[HN Gopher] Be careful with that thing, it's a confidential coff...
___________________________________________________________________
Be careful with that thing, it's a confidential coffee maker
Author : signa11
Score : 411 points
Date : 2022-04-26 14:48 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (devblogs.microsoft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (devblogs.microsoft.com)
| autoexec wrote:
| Actual security issues like not swiping to enter a secured area
| are one thing, but I'll never understand the obsession with dress
| codes and small appliances. It just feels like power tripping or
| laziness. There can be problems with some devices and with what
| people wear (and hygiene in general), but I'd much rather work at
| a place that addresses those issues only when needed while
| treating everyone like adults instead of like children who can't
| be trusted to pick out their own clothes.
| a4isms wrote:
| Dress codes have never had anything to do with treating people
| like children, they have to do with cultural adhesion.
|
| We laugh at pictures of managers wearing near-identical suits
| and ties, and then we can look at a bunch of techies wearing
| near-identical tee shirts and hoodies and somehow not see a
| culture using clothes to signal belonging to the tribe.
|
| There will always be tribal signals. It's clothes whether suits
| or plaid flannel, it's drinking bourbon or craft IPAs, it's
| playing golf or ultimate, it's being clean-shaven or bearded,
| it's driving a Tesla or a Caddy.
|
| Some of us are not "joiners" and chafe at the idea of carefully
| selecting our clothes, grooming, music, possessions, and
| neighbourhood to signal that we want to fit in. But we should
| at least understand and empathize with why others may find
| these things comforting.
| [deleted]
| rurp wrote:
| I totally understand the reasons people want to dress a
| certain way and don't care at all if one coworker wants to
| wear a suit to work and another prefers a hoodie.
|
| The issue is when people want to impose their dress code on
| others, especially for non-client/customer facing roles.
|
| Putting a large emphasis on the dress code has downsides as
| well. The more focus people spend worrying about their attire
| and judging others, the less focus they have for more
| substantive matters. It's an easy crutch to dismiss someone
| for dressing "wrong", a crutch which plenty of lazy employees
| and managers are happy to latch onto.
|
| I think de-emphasizing dress codes encourages a more
| productive workplace.
| ask_b123 wrote:
| But at the same time, having a dress code could let people
| worry less about their attire and be able to focus on other
| matters.
|
| Here I'm thinking specifically of school uniforms. It can
| be easier to be able to just wear the uniform rather than
| having to choose what to wear every day.
|
| That said, I probably wouldn't like to work at a place with
| an overly stringent dress code.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > we can look at a bunch of techies wearing near-identical
| tee shirts and hoodies and somehow not see a culture using
| clothes to signal belonging to the tribe.
|
| No, casual dresscode allows for a much wider variety of
| clothing and goes in the opposite direction than "signal
| belonging to the tribe".
| hyperman1 wrote:
| A long time ago, we had a meeting with a Head Architect. He
| would be accompanied by a server tech.
|
| We sit in the meeting room, and 2 people enter. A distinctive
| gentlemen wearing a suit and tie, talking in a calm,
| authoritative voice. Next to him, a hyperactive tshirt
| wearing creature, think Adam from Mythbuster, talking
| excitedly about all sorts of tech, while making excessive arm
| gestures. My colleague whispers a joke comparing him to a
| monkey swinging from tree to tree. We both immediately knew
| who was the architect and who was the lowly tech.
|
| Wrong, it turns out. Gentlemen spends his time in floor
| crawlspaces pulling cables between servers, and had dressed
| up for the meeting. Monkey Head Architect was just his manic
| normal self.
|
| Both were incredibly competent, BTW.
| cipheredStones wrote:
| Maybe I've just read too many stories like this, but when
| you said "We both immediately knew who was the architect" I
| assumed that you meant the t-shirt guy!
| walrus01 wrote:
| one of the reasons for no small appliances is that _some_
| people will bring in a $45 portable 1500W electric space heater
| and put it under their desk, because they feel cold, and they
| have totally no idea of the problems and difference that adding
| a 1500W resistive electric load (vs like a 25W desk lamp) to
| the shared 15 /20A 120VAC circuits in a cubicle farm can cause.
| those things are absolute fire hazards when used in the wrong
| environment.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Bonus points if the person using the heater sits right next
| to the thermostat, causing the thermostat to think that the
| ambient air temp needs to be even lower..
| dddddaviddddd wrote:
| I enjoy working remotely where I have 100% control of my
| environment.
| mindcrime wrote:
| The small appliance thing is at least a little bit quasi-
| legitimate. I mean, true, very few modern small appliances are
| just going to randomly burst into flame, and that's as true
| whether they are sitting in your kitchen or living room, or
| sitting in a corporate break room, or at your desk. _But_...
| the devil is in the details. From a fire safety perspective, I
| 'd cite two things that cause me to say "quasi legitimate"
| about this:
|
| 1. Putting appliances in random places (like your cubicle) can
| sometimes lead people to running extension cords to power these
| additional devices. And excessively long, or poor quality, or
| "excessively long, poor quality" extension cords can absolutely
| be a fire hazard. This is especially true when people don't
| understand "current carrying capacity" vis-a-vis wire gauge and
| choose the wrong cord for a given load.
|
| 2. Space heaters. If you include space heaters in your
| definition of "small appliance", then there is a fairly real
| risk. First, it's very easy for flammable materials to simply
| get too close to the heating elements of the heater, and catch
| fire. Second, space heaters tend to draw a LOT of current -
| typically more than can be handled by your generic power strip.
| And people don't understand this, and will happily plug a space
| heater into a power strip, which will then melt, short out, and
| catch fire.
|
| On balance, the odds of having a fire caused by most small
| appliances in offices is still probably fairly low, but the
| risk is non-zero. And having a blanket ban, instead of trying
| to distinguish "well, your blender is OK, but the space heater
| has to go" is just the slightly lazier way to dealing with it.
| tinalumfoil wrote:
| These are all things people do constantly in their own homes,
| and are willing to accept the risk. It seems inefficient that
| people go to work and accept all these risk-averse mandates
| (no consumer coffee machines -- they might burst into
| flames!) then go home and fall asleep to their 1500W space
| heater plugged into the same power strip as the 50" poorly
| mounted TV they fell asleep watching.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| A consumer coffee maker will _not_ be designed for handling
| 50 people requiring a cup of coffee every two hours.
|
| The other limitations, particularly regarding space heaters
| and fans, usually come from fire insurance. Your premiums
| will be _substantially_ lower if you prove your business
| gets regularly inspected for compliance and that electrical
| appliances get regularly checked if they are properly
| installed (i.e. no stacks of extension cords, no damage on
| the cable from chairs rolling over it or from floor tank
| lids).
|
| In contrast, home fire insurance will often have priced in
| damages from such unsafe practices, and a no-pay clause for
| gross negligence - particularly the latter is what any
| reasonable business will be keen to avoid given the
| disastrous impact a fire can have.
| hex4def6 wrote:
| I don't disagree that a simple drop coffee maker is not
| designed for "commercial" use like that. But there's very
| little that can go wrong inside of one of them, with
| maybe the exception of the heating element. That failing
| wouldn't result in a safety issue.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I mean, true, very few modern small appliances are just
| going to randomly burst into flame
|
| Assuming that 10 dollar phone charger that Joe from
| Accounting got on Amazon or the airport store on the last
| vacation was not a dangerous counterfeit, that is. A sensible
| IT department will buy original chargers directly from the
| manufacturer or at the very least name brands such as Anker.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| I suspect that the risk of power strips/cords melting is
| substantially higher when you're only on 110V compared to
| 230V.
|
| While 110V might be less of a shock risk compared to 230V, I
| have to wonder how much of a difference it actually makes in
| practice, like how much less likely are to die from the lower
| voltage?
|
| Because on the other hand, the lower voltage increases the
| fire risk.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Early Win use to crash with OS/2 errors.
| nrdgrrrl wrote:
| Oh the old days at IBM... I almost got a security violation once
| for wearing shorts on a "casual" Friday, but my boss let me go
| home and change.
| mabbo wrote:
| I heard a legend once that someone at IBM in the "blue suit and
| tie" days found himself to be irreplaceable. So at his next
| contract negotiations, he politely demanded the dress code be
| removed from his contract.
|
| And then he never shaved again, or wore anything more formal than
| a Hawaiian shirt. Much to the anger of his entire management
| chain.
|
| I read this. I loved it. I remember it. But I cannot for the life
| of me find any references to it online and worry that I dreamed
| it all.
|
| I would love if someone here has a reference to this and can
| share it with me. Or tell me I am truly crazy.
| smiddereens wrote:
| Looking like shit to own the man.
| core-utility wrote:
| I guarantee you, people can look like shit in a suit and tie.
| Many do.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Do the same people look better in casual clothing?
| core-utility wrote:
| Unlikely, but at least a T-shirt doesn't typically
| require tailoring or near-exact sizing to look good.
| tomrod wrote:
| \o living proof. I've done it.
| _eht wrote:
| Your barometer for shit needs recalibrating, bud.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Even a 180 turn.
| [deleted]
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| If there is any truth to the legend, I would guess the person
| is Al Shugart
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shugart
|
| He lead the teams that created the world's first disk drive and
| the floppy drive. He later founded Seagate.
|
| I did not find a reference to this incident, but he did have a
| love for Hawaiian shirts, and he did things like try to get his
| dog elected to Congress, so it would not seem too far fetched
| for him to do something like what you are describing.
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| From his Wikipedia page you linked to:
|
| > In 1996, he launched an unsuccessful campaign to elect
| Ernest, his Bernese Mountain Dog, to Congress.
|
| I like this guy.
| pvaldes wrote:
| People do similar tricks all the time in some countries.
| The goal is to obtain a copy of the census.
|
| Political parties can ask for a free copy so they can mail
| info to the pool of possible voters. Is one of their rights
| as candidates. This information is valuable [1], can be
| sold or used in other projects to find possible clients, so
| is not a totally crazy move
|
| Can be also interesting just as exercise to teach yourself
| in the inner parts of the voting system.
|
| [1](specially in the pre-Facebook age. Not so much today).
| bluedino wrote:
| Oh if employees back then could only see the cafes on campus at
| Microsoft now.
| dejj wrote:
| You can see it on "Please Don't Touch Anything":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEQpsiPO0L8&t=915s
| qgin wrote:
| Shades of Lumon.
| CharlesW wrote:
| I think people who enjoyed the absurdity of the linked story
| would enjoy Severance.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series)
| t43562 wrote:
| On being acquired by IBM things went downhill at the company I
| was working at - no kettles or coffee machines allowed and you
| had to buy your tea and coffee from the company store/machines
| (UK - probably run by Serco or some similar awfulness). All the
| cool computers taken off the desks and stuck in server rooms and
| you had to use a managed windows PC which in my case managed to
| crash once or more times a day thanks to some aspect of the
| Rational Clearcase filesystem driver.
|
| I remember all the lectures from overconfident bullshitters with
| shiny shoes. A company run by salesmen. It is SO SO nice that IBM
| got eclipsed by the internet tech companies. Even if they are
| arrogant/difficult in their own way it was a victory for the
| technically and ethically competent.
|
| It seemed then that IBM was where software went to die.
| bokchoi wrote:
| > IBM got eclipsed
|
| this made me laugh, thanks
| gonzo wrote:
| When IBM acquired Tivoli, preserving the company-hosted Friday
| beer bash was part of the contract.
| jen729w wrote:
| IBM took away in-house coffee in Australia about 10 years ago.
| Cost-cutting. What's coffee, cents a day? Great. So now all
| your consultants spend 45 minutes every morning going out for
| coffee.
|
| Before I worked for IBM I asked a friend what it had been like.
| "Unbelievably bad", they said. "Worse than everyone had said it
| would be."
|
| So I thought, it can't be that bad. How could it be? And when I
| worked there it was worse! So when the next friend who got
| approached asked me I said, my god, remember how bad friend -1
| said it was, well, it's worse! And that friend thought, no, it
| can't be that bad. And then they worked there and found it
| worse than even I had explained.
|
| And so it goes.
| mindcrime wrote:
| I did two separate stints at IBM, the most recent being back in
| 2017 or 2018 or so. I was part of the "Watson Health"
| <strike>organization</strike> debacle. And when I first got
| there one of the things I immediately noticed was that there
| was no longer any free coffee available. The only coffee
| availability was from the little embedded Starbucks stand near
| the lobby. Which both cost $$$ and conveniently closed well
| before most of us were done drinking coffee for the day.
|
| Eventually we had to resort to the time honored tradition of
| buying a cheap Keurig style machine, and having a "community
| pot" in our area to buy k-cups, those disposable creamer
| packets, etc. This was the point where I realized that IBM is
| probably in its terminal phase.
|
| Shame. I rather liked IBM at one time. Heck, my dream when I
| was in college was exactly go to to work for IBM and go to Boca
| to work on OS/2!
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I wish I knew what the deal is with coffee and businesses.
|
| I worked at one F500 company that eliminated the coffee for
| cost-saving reasons. The coffee was terrible, so I didn't
| exactly cry, but for this company it couldn't have cost more
| than, maybe, a million or so a year. I mean, I wouldn't want
| to write the check myself, but as a budgetary line-item, it
| would have been a rounding error.
|
| I've worked at an office that dumped their Bunn drip machine
| that had worked since 1837 for a Keurig, because they didn't
| like the big twice-yearly bills for the coffee service. The
| Keurig has been replaced twice, and the cups fill the waste
| bin, and I guarantee they're paying more for coffee now.
|
| It's really weird how people get hung up on the Coffee
| Question. I assume they're all tea drinkers and are being
| spiteful.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Steve Blank has a great essay on this.
|
| https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-
| ear...
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's a classic problem of not considering consequences.
|
| Good coffee is barely more expensive than terrible coffee.
| Good tea is significantly more expensive than terrible tea,
| but few tea drinkers quaff it in the quantities that
| dedicated coffee-fiends demand. The overall cost of
| providing coffee, tea and a few other beverages is quite
| small compared to any other benefit of working in an
| office.
|
| The cost of not having good coffee available for cheap or
| free is that people take coffee breaks that last much much
| longer, and nobody counts that time. The secondary
| consequence is that they don't spend the coffee break time
| talking with coworkers in a convivial surrounding, so they
| don't cross-pollinate ideas and share information.
|
| I've worked for the same company for 18 years now, and it's
| not because of the excellent coffee service. The excellent
| coffee service is a result of being a company I like to
| work at.
| j-krieger wrote:
| What's far more likely is that compared to other common
| items on the budget sheets, coffee expenses are pretty
| transparent and seem to be exorbitantly high for being
| "just coffee", so it's an easy target to eliminate
| stuff4ben wrote:
| It's funny since IBM today seems totally different than what
| a lot of people are used to. Now we have GE refrigerators
| with built-in Keurig coffee makers along with the ice/water
| dispenser. Free coffee brewed daily in the breakrooms along
| with snacks and pre-covid, fresh fruits. At least two food
| trucks every Wednesday since the offices opened back up
| several months ago and it's free (for now). They still have
| some draconian rules and red-tape, but what large corporation
| doesn't these days? I'm sure Microsoft is the same now.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _Now we have GE refrigerators with built-in Keurig coffee
| makers along with the ice /water dispenser. Free coffee
| brewed daily in the breakrooms along with snacks and pre-
| covid, fresh fruits. At least two food trucks every
| Wednesday since the offices opened back up several months
| ago and it's free (for now)._
|
| Wow, well that's good to hear. Maybe somebody saw the error
| of their ways. Or maybe it just varies by location. My
| experiences were all at the 500 building complex in RTP.
| [deleted]
| Giorgi wrote:
| ahh, stupid articles I waste my time on... But is it really waste
| if you enjoy it?
| phaedrus wrote:
| Anything Raymond Chen writes is worth the time to read.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Short article and it got a laugh, worth it.
| vijucat wrote:
| This sounds like a one-pixel attack, but on robotic corporate
| procedures rather than robotic neural networks. Corporate culture
| as an entity, with rules of it's own, that evolves just like a
| neural network trained on weights is a great analogy to chew
| on...I wonder what determines the architecture and weights of
| that NN?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| IBM was and is the worst when it comes to Draconian rules.
| flarg wrote:
| Have you ever worked in the Her Majesty's Civil Service? As an
| external you can't even go to the loo without an escort or
| signed pass.
| Aromasin wrote:
| Mundane, draconian bureaucracy is about as British as beans
| on toast. HMSC is just keeping the time honoured tradition
| alive.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I had to get a pass to go to the bathroom as a guest at a
| Google office once too.
| formercoder wrote:
| Both institutions with nation state level security threats.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I've heard worse about Electronic Data Systems (EDS), H. Ross
| Perot's company.
| csours wrote:
| I got counseled by my boss about my shoes. I worked at a
| client site. A manufacturing plant. And they wanted me to
| wear fancy shoes. He also made fun of me for wearing a
| blazer.
| a4isms wrote:
| I used to own steel-toed dress shoes. They exist
| specifically for "wearing fancy shoes" while visiting
| factories.
| c0nsumer wrote:
| When I started with EDS in 1999 it was right after the dress
| code policy and such changed. I was given a new employee that
| specified the dress code (IIRC it was jacket whenever away
| from your desk, certain colors for shirt/tie/socks/shoes),
| but the only dress code at the time then was "business
| casual".
|
| Doing onsite IT support for a big car company that meant
| khakis, a golf-type collared shirt, and boots. I was fine
| with that.
| bombcar wrote:
| The key is they're so draconian that they follow the draconian
| rules even when it defeats them (as in the story here).
| adolph wrote:
| So lawful evil in alignment?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(Dungeons_&_Dragons).
| ..
| sophacles wrote:
| They might be lawful neutral depending on how strictly they
| follow the rules that benefit employees.
| [deleted]
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| We wanted to run our own e-mail server and use Mutt on one team,
| so we repurposed an old desktop. Took the cover off, everybody
| assumed it was broken.
| mcculley wrote:
| Over the course of a few years I spent a lot of time in a secure
| environment in a DoD facility to which I had to travel multiple
| times for a project. The environment, a maze of cubicles filled
| with computers, had been installed inside a historic building.
| For historic preservation reasons, the exterior windows were kept
| as built. For security reasons, there was a sheet of plywood
| painted white inside all of the windows. The building allowed no
| natural light to enter and emitted only a diffuse glow. It was a
| miserable place to spend long days, illuminated only by
| flickering fluorescent light.
|
| We had some serious storms come through while I was there. A lot
| of the permanent residents went home. As I was a visitor and
| there just for as long as it took me to fix some problems, I was
| encouraged to stay and work late. I was assured that we would not
| lose power because the building had been recently equipped with a
| generator.
|
| A storm came through and the building lost power. It was almost
| entirely pitch black in the building full of computers, which all
| went dark, fans and disks suddenly silent. A small fraction of
| the emergency lights came on. Most were in disrepair and never
| lit up. It turns out that in a secure environment, one has to
| make special arrangements to have someone inspect the emergency
| lighting. We heard the generator spin up. Still no computers, no
| lights.
|
| In the darkness, one little nook came to life. This nook
| contained the coffee pot, microwave, and refrigerator. Apparently
| this organization considered only one piece of equipment
| important enough to be connected to the generator. We thereafter
| referred to it as the mission critical coffee pot.
| Aperocky wrote:
| The whole office would have grounded to an halt as people
| egress over essential items such as coffee and heated food,
| mission critical indeed.
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| I'm reminded of a Hyderabad office building that had half of
| the outlets backed by UPS. I thought it was smart, until the
| day every UPS outlet (and every desktop) went dark
| simultaneously. The other outlets still worked.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Your story reminds me a little of Ed Snowden's description of
| his experiences working in secure environments in Permanent
| Record.
|
| Each individual measure may make sense in isolation, but just
| like with any long-lived project, the sum total of all of them
| can absolutely still add up to absurdity.
| walrus01 wrote:
| if you spend enough working in, around or near a SCIF it
| becomes pretty mundane.
|
| the windowless rooms and sterile environment are actually not
| much different from commercial telecom stuff, like if you
| meet a person who works for an ILEC and has a desk in a CO.
|
| stick your cellphone in the little shelf box outside the
| entrance to the secured area, pick it up when you leave, etc.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I've got to be honest with you guys: I know you think all these
| things are "dangerous" and a "fire risk" but my closer network of
| startup engineers extends to 200+ and zero of them have been
| involved in a company with a serious emergency despite all the
| things we did.
|
| This is also sort of why I like startups. You can have cultural
| cohesion. If you get a 10k person company, everyone has to
| conform to the one guy who believes that you can't have a vim
| pedal because the cable under your desk will cause you to fail to
| be protected in an earthquake.
|
| No, thanks, I'll take the risk of tripping on the cable while the
| earthquake is on.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| You can't be serious this was actual conversation
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, no, I made up the vim pedal story as a positively
| outrageous example for humor's sake. I thought I was all the
| way into insanity and so it would be obvious as a joke. My
| bad.
| astrange wrote:
| Do people still use coffee makers? I thought it was all about
| pour-overs and Aeropress now. Though maybe the kettle would cause
| workplace accidents.
| sgt wrote:
| Of course. Doesn't everyone have one at home? Or some other
| method of making coffee for a bunch of people. I just bought a
| Moccamaster, hand made in Holland.
| sophacles wrote:
| Its one of those things where enthusiasts dominate the
| conversation because non-enthusiasts don't care enough to
| provide a different viewpiont, leading to a skewed impression
| by a lot of folks.
|
| The way I see it in my life amongst regular coffee drinkers:
|
| * Coffee enthusiasts are all about the perfect pour so they
| select tools based on control and repeatability (and fads like
| all human things). You get the pourovers and areopresses and
| what-not from them.
|
| * some folks don't want to waste precious counter space, or
| hate cleaning the coffee pot, and end up with a kettle and
| something like a pour over or french press.
|
| * everyone else has a coffee pot.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Which category do automatic grind/compact/brew/eject coffee
| machine users fall into?
|
| One incarnation kept a tally of the number of cups consumed,
| which I always liked (and secretly wished for a serial port
| so I could get the number out of it programmatically).
| mcculley wrote:
| I worked in an office with a fire hazard coffee pot.
|
| One of my coworkers wanted a coffee pot on his desk. He found an
| automatic drip coffee maker at a garage sale. It had a broken
| switch. Being a frugal engineer, he routed a wire past the switch
| and just turned it on and off by connecting and disconnecting it
| from the wall socket.
|
| More than once, I was working late and noticed the smell of it
| burning through the last dregs of the pot because he had
| forgotten to disconnect it. The first few times, I disconnected
| it. Finally, I threw it in a garbage can and probably saved the
| building from an eventual fire.
|
| I know it is annoying to have rules, but there are reasons for
| fire codes and facilities managers. I know too many people like
| my previous coworker.
| kube-system wrote:
| As long as it wasn't a very old coffee pot, and just the switch
| was bypassed, it was probably still very safe. Coffee pots that
| meet UL standards have one or more safety mechanisms, and
| likely a thermostat on top of that.
|
| https://www.electrical-forensics.com/Coffeemakers/CoffeeMake...
| mcculley wrote:
| Because I had to intervene multiple times after it had
| clearly been heating the pot continuously all day and the
| smell of burnt coffee was evident on the entire floor, I
| don't think it had any safety mechanisms remaining, if it
| ever had any.
|
| Worse, I personally watched one person see it as a problem,
| flip the switch assuming that would fix it, and walk away. I
| had to point out that the switch was not involved and was
| just a decoy. That made it even worse from a safety
| perspective.
| kube-system wrote:
| > heating the pot continuously all day and the smell of
| burnt coffee was evident
|
| This is the expected operation of a basic coffee pot
| without an auto-shutoff timer. It should remain hot
| indefinitely, and as a result, any remaining coffee inside
| will start to smell bad. However, there is (from the
| factory, at least) a thermostat that will regulate the
| temperature at the normal operational temperature, _and_
| thermal safety fuse(s) that will permanently shut off power
| above the normal temperature but before any components will
| catch on fire.
|
| >I personally watched one person see it as a problem, flip
| the switch assuming that would fix it, and walk away.
|
| True, that probably has enough inherent safety issues
| regardless of whether it catches fire.
| mcculley wrote:
| Yours and other replies have convinced me that the risk
| is very low. Regardless, I will continue to throw any
| similarly improvised device in the garbage rather than
| take the risk.
| kube-system wrote:
| 1000% agree. They're engineered to be disposable and
| that's exactly what people should do with them.
|
| And regardless of what I said above, I personally avoid
| coffee pots with manual switches. While they might not
| catch fire, there's still other general dangers regarding
| hot things that no longer need to be hot.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| So, has anyone here ever, like... worked in a regular office?
| Not the Apple Mothership or anything like that, just like a
| small office for a business with like 50 people in it?
|
| If you go into the break room in a place like that, you're
| going to see consumer grade coffee makers. Again and again.
| They're totally normal.
| mcculley wrote:
| Most of them are in good working order, UL approved, and not
| bought at a garage sale and improvised to run continuously.
| You cannot trust your coworkers to put a heating element on
| their desk.
| [deleted]
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| This is why rules are often not enough to create a desired
| outcome. Beaurocracy fails when it doesn't account for human
| motivation.
|
| In this case, the best option would be to involve management or
| HR, or even facilities management in the positive step of
| buying a better coffee maker for the office. Failing to provide
| access to safely brewed good coffee was the bug here.
| mcculley wrote:
| I completely agree that the incompetence of the organization
| was greater than the carelessness of my coworker. Regardless,
| he should not have plugged in a heating element without a
| switch.
| Maursault wrote:
| > One of my coworkers wanted a coffee pot on his desk.... I
| threw it in a garbage can
|
| Did you take his red stapler, too, Lumbergh?
| mcculley wrote:
| No, but I did remove the BitTorrent client that was serving
| up his entire drive.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I don't know if this is what you _intend_ to imply, but it
| sounds like you 're justifying the "all coffee makers are fire
| hazards" rule with an anecdote about a jimmy-rigged coffee
| maker (which never actually even caught fire, although I
| wouldn't necessarily be surprised if it would have done).
| Certainly permitting coffee makers increases the risk of fire
| above "no coffee makers", but both are in a completely
| different risk ballpark to "jimmy-rigged coffee makers". I also
| don't know if coffee makers are expressly forbidden in building
| codes or if it's just an over-zealous facilities manager policy
| (and perhaps in either case it's a legacy from a bygone era
| where these things caught fire more frequently than today).
| mcculley wrote:
| If I still owned a physical office, I would not want my
| facilities manager to inspect every coffee pot to determine
| the risk. I would make sure to provide the caffeine some
| other way.
|
| In that same building there were some desks with fans because
| it was too hot and space heaters because it was too cold. (I
| saw this ridiculous waste of electricity in many facilities.)
| I don't trust most facilities to have good AC, ventilation,
| or wise inhabitants.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| And this is why my university has installed those 2 hour timer
| breakers on all the outlets. lol
| pierrebai wrote:
| How does an over-heated pot of glass and plastic catch fire? If
| coffee-making machine are fire hazard, most homes in the world
| must be regularly burning.
|
| Given that the overwhelming evidence, for example the fact that
| no house has burned in a large radius around my home, I'd say
| your and IBM's assessment is wildly off-target.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| In my experience, coffee pot fires happen when there is a
| small amount of coffee left in the pot. It dries out, leaving
| a dark residue in the bottom. This residue catches fire.
| mcculley wrote:
| This was effectively a heating element without a switch. Yes,
| the risk is low. Still stupid to do it.
| bena wrote:
| I assume in that bypassing the switch, it also bypassed the
| automatic shut off.
|
| Coffee makers are relatively simple designs. They're
| basically hotplates with a one way valve underneath for the
| water.
|
| Without the shut off, the thing would just keep getting
| hotter. And while heated glass will not catch fire, it can
| shatter violently. And those heated shards can then catch
| things on fire. And that's outside the fact that just faulty
| wiring can cause sparks and fire itself.
| hex4def6 wrote:
| They are simple things, but they don't go critical like
| you're describing. Simple ones often just have a mechanical
| bimetal thermostat device that opens / closes around a
| given temperature (a bit north of 100degC). In addition to
| that, they have thermal fuses that will blow if the
| temperature reaches over some threshold (I think 200degC?).
| My understanding is that they often use a pair of thermal
| fuses for safety. In this case, you would somehow need to
| have both thermal fuses fail closed, as well as the
| thermostat fail closed.
| bena wrote:
| But if I'm rewiring the thing to be on while plugged in,
| do you think I'm following the UL guidelines?
| crispyambulance wrote:
| This is HN, so I feel free to nerd-pick: IBM was right about the
| coffee maker!
|
| Really, consumer-grade coffee makers aren't intended to stay on
| for days at a time. You need commercial machines for that, all
| metal and glass, that won't be a fire hazard or have melting
| plastic. Some facilities have strict rules about that.
| kodah wrote:
| When corporate offices gripe about employees bringing in home
| items the reason it isn't received well isn't because the rule
| is ridiculously illogical.
|
| The problem is that those companies are notoriously cheap. They
| won't buy coffee makers or poorly maintain them and their
| managers are trained to act like callous idiots when questioned
| about it. Really, in general, most employee disatisfaction
| comes from managers and executives acting like callous idiots
| instead of actually trying to solve problems.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Really, in general, most employee disatisfaction comes from
| managers and executives acting like callous idiots instead of
| actually trying to solve problems.
|
| Managers and executives are usually trying to solve problems,
| but generally not the problems of people below them on the
| org chart.
| kodah wrote:
| Then their position in the org chart is non-sensical. That
| means they should be adjacent to the folks they feel no
| duty to.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Then their position in the org chart is non-sensical.
|
| Generally, org charts are designed so that the people
| whose problems you are expected to (and held accountable
| for) working to solve are above, not below.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Intended or not they have a proven track record of doing just
| fine in staff break rooms the world over.
|
| The hand wringing is not necessary.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Don't most consumer coffee makers shut off automatically some
| time after brewing?
| mindcrime wrote:
| Some n=1 anecdata:
|
| My circa-2002 Mr. Coffee brand drip coffee marker has an
| automatic cut-off. I have never bothered measuring it
| precisely, but I think it cuts off at around an hour and a
| half or two hours after being turned on. Believe me, there
| have been many times I put on a pot of coffee, got "in the
| zone" working on some code, got up a while later, walked in
| the kitchen, and found the pot of coffee stone cold. Much to
| my dismay. Although as a former firefighter, I do understand
| the intent behind this, and I can't _really_ be mad about it.
| tyingq wrote:
| Many do, a surprising amount do not, including some models
| from brands you would recognize.
|
| Edit: In the US, for sure. Like most of the ones on Amazon
| right now that are under $30.
| maccard wrote:
| Any coffee machine sold in the EU in the last 7/8 years is
| required to have a 40 minute off switch.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| I'll often drink several cups over 3-4 hours; a 40 minute
| timer seems far too short.
| semireg wrote:
| Have you tried turning it off and on again?
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Now it's cold and I have to wait 20 minutes for it to
| warm up again, or use the microwave. I just want my
| coffee man!
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| Agreed, that is way too short for me. I found 2hrs or 4
| hours is the reasonable amount to cut off.
|
| I wonder EU have that 40 min cut off is due to their high
| voltage/amperage?
| tyingq wrote:
| I'm assuming energy savings, as the cutoff is 5 minutes
| if the device has an insulated carafe.
| lb1lf wrote:
| But surely, after several hours whatever liquid remains
| on the brewer hardly tastes like coffee anymore?
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Takes a while to "burn" good coffee, probably about 12
| hours on heat.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| As long as the caffeine remains in tact, all's good!
| martinmunk wrote:
| Yes. And I hate that so so much.
|
| I inherited an older Moccamaster, which does not have the
| timeout, and the newer one went straight to storage.
| Unfortunately the old button without a timer is not sold
| as a spare anymore, or I would have "downgraded" the
| newer machine.
| outworlder wrote:
| There are coffee machines that pour coffee straight into
| thermos.
|
| I personally can't stand the taste of 'cooked' coffee.
| I'll grind and make another mug when needed in an
| espresso coffee maker. Doesn't take long at all. Mine is
| manual but you can have automatic machine to shave off
| even more time.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Are those the same coffee makers sold by foreign
| companies that declare bankruptcy the moment a lawsuit
| takes place?
| crb3 wrote:
| Except for (the complicated mechanical mess that is) Black &
| Decker, the cheap ones I've encountered don't have any one-
| time-only control mechanism, they just cycle the thermostat
| if left on long enough, which means the heating element is
| powered long enough to pop the thermostat again. Then they
| put thermal fuses in to deal with any heat buildup.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| I have a Black & Decker one, it have 2-hours shut off. My
| previous maker is Mr. Coffee and it have 4 hours shut off.
|
| The only I know that consumer coffee maker don't have the
| auto shut off is the one that have a rocking switch and
| they are normally the most basic kind ($10 - $30 USD).
| ben_w wrote:
| Mine has one, but _something_ is causing it to get stuck in
| the on position. We know about this because it repeatedly
| clicks while trying and failing to turn itself off.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| They may have been correct in identifying and categorizing the
| problem, but they clearly failed at the solution.
| gruez wrote:
| >Really, consumer-grade coffee makers aren't intended to stay
| on for days at a time
|
| Surely a coffee maker would get a break in the
| afternoon/evening? I agree that using it at a duty cycle higher
| than it was designed might be an issue, but unless you have the
| entire floor share one machine it should be fine.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > urely a coffee maker would get a break in the
| afternoon/evening?
|
| I know a lot of people who drink coffee all afternoon. Plus,
| they won't hesitate to dump and rebrew a pot if its been
| warming too long.
| sokoloff wrote:
| There's delicious irony in the fact that putting a (useless, if
| not for IBM's rules) cardboard box over a coffee maker slightly
| _increases_ the fire hazard.
| mikeryan wrote:
| I shall nerd-pick.
|
| 1. If they're not meant to stay on how come most of them have
| clocks?
|
| 2. Many machines no longer warm the coffee by using a heating
| element underneath a glass carafe, they've switched this out
| for insulated carafes (no glass) which tend to work better
| anyway.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/select/shopping/best-coffee-makers-b...
| endominus wrote:
| I don't think the second point applies here, as the story in
| question takes place in the late 80's, before this change
| occurred. I don't know if coffee machines had clocks in that
| era, either.
| glitchc wrote:
| That is absolutely hilarious! Well done MSFT crew.
| 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
| I was hoping to see some usage of the RFC for Coffee Pot
| communication. Sadly, that was missing from the story, but the
| story does not disappoint.
| ineedasername wrote:
| IPoCP can experience a very high jitter rate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Also susceptible to buffer under/overflows
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| No no, it's 'I'm a teapot'
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/418
| cipheredStones wrote:
| Read the RFC! It's Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol,
| and 418 is an _error_ because you shouldn't be brewing coffee
| in a teapot.
| sidpatil wrote:
| HTCPCP was published in the late 1990s, whereas IBM-Microsoft
| collaboration on OS/2 was in the late 1980s to early 1990s.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
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