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Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

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Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#121

Post by Scubabear68 »

Not surprising at all. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but nearly all school boards in NJ are run by non-paid citizens who run for office with no experience in business or education. The result - if you look at school contracts, they are paying outrageous rates with no safety net compared to regular businesses. In our district they are spending $300k on simple pole barns and $50k on simple score boards because industry knows school boards have no clue on actual costs of goods and services.

With amateurs running the show, it is not at all surprising that they flubbed negotiations for a service like this.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#122

Post by briandear »

hasbot wrote: post #101
geraldwhen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They likely could not hire a janitor. My school system routinely cancels busses because they don’t pay the drivers enough. Public institutions are unwilling to pay market cost for someone to show up for a split shift, which could be 80k/year or more.

Highly highly unlikely. If that were the case, the complaint would be the school is very dirty. I was a janitor for three years in a middle school. There were five people that came in every day after school and cleaned the building. Bathrooms especially need cleaning every day. And, yes, turning off the lights were the responsibilities of every janitor. Each person had their own section and, after cleaning it, turned…

The kids should clean the damned school. https://www.good.is/amp/japan-children-clean-schools-2639606...

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#123

Post by Broken_Hippo »

yardie wrote: post #87
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 2000s, my sister had to buy an apple computer or laptop because the college required it for education students. This is a result of apple donating computers to school in the 80's. Google, really, is just following other people's example.

Apple never donated computers to schools. There are thousands of them. The company would go bankrupt in no time. What they did have is a company like MECC who wrote a lot of great Edtech software for Apple and Mac computers. That relationship with education and creators helped carry them out of the pre-bankruptcy days. School districts always had a budget in mind and traditional Apple would try and meet it. Now, they…

Apple never donated computers to schools.

A quick google search will give you the "kids can't wait" program. This program allowed donated computers to go to 9000 California schools.

The others may have been discounted, sure, but they did donate and it still means that Google is just following in the footsteps of those before them.

I'll also note that $100 off of a current computer isn't as bad as it sounds, considering the low starting price of a good-enough-for-internet-and-school machine. I had green letters on a black screen back in the 80s, giving way to not-so-refined pixel art a few years later, all for a computer that cost more than they do now before you even adjust for inflation. Computers simply aren't the same sort of cost they were back then (they still cost, but the machinery isn't as big of an expense)

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#124

Post by tbran »

willcipriano wrote: post #104
tbran wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too balance this perspective, let's remember that not all public workers are bad people. Many of them are also underfunded and understaffed, and don't have the lawyers and means of a rich corporation. The GP's "hoodwinked" was apropos.

Does any government agency claim to be funded correctly?

There was an article here on HN some time ago about some enormous project in California (a bridge? a tunnel?). IIRC the state's engineering department was quite small and underfunded, and so they depended on the contracted company for their engineering expertise. This did not go well. As I recall, the problems were that the state engineers were not experienced enough (because private pays better and seniors leave) and there weren't enough of them. For the life of me, I can't remember what the project was, but maybe someone else here does.

How about small towns entering into agreements with big box stores where they are simply unmatched and "hoodwinked" into accepting arrangements that aren't favorable. [0] Presumably, towns could make better contacts with better legal resources.

Do you have a better solution to this problem or should we just let the corps run our lives?

[0]: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/11/3/big-box-stores...

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#125

Post by willcipriano »

tbran wrote: post #124
willcipriano wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does any government agency claim to be funded correctly?

There was an article here on HN some time ago about some enormous project in California (a bridge? a tunnel?). IIRC the state's engineering department was quite small and underfunded, and so they depended on the contracted company for their engineering expertise. This did not go well. As I recall, the problems were that the state engineers were not experienced enough (because private pays better and seniors leave) an…

It's just highly suspicious that every criticism of government ends up at "You don't pay us enough money" especially in the United States. It's never incompetence, corruption or malfeasance, the solution is always hiring more of the people who made the mess in the first place and paying the existing ones more.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#126

Post by Volundr »

willcipriano wrote: post #104
tbran wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too balance this perspective, let's remember that not all public workers are bad people. Many of them are also underfunded and understaffed, and don't have the lawyers and means of a rich corporation. The GP's "hoodwinked" was apropos.

Does any government agency claim to be funded correctly?

https://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/army-thanks-but-no-ta...

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#127

Post by Volundr »

arp242 wrote: post #110
Symbiote wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wireless light switches in my rented apartment, and I don't like them. 1. I can't see from the position of the switch the state of the light, so I still after 5 years press the wrong switch sometimes. 2. Sometimes, maybe 5% of the time, the light doesn't change instantly, but up to 2 seconds after I pressed the button. 3. About 5% of the time, the light doesn't change at all. Then I either think I've pressed t…

When I bought my previous house I changed to door to my bedroom to swing open the other way, as the original direction awkwardly swung open "in to the room" rather than towards the wall. The downside was that the light switch was now behind the door, and because I didn't want to re-route the cables for for the light switch I used a wireless switch, which seemed like a good solution. It was, but I also had all of the…

> I apologize to whomever is living there now. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even realize it's wireless and were confused why it's such a shitty switch, and when the battery eventually ran out.

It's odd to me that it's the norm for the seller/buyer of the house to never meet. I bought a 1970s house awhile ago, and have slowly learned it's eccentricities as well as adding some myself. I think it'd be immensely helpful if it was the norm for everyone to walk through the house together and cover things like "oh this is a weird miscellaneous circuit that covers things in 3 different rooms", "this is this way because..."

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#128

Post by ridgered4 »

autora wrote: post #19
amelius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronics hobbyist magazines of the 70s and 80s are full of better Nest replacements.

Considering parent, myself and most people I talk to consider the point of Nest being the ability to control their thermostat when they are out of the house, I don't understand how any system in the 70s or 80s could even work at all like a Nest, let alone better. No mobile phones, no widespread use of the internet and a hobbyist can make a thermostat you can control when out of the house? Would love to know how?

LGR on youtube had a video on a home automation system from the 80s. IIRC it had a modem listen interface, although I don't recall the details.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#129

Post by argiopetech »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #114
Symbiote wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wireless light switches in my rented apartment, and I don't like them. 1. I can't see from the position of the switch the state of the light, so I still after 5 years press the wrong switch sometimes. 2. Sometimes, maybe 5% of the time, the light doesn't change instantly, but up to 2 seconds after I pressed the button. 3. About 5% of the time, the light doesn't change at all. Then I either think I've pressed t…

This seems to reveal that the problem with automated lights, etc. is that we no longer have a single source of truth for the state of the light or other device. I think the problem is that we are updating the state of the light but not updating the state of the UI i.e. the switch. The solution would seem to be that the automated system should be moving the switch in order to turn the light on or off instead of adding…

FWIW, this is also the case with traditionally-wired 3-way switches (i.e., two switches that both toggle a single fixture).

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#130

Post by tbran »

willcipriano wrote: post #125
tbran wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article here on HN some time ago about some enormous project in California (a bridge? a tunnel?). IIRC the state's engineering department was quite small and underfunded, and so they depended on the contracted company for their engineering expertise. This did not go well. As I recall, the problems were that the state engineers were not experienced enough (because private pays better and seniors leave) an…

It's just highly suspicious that every criticism of government ends up at "You don't pay us enough money" especially in the United States. It's never incompetence, corruption or malfeasance, the solution is always hiring more of the people who made the mess in the first place and paying the existing ones more.

Alternatively, there is room for "incompetence, corruption or malfeasance" AND being underfunded or understaffed. I don't think there are any absolutes here.
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