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Donating forks to the dining hall

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Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#161

Post by paulmd »

marssaxman wrote: post #47

I love this spirit. In the office where I work, the main door locks whenever it closes, so the first person to arrive each morning props the door open for everyone else. Well, a new tenant moved in to one of the other units, and they started taking our doorstop. Morning after morning we had to go find it and retrieve it, for weeks! One day it occurred to me that I didn't have to complain to management, or get mainten…

I do this all the time just for common tools around the house. The easy solution to never being able to find a screwdriver is... going to harbor freight and buying a half-dozen screwdrivers and staging them in areas where you commonly use them. Then you just try not to drag them around the house too much.

I do this with utility knives, flashlights, screwdrivers, etc. The $10 of "waste" from buying a couple extra screwdrivers is hugely outweighed by the convenience of "saturation".

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#162

Post by jhbadger »

FireInsight wrote: post #148
jhbadger wrote: post #3

Reminds of of the replacement of "threeks" at the UW-Madison campus in the 1980s. At the time, it was common for satirical parties to win student elections and do odd things like cover the campus with plastic flamingos. One of the satirical parties was upset that the UW-Madison cafeteria didn't have true forks (with four tines) but only "threeks" (forks with three tines). So they decided to work with friends at North…

Why weren't the administrations pleased and why is it obvious? Did they stop the trade completely or truly reverse it afterwards?

Yes, they made the schools reverse the trade. While it was done in a spirit of fun, it was technically a theft of utensils from both schools.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#163

Post by master-lincoln »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #151
bombcar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've actually had to try to make people more of a jerk in the midwest, and instruct them on why the "zipper merge" is NOT bad: https://www.dot.state.mn.us/zippermerge/ Otherwise if there's a sign that says "Left Lane Closed 10 Miles Ahead" everyone will get in the right lane for ten miles .

> everyone will get in the right lane for ten miles. And have 10 miles to get up to speed. As opposed to the zipper merge where everyone waits til the last minute, and everyone has to come to a complete stop. Supposing of course your observations are true. From what I can tell with the "lane closed in 10 miles", is some asshole invariably sees it as a chance to get ahead of everyone else, zooms through the left lane,…

In my experience there is no full stop if zipper merge is done right, but lots of angry people and a an inefficient use of the road leading to traffic jam miles before the merge needs to happen if people try to get into the one lane early.

If people all zip merge, there is no zooming possible on the closed lane and both lanes that merge get down to around 20mph at the choke point.

This only works in countries with civilized traffic participants as mentioned by OP. I have personally only seen 2 countries out of maybe 30 where that was the case. In cars many people behave like animals for some reason

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#164

Post by seabass-labrax »

roydivision wrote: post #115
gravescale wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least altruism brings some kind of positive feeling, be it personal happiness to see others benefit or some feeling of social or even religious duty fulfilled, even if completely privately and never mentioned to another living soul. I don't think any altruism can be said to be utterly without some kind of benefit to the altruist.

Personally I don't think pure altruism even exists, per the definition. Actively and knowingly doing something good for someone else for absolutely no personal benefit is impossible. This is to all intents and purposes a contradiction.

I disagree with you, but it would probably be an impossibility for me to prove it! Why? Well, as soon as a truly altruistic act is observed by third-parties, there's a chance the actor could be rewarded for it (for instance, by being honoured by society). Then, we would have at least the ability to claim that the actor was doing it for the chance of a reward, rather than purely selflessly. Thus, truly altruistic acts can only be immune from accusations of selfishness if they are entirely unobservable!

Of course, I hope you'd agree that such an accusation would not always be plausible - the higher the personal risk of the act relative to the potential reward, the less plausible selfishness is and the more plausible altruism is.

I personally have acted altruistically - as you describe it, "actively and knowingly doing good for someone else for absolutely no personal benefit". I can't prove it to you, but I think it's a natural consequence of empathy. I'd posit that altruistic acts are often done by those in situations where they are vulnerable themselves, which is why events like natural disasters are often accompanied by unusual levels of social cohesion and acts of personal sacrifice. That instinct can be exploited, of course; yet, by itself, it is a beautiful thing.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#165

Post by kotaKat »

Makes me wonder if one were to take a 'college town', introduce tagged forks into the local dining facility at the beginning of the academic year, then beginning at midterms, start checking local thrift stores to see if they start "floating up". Increase these checks after the end of the academic year, to continue to chart when or if they appear.

From this, we can perhaps extrapolate a "fork drift" factor that the school could then use to determine future fork ordering? ;)

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#166

Post by olah_1 »

Jun8 wrote: post #137

There's a common pattern in population dynamics that I've observed, which probably has a formal name: A given system with (to simplify) two types of behavior: good and bad will tolerate and self correct up to certain percentage of bad actors (call this the jerk threshold, JT) after which all participants switch to the bad behavior. Examples are line formation for a service, cutting people off in traffic, stealing fro…

> after which all participants switch to the bad behavior

This is how it has become with job applications. So many people started lying on resumes that the job reqs starting raising the requirements for a position, which causes more people to need to lie. If you don't lie, you just don't get a job and starve/die.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#167

Post by marssaxman »

rob74 wrote: post #71
dexwiz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many doors have a toggle on the face plate below or above the latch that changes auto lock behavior. But auto lock is good for security. I once had a friend move out of a place in part because he would often get locked out. I showed him how to change this at his move out party.

> auto lock is good for security Exactly... in the company where I work, propping open the door (maybe not so much the door to the building, but certainly the doors to our office) would be a sure way to get you into pretty serious trouble. Also, opening the door with your own access card for other people (although I occasionally do that for people I know).

I would not normally expect to get away with it, but our security folks don't care; you can't get onto our floor without a badge or PIN, and we are a young enough startup that everyone still recognizes each other. The managers of the coworking space do not care what we do with the office suite we rent from them, and building security does not care what the coworking space does with its interior doors so long as the fire doors stay shut. The security folks at the head office of the coworking chain might care, as they're the ones operating the PIN lock we are bypassing, but they're not here to express an opinion.

Meanwhile, the phone rooms, bathrooms, printer, and most of the conference rooms are located outside our suite in the coworking space, so we'd all be punching in our eight-digit PINs half a dozen times a day getting back into our office if we didn't prop its door open.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#168

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

myko wrote: post #149
red_admiral wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, unless traffic is free-flowing at maximum speed, doing the zipper merge is in fact the non-jerk option.

ugh tell that to the idiots who give me the finger for zipper merging in Columbus, OH

Probably should prioritize telling them that red lights mean stop and that the arrow on the one-way sign points in the only direction you're allowed to go. Maybe mention turn signals too.

Allegedly there are three cities with worse drivers, but I find that highly implausible

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#169

Post by practicemaths »

myko wrote: post #149
red_admiral wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, unless traffic is free-flowing at maximum speed, doing the zipper merge is in fact the non-jerk option.

ugh tell that to the idiots who give me the finger for zipper merging in Columbus, OH

Well if you're forcing them to break when you merge then that kind of requires a finger imo.

Regardless Columbus has a great lack of turn signals and understanding of basic intersection rules.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#170

Post by CrispyKerosene »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #151
bombcar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've actually had to try to make people more of a jerk in the midwest, and instruct them on why the "zipper merge" is NOT bad: https://www.dot.state.mn.us/zippermerge/ Otherwise if there's a sign that says "Left Lane Closed 10 Miles Ahead" everyone will get in the right lane for ten miles .

> everyone will get in the right lane for ten miles. And have 10 miles to get up to speed. As opposed to the zipper merge where everyone waits til the last minute, and everyone has to come to a complete stop. Supposing of course your observations are true. From what I can tell with the "lane closed in 10 miles", is some asshole invariably sees it as a chance to get ahead of everyone else, zooms through the left lane,…

I understand that my argument will lead to the inevitable 'well if everyone one followed all the rules all the time' type response, but there if people are leaving the appropriate following distance with perhaps a bit extra at the as they approach the zipper merge, than there is no reason the merge cannot take place at near highway speeds, certainly with no need to stop.

Its no different than how a freeway entry works.

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