Following the gloomy, foggy mornings we've had in the UK recently, we were regularly getting a couple of e-mails each morning distributed to the whole site saying words to the effect of "Blue Ford Registration W123XYZ lights left on".
This generated the following e-mails, also all distributed to the entire site. These are all genuine, I have altered them only to remove any clues as to the company/people involved...
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
whilst it is nice to be informed if you have left your car lights on, it is not a very productive use of company resources.
A site-wide mail of this type will reach over 500 people/mailboxes, and apart from clogging the network, adds to the load on the mail server. Messages like these are currently generating over ten thousand mails per week, which costs the company thousands of pounds in lost project time, even if they are deleted straight away by the recipient!
Please can everybody consider their actions before using mail, especially if sending it to large distribution lists.
Thanks.
Simon (IT)
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Re: car lights
I agree it may be a waste of resources to send such a message as a site wide mail message.
I have however a proposal:
How about creating a list/index (maybe Excel spreadsheet) of employee
car registration numbers and making it accesible over the network?
With such an index we would be able to target the car owners much
more prcisely.
Human resources already have the relevant information.
Just an idea
Arne
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Right, lets sort this out once and for all.
Maplin sell a small kit (about a fiver) which you can install in you car to buzz when you open the drivers' door with the lights on. It's not that difficult to install (but depends on how awkward your car is). It's called a car-lights-on-warning-indicator in the 'car' section of 'Projects and Modules' in the catalogue. Both Maplin and Maplin Professional Supplies carry the item.
So, all you need is a fiver, some bits of wire, some tools and a competent installer (possibly your good self).
Jonathan
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Surely the best way to avoid this problem is to turn your lights off BEFORE LEAVING YOUR CAR. This way you can avoid an unneccessary walk back up to the car park in the rain.
However, if you are rather forgetful - like myself - then perhaps you could tie a piece of string (although fishing line is probably more durable) to your headlamp switch and to a finger on your right hand. The pulling on your finger as you leave the car will remind you to turn your lights off.
Jonnie.
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My, Mail clogging, recommendation is to walk or use public transport.
Regards
David
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Erm...
I was under the impression that most cars had a built in mechanism to turn their headlights off automatically...
Usually after about 9-10 hours!
Byeee,
Steve.
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Top tip:
Employees: Persuade the County Council to install mirrors along the length of the walls in the car parking levels. This way when you park up, you'll notice some bugger dazzling you with their headlights. When you realise that this is you, this will serve as a useful reminder to turn off your headlights.
Paul.
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Avoid this problem by never tuning your lights on, instead paint the bulbs bright yellow so, from a distance, they look as if they are on. You will also save electricity.
Regards
Alan ( where the hell's the road gone!!!!!) G.
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Please note that although these proposals are quite ingenious, in this instance, it would NOT be appropriate to submit invention reports to the Patent Department.
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Simply power your lights from a small pedal-driven generator in the passenger's footwell. This both cures the problem of leaving lights on, and also helps the environment by promoting car-pools.
Do I win 5 pounds?
Ian
P.S. Alternatively, to avoid the problem of wasting people's time and company resources by sending lots of email, a Bulletin Board area could be set up for this sort of thing (and other non-urgent announcements, requests, whatever).
P.P.S. ...or ...did someone say Usenet News? No, I didn't think so. But Lotus Notes is just around the corner (cough) and will probably provide the same sort of facilities.
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People,
I've got a good idea. How about removing your car battery and bringing it into work with you each day. That way you can be sure you've not left them on!
Steve
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If you fit an array of photoelectric cells over your vehicle's headlights then it does not matter whether you leave them switched ON or OFF!
Regards,
Pat
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People, | I've got a good idea. How about removing your car battery and | bringing it into work with you each day. That way you can | be sure you've not left them on! Steve
That is a brilliant idea. Now the next question is how to remind myself to remove the car battery each day.
:-)
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| Top tip: | | Employees: Persuade the County Council to install mirrors | along the length of the walls in the car parking levels. This way when | you park up, you'll notice some bugger dazzling you with their | headlights. | When you realise that this is you, this will serve as a useful reminder | to turn off your headlights. | Paul.
Did any bright sparks spot the flaw in my earlier suggestion?
However, not to worry:
In the event that you should park backwards, and a car parked opposite has a sufficiently matt finish that blocks reflections from your headlights, simply re-negotiate with the County Council to install additional angled/curved mirrors on the roof of the car park.
This way you can then check the status of your rear lights from reflections bounced from the back wall to the roof, which can then be viewed through your sunroof. Level 5 and sunroofless cars would be a problem though, any suggestions?
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| | People, | | | | I've got a good idea. How about removing your car battery and | | bringing it into work with you each day. That way you can | | be sure you've not left them on! | | | | Steve | | | | That is a brilliant idea. Now the next question is how to remind myself | to remove the car battery each day. | | :-)
That is easy, simply ensure that your car headlights are on when you leave the car in the morning, then as you walk away from the car you will notice the lights are on and will be reminded to remove the battery from the car.
:-)))))))))))))))))))))
Andy
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| | People, | | | | I've got a good idea. How about removing your car battery and | | bringing it into work with you each day. That way you can | | be sure you've not left them on! | | | | Steve | | | | That is a brilliant idea. Now the next question is how to remind myself | to remove the car battery each day. |
Easy, if you are rather forgetful - like myself - then perhaps you could tie a piece of string (although fishing line is probably more durable) to your car battery and to a finger on your right hand. The pulling on your finger as you leave the car will remind you to remove your battery.
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Accidentally leaving car headlights on is only a problem because it flattens the battery. I suggest that all those who do not have warning devices to tell them that their lights are on, re-wire their ignition switches so that the engine remains running when the key is removed.
By doing this, the car battery will be automatically topped up by the alternator, in much the same manner as when the car is being driven.
Peter
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On the subject of leaving your lights on, I think
I have got the answer.
Simply wire your headlights via the drivers seat
and then by wearing a metallic pair of pants the
act of sitting in the seat will make the connection
and turn on the lights. Thus there is no possibility
of the lights being left on while away from the car.
Be warned however that if you have a sunroof and if you leave it open on a wet day you could be in trouble.
Barry.
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I think we must get back to the roots here - see Simon's original mail. The lesson seems to be that in order to avoid using unnecessary bandwidth avoid sending mails which say "to avoid using unnecessary bandwidth ..."
Could we extend this idea to save the company money?
To avoid ..... etc. etc.
Ideas on a postcard ( to avoid using unecessary bandwidth ).
JM.
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Fellow battery flateners,
You're probably fed up with useful hints on how to avoid leaving your lights on, but I feel that I have the ultimate suggestion.
If you accidentally leave your lights on there is no need to return to the car park, just shoot your headlights out.
Regards
HR
PS If you see any other car's lights on you can shoot those out as well for practice.
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Ladies and Gents,
in support of the company's values, namely 'Respect for the individual' it IS acceptable to continue to use the company mail systems for uses such as informing people if they've left their lights on.
Apologies for any offence that may have been caused, certainly none was intended!
Happy mailing!
People who read soc.culture.australian often have to answer a number of questions about our country. These vary from the practical (Will an American video recorder work with an Australian TV? What voltage is used in Australia? What side of the road to Australians drive on?) through to the curious (Does water really go down the plughole in the opposite direction? What does Vegemite taste like?), to the, well, fairly clueless.
Recently we had the following thread.
(I haven't asked the posters to this thread whether they mind if I send it to rec.humor.funny, and I realise that these extracts from posting are probably a bit long to come under 'fair use'. I doubt if any of them would mind, but sorry if you can't use this for copyright reasons).
Michael.
--
From Grube (grube@aol.com)
I am coming to Australia for a 3 year stay. Should I bring my CD's to play on Aussie equipment?
From: adrose@news.gate.net (Adrian Rose)
You will need an American to Australian converter device.This is usually hard wired into the CD player by a reputable Australian tech.They are all familiar with the device.Just pop into any CD store and request the phone # of the nearest CD converter tech.Its usually only around $30 and you will not even know it had been done.You will be able to play not only US cds,and Australian,but as a bonus,European ones too!
Caution-do not try to play bootled CDs after the conversion,you will ruin the cd player.
From: adrose@news.gate.net (Adrian Rose)
Sorry about that last post-to play your US cds in Australia,they merely need to be passed thru a strong magnetic or x-ray field,such as you get at Customs.Be sure to pass each one thru separately,as bulk passage may leave the ones in the middle unplayable in Oz.
From: "Mark A. Gray" (markg@ssec.wisc.edu)
Well...this may gave worked for you, but I found that the only way the get 'em playing was to smear the shiny side with a very thin layer of vegemite. 'Course this makes the inside of your CD player rather sticky, so make sure you have lots of tissues.
From: andersen@s4.elec.uq.edu.au (Hans Andersen)
Don't listen to them. To play American CDs in Australian CD players, you will need to regroove them. This is because Australian CDs have a different track-width (i.e. 10 ums instead of 5 ums). To do this you will need to buy some fine-grade sandpaper. Try to find some with a grain size of between 8 and 12 ums (micrometers for non-technical people). Put a piece of the sandpaper on a table with the rough side up. Now put your CD on the sandpaper and turn it slowly in a clockwise direction, pushing down hard. Oiua la (spit) - now you have Australian standard CDs.
Good luck and I hope you enjoy Australia.
From: M.J.Jennings@amtp.cam.ac.uk (Michael Jennings)
No. That is completely wrong. Australian CDs are exactly the same as American ones except for the fact that the 'groove' goes in the opposite direction. That is whereas an American groove goes inwards as you go clockwise an Australian groove goes inwards as you go anti-clockwise. This is because Australian cars drive on the left and American cars drive on the right. If the groove direction was not reversed there would be parity problems with car CD players. Unfortunately, this means that you cannot play an American CD on Australian equipment.
From: spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Stephen P. Guthrie)
You smartarse. Obviously this is nothing to do with the side of the road cars drive on. Do you seriously expect anyone to swallow that? Anyone with a brain knows that it's related to which direction water goes down the plughole in the Southern hemisphere. In other words in the US the cd rotates in a clockwise direction. In Australia it rotates anticlockwise. Of course this is also true if you play your cds in South America for example. This is actually quite neat because if you play your beatles cds in the Southern hemisphere you hear all this neat 'backwards masking' stuff about Paul being dead and taking marijuana. Also I heard that you hear all sorts of satanic stuff in other rock albums, but I'm not a fan myself. My question: has anyone done any experimets about playing cds at the equator or at the notrh pole? At the equator do your cds stop playing altogether. What about in a reduced gravity environment, like in a free faling elevator?
From: leslie@brisbane.DIALix.oz.au (Tye Leslie Sanders)
You're all a bunch of liars!!!! In Australia the initials C.D. stand for Completely Dislexic which means that the bits are scattered at random all over the disc. All Australian C.D. players are programmed to randomly search over the disc to find the right bit to play next. It is very unlikley that it could cope with a disc where all the bits were in order. I would advise you to record your discs onto Hi-Fi video tape and connect an Australian VCR to a stereo system. Australian and American VCRs are definitely compatible.
From: "Mark A. Gray" (markg@ssec.wisc.edu)
I can't speak for a reduced gravity environment, but I can speak for the equator. It is interesting that you should bring it up, since many CD's simply do not spin at the equator (or near it actually). In Singapore (for instance) they had to ban a whole bunch of CDs or have them altered so that they would play correctly ('corse if they had a bit of vegemite their problems would be solved). Video tapes and books(!) seem to suffer the same fate their.
Why don't books work properly at the equator? And I have another question: Short of smearing every page with vegemite, how do you get a northern hemisphere book to work properly in the southern hemisphere? (I'll be bringing some books home with me when I leave here, so I need to know).
Thanks in advance.
From: leslie@brisbane.DIALix.oz.au (Tye Leslie Sanders)
Re-your querey on playing CDs in reduced gravity, it is not widely known that on the last Space Shuttle mission it was decided to test the effects of playing a compact disc in zero gravity with disasterous results.
When the disc was played, instead of the disc spinning, the entire vehicle began to spin while the disc remained motionless, turning the entire spacecraft into a giant centrifuge, nearly crushing the astronauts to death before the commander was able to crawl to the machine and press the stop button.
It has been suggested by some at NASA (who have now been dismissed for discussing government secrets) that a compact disc was the cause of the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1985. As you may recall, this was the first mission to take a civillian into space. To ease her mind during take-off it was decided to simulate an environment of Earth similar to that of take-off pressure so they decided to play a CD of elevator music to give her the feeling that she was riding up in the lift at her local shopping centre. The craft could not cope with the enormous centrifugal force generated by the spinning disc and broke apart approximately 1 minute after take-off. It was decided to cover up their gross negligence by saying that the o-ring seals in the booster rockets were faulty.
All this is absolutely true or my name is not Ronald Reagan.
From: bobhilt@eskimo.com (Bob Hiltner)
This is a complete load of crap, and probably a troll. The 'Borealis Effect' (or 'Australis' in the sourthern hemisphere) could in no way overcome the power of the motor in a cd player. Besides, the 'groove' went out in the 60's (70's?). I'm no electrical engineer, but I'm guessing that any backward playing effect is due to the 220v power conversion (which would show up on euro equipment as well) or the reverse polarity down under.
As for the gravity-free environment, who gives a shi*t? I think the astronauts have their hands full anyway, and probably can get good FM reception from any station on earth if they need music to dance by...
Some people are so clueless!
From: jtchew@netcom.com (Joe Chew)
Since the Earth rotates in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere, the AC power there is supplied 180 degrees out of phase with ours. Thus your CD should work just fine, although some audio purists insist on a motor- generator set to supply "American" electricity and then determine the phasing themselves.
From: oauld@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Orion Auld)
At the equator, the cd's stop rotating, so the cd players there must rotate the laser about the stationary cd. The units are very expensive.
By contrast, at the north pole, cd players are very cheap. This is because neither the laser or the cd require a motor to provide rotational energy; the cd is placed precisely on the north pole, tied to the firmament so that it doesn't spin , while the laser is fixed to the earth, slightly off-center, and the earth provides the rotation.
| What about in a | reduced gravity environment, like in a free faling elevator?
The cd's are virtually weightless, so they can be very massive and yet consumers will have little difficulty operating them. I hope that answers your question.
From: gunson@ocean.mit.edu (Jim Gunson)
I'm glad you brought this up. The variation of the Coriolis force with latitude (zero at equator, max at north pole, min at south pole), gives rise to the so-called beta effect. Basically what happens is that when a clockwise-spinning object, in the northern hemisphere, moves north it speeds up, when it moves south it slows down. I've conducted experiments whilst driving my car here in Boston: if I head north on route 93 at 75 mph with Kylie's "Locomotion" on the CD player, the pitch of her voice goes higher, but you have to be going pretty fast to notice this. Heading west or east this doesn't happen. To the original poster, if you do find you're having trouble with the Coriolis force adversely affecting your US cd's in australia, try turning the cd player upside-down.
From: Adrian Rose (adrose@gate.net)
No,no,no...................please don't confuse the Coriolis effect with the Doppler effect-the two are quite unrelated,and the Doppler effect is ALMOST unnoticeable,when playing out-of-area CDs,or even records.
The effect was most noticeable on 78's,but that's now academic.
BTW,I am able to offer the conversion at only 75cents (us),if done in bulk.E-mail for quotes.
From: pholman1@aol.com (PHolman1)
No if regrooved in the N Hemisphere the must be spun counterclockwise, remember Aussie turntables etc spin the opposite way, ps Marmite works as well as Vegimite.
From: Armadillo (mike@geophy.curtin.edu.au)
No, American compact discs will only work if you drive on the right-hand
side of the road.
But I wouldn't expect an aol.com user to know these things.
He tried again. The dog barked loudly, followed by a ringing telephone. Climbing down from the pole, Pat found:
Which shows you that some problems can be fixed by just pissing on them.
Since an item was recently posted about the mad cow disease problem, I thought I would add to the confusion and submit a lovely discussion that has been taking place on swat.org.swil (Swarthmore's sci-fi/fantasy and general craziness club).
Just move the Chunnel so that it connects England and Cambodia.
Rail Gun.
I would have thought it was obvious. plant the land mines in british cow-fields.
(munch munch munch mooo bang! mOOOOOOOOOOoooooo)
No, no, no. Once again, the free market will come to our rescue. If the Cambodians really want the cows (and the british really want to get rid of them) then each Cambodian will buy one or more cows and INDIVIDUALLY make arrangements to transport it. Therefore, exactly as many cows as are needed will be transported from Britain at no cost to the British.
But why stop there? Bosnia, Mozambique, Angola, and many other countries have serious problems with land mines. For this reason, the British, far from having a serious excess cow problem, have the potential to make a killing (no pun intended).
Also, has anyone considered leaking rumors that American cattle have been infected by the virus? This could eliminate the problem of overgrazing on our public lands...
I have received information that there are 747s converted to transport livestock. Whether there's enough capacity in the things to transport 11 million head, however, is unknown and seems doubtful.
Of course, all our debate so far has labored under the (unnecessary) assumption that the transport of these livestock must be by some legal means. If we don't restrict ourselves to legal means, however, a very good alternative comes to mind: smuggling. People could take airline flights from the UK to Cambodia with one or more head of cattle stuffed in their luggage. While most international airports today have an eye toward catching those who smuggle weapons and drugs on board planes, very few are too careful about large livestock. So I think a small group of dedicated people could succeed in transferring the "mooing stock" across international borders with a minimum of fuss.
The main cost of this enterprise, then, would be airline tickets (which don't need to be first class since the cattle won't know the difference) and some EXTREMELY large suitcases.
Why not just move the mines? They weigh much less, take up less space, and don't get air or sea-sick. Also, 11 million landmines in the British Isles could have their uses. (separating the halves of Ireland with a no-man's land, liberating Scotland and Wales via a defensive zone, keeping tabloid photographers away from the palace, making cricket a more interesting sport)
Rumour has it that British scientists have been working on a "cow cannon" as a solution to this problem. This cannon, once perfected would be able to fire a single cow of weight up to half a ton (that'd be a mighty big cow!) a distance of almost 12,000 miles! This would not only solve the problem of getting the cows to Cambodia, but would even give the cows a fun ride along the way.
If this project succeeds, however, Britain will be the only country in the world to own a cow cannon. We cannot afford to fall behind in the development of such vital techonology. Therefore, I urge you to contact your Congressman and tell him that you want the US to develop a cow cannon as well.
Help us avoid a cow cannon gap!
This is indeed a dangerous situation. I believe that we should strike first, before Britain has a chance to develop this weapon. I think we should fund a military invasion of Britain by Cambodia. After all, if England were to suddenly BECOME Cambodia, the whole operation of transporting them overseas would suddenly become unnecessary. Furthermore, we should not have to worry about the Cow Cannon Gap.