idea, but X will always be zero, so suffers the same problem.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#242
post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

Interesting, I also have this problem.

I still remember one time when I was staying at a friends place in a different city, I took his key to get back early and the key broke in the lock so he came back to me trying to get the bit of key out of the door so someone else could open it. We were all very drunk. It was quite traumatic!

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#243
post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

Cool, how "new"/now affordable technology transforms such situations into something manageable!

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#244

I had a weird tick as a kid where anytime someone said something to me I had to mentally adjust the length of the statement so the number of words was divisible by 5. So for example if you said "Are you going to school today?" I'd add "my good friend, Will" in my mind. It drove me nuts, but I was unable to stop. Then one day it just went away. Still have no idea what that was but it plagued most of my childhood. I re…

Heh. Walking over cracks, doing balancing un-rotation, alternating first leg on ladders, skipping first over-two if a ladder is uneven, walking into pools to save an intertial momentum. (No more)

“Then one day it just went away completely. It's a strange thing to try and explain it to someone.”

Fixed that in my mind as usual.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#245
post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

A technique I learnt as a kid from my uncle was to mindlessly use physical interaction to “feel” the state of things and learn a habit of doing it all the time. For the example of locking the door, it would be trying to open it and pull/push on the handle right after closing it. This seems to stick far longer in one’s memory.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#246
I was puzzled by the responses of therapists finding out about this. I guess as an engineer I’m always thinking of a quick practical solution. I would set up a camera where the dryer is. Taking the dryer itself is of course much better and simpler. What I find absolutely dumb is to skip these immediate remedies and instead trying to medicate someone off the bat.

It’s like prescribing a healthy exercise regime for someone who’s having a heart attack.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#248

In my case it is my remote garage doors. Sometimes worry that I did not press the button on the remote to close them when I left home so I would drive pass my home again after dropping off the kids at school. Fortunately distance to school/home/freeway to work is within a few minutes of each other. Later installed an IP camera - told the wife it was for home security and not monitoring the garage doors.

distance/door sensor would be probably cheaper (they cost like 5 dollars), though you would need to trust its reliability more than IP camera

I think this was triggered when I came home one day and the garage door was open - suspect it was due to somebody using the same channel as me for theirs or I really forgot to close it.

Replaced it with a rolling code controller board as a precaution to eliminate one possible cause.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#249
post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

> It's getting better, actually. I believe I'm fixing it slowly.

You've illuminated the key point I think. I struggled with this as well, and finally just forced myself to abandon the door, and struggle with the feelings. If you can do it ONCE, it gets easier from there. I admit I was a light case compared to the hair dryer, but the more times you can push through the compulsion -- with the aid of whatever tricks you can come up with -- the easier it gets.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#250
post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

Have you tried getting locks that only release the key when locked? If you've got the key in your pocket then the door is locked. More time efficient than taking a photo every day.

How would you get back inside the house without leaving the key in the exterior lock, making you unable to lock the door from the inside with the same key?

Not to mention the potential of having someone lock you inside, taking the key, and then something bad like a fire happening while you're stuck.

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