Return-Path: Received: from MIT.EDU by po12.mit.edu (8.9.2/4.7) id DAA10671; Wed, 7 Feb 2001 03:32:45 -0500 (EST) Received: from [64.46.152.31] by MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA17075; Wed, 7 Feb 01 03:31:11 EST Received: (from list@localhost) by opal.haven.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) id DAA07677; Wed, 7 Feb 2001 03:29:49 -0500 Resent-Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 03:29:49 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: opal.haven.org: list set sender to elbow-joints-request@haven.org using -f Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 03:29:45 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200102070829.DAA26900@out-of-band.media.mit.edu> From: Lenny Foner To: elbow-joints@haven.org Subject: Showers, nifty and not Cc: foner@media.mit.edu Resent-Message-Id: <"FG0dJ3.0.rt1.zTGWw"@opal.haven.org> Resent-From: elbow-joints@haven.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/2412 X-Loop: elbow-joints@haven.org Precedence: list Resent-Sender: elbow-joints-request@haven.org X-Evolution: 0000007e-0000 I never thought I'd be forwarding mail from the list of ex-Symbolics employees to E-J, but I guess there's a first time for everything... Described below is a shower system which has picked the right basis vectors for its UI, namely hot/cold and volume, rather than the weird rotated-45-degrees basis that most showers use, which confounds temperature and volume in some weird mix. (And yes, this discussion seems on par with the Symbolics yahoo who once announced the birth of his kid by saying, "Length: such-and-so. And, for the benefit of the Graphics Division, the other two dimensions of her bounding box are foo and bar...") The messages are in -reverse- chronological order, for those who want to skip the build-up. At the very end is the unfortunate tale of woe which prompted the whole discussion.... - - - Begin forwarded messages - - - Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 22:44:47 -0800 From: Anoosh See http://www.groheamerica.com/pressure.htm for the pressure control . A full shower set will cost you nearly $1000 but worth it. The Champaign Shower Head is $244 and the body sprays ($44 each) are a must! -Anoosh - - - Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 23:47:37 -0800 From: Bill York Judging from the response, my previous message has hit a nerve among the recipients of this list, many of whom are apparently unsatisfied with their current shower experience. Since my present e-mail software lacks "Map-Over -> Reply", I pass this on to all of you. The shower valve is made by Grohe. I don't remember the model number, but you should be able to identify it from the details below. The key thing is that it have a separate knob or lever for temperature, with actual degree markings. As long as I am plugging their products, spring for one of the adjustable shower heads with the "champagne" spray pattern, which offers the best water-to-body transfer rate I've seen. My apologies to those of you who thought the list was for higher-tech subjects. - - - Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 20:19:26 -0800 From: Marc LeBrun >... a shower control in the style you allude to ... The brand, Senator, we need the brand! - - - Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 23:47:37 -0800 From: Bill York The one "big ticket" item I personally am responsible for in our home remodel (OK, two if you could the surround speaker wiring) is a shower control in the style you allude to below. It has two levers: one controls volume (from "off" to "full") and the other the temperature. Bonus feature: it has a passive (paraffin-wax-driven, if I remember right) hot/cold balance valve that maintains the temperature even in the face of sudden changes in pressure in one feed pipe or the other. And it all works as advertised. - - - Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 10:42:21 -0800 From: Marc LeBrun > I harkened back to a piece of mail you must have sent 15-20 years ago > about shower stream and temperature controls. Dunno about Craig but this has always been one of my pet flames (I remember talking with Jef Raskin about this when we were working on the Mac). Of course back then I was just advocating that the UI's basis vectors should be Temp-Volume instead of the underlying technology's Hot-Cold--little did I realize I'd be nostalgic for such problems in these days of facist flow restrictors and insanely overpriced "designer" controls (our shower handle's been off for 3 weeks because the plumber broke some stupid misengineered stress-bearing plastic fitting inside). But hey, "To really screw things up requires a user". Like the time while apartment-sitting when I smugly thought I'd sussed out a colleague's complex Dutch thermostat (replete with inscrutable "international" icon control labels), only to return later and find the many decorative candles curled over from the heat in waxy detumescence... - - - Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 01:53:36 -0800 From: "van Meulebrouck, Andre" > > There was this little knobby dealie that you could move left or right or > > pull out & up (wow, up!) at the same time. Kinda like a joy stick, Bad news: I've seen these (or something similar) at Malibu Apartments in Calabasas, CA. At an egregiously expensive (especially considering what you get) complex where I've showered at a friend's apartment after surfing with the surfing dudes at work. It's a horrible abomination. For one thing it takes forever to get the hot water flowing; by the time it flows you haven't a clue what fiddling you did with the joystick monstrosity got it to happen. The water is then scalding hot with steam rising, so you have to play with it a while to adjust it. By that time you feel guilty about all the water you've wasted (especially here in Southern California). To me this is simplicity like a keyboard with one key (65 times for an A, 66 times for a B...). - - - Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 17:11:08 -0800 From: Tom McMahon Subject: YIQ, HSI, RGB? A recent stay in France reminded me of you, I must say. Forget the fact that the shower stall was IN the room and that I found myself waking up in the morning looking at a tile floor feeling like Tom Hanks and Wilson in Bangkok (after a night with Marcus and Fred). It was the shower itself that reminded me of Craig Reynolds. (No it wasn't the fact that I had to get naked, tell Lisa to calm down.....) I harkened back to a piece of mail you must have sent 15-20 years ago about shower stream and temperature controls. Ahhh yess. This shower had neither H nor C variables, and they certainly weren't orthogonal. In fact unlike some European shower controls, it had neither H nor C at all, nor IHS or YIQ. It was something uniquely French. And what a challenge it was. There was this little knobby dealie that you could move left or right or pull out & up (wow, up!) at the same time. Kinda like a joy stick, but it also included rotational directives so you could twist it as well and if you were lucky you could get changes to happen. Maybe a leftish rotation was hot, maybe rightish rotation was cold. Sometimes. Maybe pulling it out and upward was intensity. But it was completely inconsistent. For the life of me I couldn't figure it out. I am not stupid. But the hotel said it was working according to plan. Was it modern coolness, hipness, trendiness and neato-spiffy engineering? If this was a control for RGB, IHS, YUV color space it would have been terminal. In all of my engineering background and computer science training there was nothing to call upon. My rock-&-roll training made me want to rip the plumbing out of the wall. So I changed hotels. Only to find something similarly bad. On the last day of my W3C trip I skipped my shower altogether and flew home through Heathrow, wating longingly to take a known-quantifiable, with a known-good intuitive shower control at home. At home I have a hot knob and a cold knob and I know what they do. Precision calibration. Even though it was 24 hours later and unbathed, my wife still greeted me happily. And now I am clean and happy, more or less. - - - End forwarded message - - - -- Archive is at http://www.earthsign.com/elbowjoints/index.html sub/unsub elbow-joints-request@haven.org