Computers Are Bad is an acquired taste and I’m acquiring it. This was an excellent post going deep into the myths and anti-myths of elevator close door buttons, and pedestrian crossing buttons. I love storytelling + rigor:

First, anyone who says that the “door close” buttons in elevators are routinely “not even hooked up” shouldn’t be trusted. The world is full of many elevators and I’m sure some can be found with mechanically non-functional door close buttons, but the issue should be infrequent. The “door close” button is required to operate the elevator in fire service mode, which disables automatic closing of the doors entirely so that the elevator does not leave a firefighter stranded. Fire service mode must be tested as part of the regular inspection of the elevator (ASME A17.1-2019, but implemented through various state and local codes). Therefore, elevators with a “door close” button that isn’t “hooked up” will fail their annual inspections.

Also, this bit was delightful:

The software, as I recall, came from the school of industrial software design where a major component of the interface was a large tree view of every option and discoverability came in the form of some items being in ALL CAPS.