John carmack throwing shade on lightswitches was not on my bingo card
The hilarity of your home wiring being sassed by the (admittedly amazing) guy whose video games boil down to "kill stuff, hit switches" with escalating difficulty and frustration.
On the one hand, I'd love our paths to cross. On the other, I'd relish the thought that he'd sweat just a little when trying to figure out anything inside my home.
"Oh, I'm sorry. The switch you want is behind a hidden door in the other room. Just tap on every wall until one of them opens."
In a rental unit id be pissed to see that without labels, but in a private residence its whatever. You learn it quick enough.
I have a set of switches just like these and it unironically took me a year before getting them down. I never tried so hard to memorize them, though.
Where I live, there's switches next to the front and back door.
I've been here since 2017.
I still flip the ones closest to the doors to turn on the porch light because that's what makes sense, instead of the one further from the door that actually does it.
Lol yea thats about what I meant by quick enough. But did you learn a couple of them sooner? I feel like there are 2 maybe 3 id learn in a few months, but some of those are hallways or outside lights, some shit that, ya, would take me a year.
JC is the real one
When the vessel containing omnipotent hivemind and personal concierge to all known electronic signals in the observable universe John Carmack speaks to us, we should listen.
The real issue with this picture is not the "user experience", unless it is a hotel or some public place where customers are intended to interact with the devices.
The real issue is that the switches and plates aren't lined up right.
the switches and plates aren’t lined up right
If that bugs you, don't look at those screws. So close to perfectly lined up, but not quite.
I mean, it's your house and not a product you're selling. After a couple weeks you likely know which switch does what. Whenever a host comes you can show them the switches.
That's just a typical videogame puzzle: figure the correct combination to open the door, or turn on the correct lights
I wanted to make a joke about doom just being a shooter, using his "video game stories are like porn" quote, but honestly the originals are pretty damn puzzley
This looks almost like Loss
I am calling the police.
This is why I label breakers/switches the moment I move in — “Kitchen left / Hall / Fan” saves future-me so much chaos 😅 Also, delayed LEDs are the worst kind of suspense.
Every time I've tried this, it's ended in a labeling disaster. Maybe it's my luck, but electricians seem to be more interested in wiring walls than rooms. As a result, the breakers seldom come anywhere close to any logical room layout. And then there's legacy breaker-box GCFI stuff, and homeowner renovation hacks...
I always think I'm going to do this, and I never once have. Next time for sure...
There's a light-switch in my flat that has a red light in the fitting that illuminates when you switch it on. It doesn't turn on any light in the place. I have no idea what is for. As a Steven Wright fan, I flick it on and off occasionally hoping I get a call from some woman in Germany saying "cut it out."
Edit: after posting this I saw someone else had made the same joke, but fuck it, I'm leaving it up. Who knew there were other fans of a thirty year old album here?
Many rooms in my place have light switches tied to outlets. Usually just a single switched plug per room. I know where they all are now but it would have been good if there was a little light icon on each plug.
Still, now that I know, I'm not sure I actually want to add that icon, since I know where it is and I'll either plug in a light (in which case I know easily) or I won't (in which case I don't care).
It's the switch for the red light, of course. Installed by the previous tenant, named Roxanne.
I have two identical light switches in the kitchen right next to eachother but one does the garbage disposal it is so fucking annoying.
That reminds me of Macs circa 1990. The disk drive had no eject button (because of course it was perfectly intuitive to drag the disk icon onto the fucking trash can icon to eject) but the computer's power button was helpfully located right above the disk drive, so I was constantly powering off my computer whenever I just wanted to eject a disk.
My university had a bay of Macs in the IT suite with laminated cards taped over the power button to warn newbies of this.
Factories have safety lockouts for that sort of thing and I'm dismayed that they're not a thing in the home. Especially for when your hand is down there.
My favorite is when one of the switches does nothing you can visibly see and you never find out what it’s for.
Merry Christmas and a Happy 1985.
I got a home this year I had one like that, the wiring was wrongly attached to an outlet that didn’t have the tab broken. Took while to figure out.
Had one of those. Eventually figured out that a prior owner had a lamppost in the yard. How did I figure that out? I found the buried romex. Not conduit. Romex.
My open plan living room, kitchen, sunroom area has a bank of 5 on one wall, 3 on the other.
I'm the only person who knows what all the switches do from memory.
My wife and kids throw a lightswitch rave every time they want to turn the lights on over the island and i just beatbox techno while they try to figure it out.
I wonder if he uses VIM, because that user experience is oh boy...
Incredible?
I will never be not mad at the latency digital electronics add. It's so small and imperceptible, but it feels like an eon.
I bet the kids never even notice.
I guess LED lights have some latency but to me it's still better than some of those fluorescent lights. I've had those where the bulb doesn't light until I've already given up and turned on another light.
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
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