Dummy Thermostats
It has been reported that many thermostats in office buildings are non-functional dummy devices, installed to give tenants' employees an illusion of control. These dummy thermostats are in effect a type of placebo button. However, these thermostats are often fully functional in the sense that they are used to detect the temperature in the zone, even though their controls are disabled and not used in lieu of the environmental controls of the building. This function is often referred to as "lockout".
Read more about this topic: Thermostat
Famous quotes containing the word dummy:
“Fathers and Sons is not only the best of Turgenev’s novels, it is one of the most brilliant novels of the nineteenth century. Turgenev managed to do what he intended to do, to create a male character, a young Russian, who would affirm his—that character’s—absence of introspection and at the same time would not be a journalist’s dummy of the socialistic type.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)