Yes? Well, have you ever considered the repercussions of this behaviour? It can cause serious and sometimes fatal injuries! Imagine what must happen to the passengers on board as the elevator suddenly accelerates to accommodate your constant pressing. Faster and faster it goes with each press until the G-forces become unbearable.

Think of the children! What? You don't think this happens? Then why do you keep pressing the button? You wouldn't be doing it for no reason now would you? And once you get inside the elevator you might be tempted to press the door close button. It never works the first time, so you press it a few more times until the door closes.

Well, did you ever stop to think for a few seconds why that might be? Because if you had, you would have realized that the door will close at the same time whether you press the button five times, once or even none at all.

That's right; the button doesn't do anything at all. Why? Because the elevator manufacturers figured out long ago that people are evil and they will use the tools given them against each other when given half a chance. That's right, if the button worked, people would use it all right - on each other! The manufacturers also know that people like to have a sense of control - so they leave the door close buttons in. This is the same reason the astronauts asked for windows in their rocket ships. It's not like it would be of any use if things went wrong, I mean what would they do?

"Oh, we're out of fuel, but maybe if we look out the window... Uh, I dunno, I think I see Jupiter, does that help us?"

Or: "The ship's on fire! Quick, look out the window and see if you can find, um, a water asteroid. Yeah, okay I know it's minus 273 degrees out in space and a bit cold for water, but..."

People need to have a sense of control over their technology (even if it's a false sense) or they may start feeling helpless.

Traffic light buttons - I don't think I need to elaborate here; suffice it to say they are not entirely as advertised. But at the same time, they are a flaw in the matrix we live in, as deja vu was in the matrix of the movie of the same name. People are on to this one. It dosn't take a Computer Science Masters student to press it and say, "Hey wait a minute, I don't think this button is doing anything." Speaking of pressing buttons, I find it interesting that people that like to flip channels while watching TV go out and buy digital cable boxes or satellite dishes and find out that it’s no longer possible to do this because it takes a few seconds for each channel to appear when you select it. So a simple flip-flip-flip on the remote now becomes flip-wait to decode a few seconds-flip-wait a few more seconds to decode-flip-wait a couple seconds once again...

But people soon convince themselves this is somehow "better" and will tell their friends how great their new digital cable box is. (Read my previous article on how to add a free TV guide to your current TV and cable setup if you want a fast alternative.)

Yes, people are funny creatures when it comes to technology.

I'll leave you with an experiment you can try for yourself - look at the top right corner of the front page of this very paper where you will find a weather forecast for Sunday. Cut it out and save it until Sunday and then check to see if was actually right. It probably won't be.

Yes, a highly advanced computer simulation predicted it and the results get a very prominent position on the front page of the newspaper, but it will probably be wrong.