"Going up?"
Two of the reasons we chose to live where we do now is that the building has underground parking (no worries about scraping snow off the windshield after an all-night snow storm) and an elevator (no stairs to climb when bringing in the groceries). It's great.As you approach the elevator you see the usual buttons: one for UP and the other for DOWN.
Why? Why not just one button? Since you don't know where the elevator is (down at the parking level, or up on the second floor, or right were you are, just waiting for you) what difference does it make which button you push?
The other day I was doing some home teaching with my wonderful 80-year-old "junior" companion, Ron. We both live here in Crescent Heights, and three of the four families we visit also live here. Ron lives on the first floor of his building and we were going to visit a sister on the second floor. I pushed the "DOWN" button and Ron said "I thought we were going UP." "We are," I said. "Didn't you push the wrong button?" he asked. I told him I didn't think it made any difference which button we pushed, the elevator would arrive.
He had a bit of difficulty accepting that, and was only convinced when, surprise, surprise---the elevator door opened.
So --Here's my question: Why are there two buttons on the outside of an elevator? Sure, it makes sense once you're in the elevator, where you even have your choice of floors. (In our far-from-high-rise complex we're fairly limited: P - 1 - 2.)
If any of you erstwhile bloggers can explain why there are two buttons outside, please make a comment.
Now --on to another question.
I wanted to find a picture of an elevator to use for this blog and I'm pretty proud of the one I found. But getting it onto the blog was quite a process.
First I opened my Print Shop program, typed "elevator" into the "FIND" and got a whole bunch of choices. I clicked on my choice and it came up on the screen. I cropped it to the size I wanted and printed it. Then I took the printed copy and scanned it, gave it a title ("elevator") and saved it in "My Scans".
Now I was ready to go ---but hey, if we can put a man on the moon there ought to be an easier way. Why doesn't someone (Dave? Amy? Ben?....) create a program where I can go directly from my PrintShop program to my blog without having to print and scan?
And if one of you out there shows me that I already can, I'll feel stupid, but will have learned something new for the day.
Stay tuned.
posted by The Oregonians @ 12:10 PM
8 Comments
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8 Comments:
Oh, Grandpa. Where do I start?
The elevator...hard to explain, but I'll give it a try. Let's pretend we have a 10 floor bldg. I'm on the 5th floor and want to go down to the 1st. If I push the up button and get in, chances are the elevator will be going up to the 7th or 9th floors to pick up/drop off before heading down to the 1st where I want to be. So I COULD get in, but would be wasting my time. If I push the down button, the elevator won't stop for me until it's heading back down. In your bldg, with just the 3 options, it doesn't sound like it really matters. I think you should just keep being a rebel and pushing the wrong one!
The pic: Usually if you've found a picture that you want, you can "Save As." Save it in the place where you usually upload pictures to your blog. Then when you go to write your post, just click on the little photo icon and you'll find your pic. I don't know if that makes sense, but next time we're in town (next summer?) I can show you. Or we could probably talk through it on the phone. Good luck!
You're right on the elevator, Andrea. It's an optimization problem. Like you said, the solution becomes more obvious when you have lots of floors or multiple elevators. In order to move the people around the most efficiently, the elevator has to know if you want to go up or down before you get on. It then compares that to whatever the elevator is currently doing and plans the best route to move the people.
I think you're a little wrong on your PrintShop answer. PrintShop ownes all those images and purposely makes it difficult to copy them into other programs. I've only found two solutions when working with PrintShop. The first, which doesn't always work, is to select the image, press ctrl+c to copy the image, go to another program like Paint or Photoshop, and press ctrl+v to paste the picture. This should copy it from PrintShop to the new program. You can then save it from there. The second method, which is sure to work, is to use the print screen function. With the picture visible on your screen in PrintShop, press the "print screen" button located in the upper right corner of most key boards. It may be abbreviated "prt scn". Then go to Paint or Photoshop and press ctrl+v to paste the picture into the program. Since print screen makes a copy of the entire screen, you'll have to crop the image down to just what you want to see. Then save the image.
Good luck.
Thank you Andrea and Dave for explaining what my mind grasped but couldn't begin to put down in words!
Oh da da, I tried to explain the elevator problem on the phone, but it's just like Andy and Dave said. I've been in those situations when you're in a building with an eye-popping number of floors and it's so annoying to get on and have to stop on the 5th, 7th, 8th, take a ride with all those fine people who think you are too weird, not get off when it reaches the last request for the highest floor, and then you get to go down.
Like Dave suggested, screen shots (the "print screen" feature) are great if you want a quick low-resolution version of exactly what you see on your computer screen. Another option if you don't want to deal with PrintShop images is microsoft clipart: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx which I use occasionally. You can download them from the website directly to your computer and then upload them to blogger. And of course, there's always google images, which you can pull up and "save as" with the click of a few buttons. :)
I think it's time that somebody check if grandpa is stuck in that elevator.
Never fear, Dave. I'm stuck, but not in the elevator. Just stuck for something new to put on a blog.
Ideas for your blog: A snowy scene from the Great Basin. Your recent trip to the Jordan River temple, with a picture of the temple. A detailed description of "Big Friday." A posting of Margaret Eccles - maybe one we haven't seen if you can get more info from the Eccles clan there in Utah, a list of all the piano tunes you've ever played and which ones you like the best.
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