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Media Blunder of the Day: Spanish building with no elevator, actually has 10

The Intempo building

The Intempo building

The headlines were somewhere between hilarious and unbelievable.  “Builders forgot elevator shafts on finished Skyscraper,” read the NY Daily News. ”  UPI reported “Spain skyscraper with no elevators nearly complete”, and the Daily Beast echoed “Near-Complete Spanish Skyscraper Forgets Elevators.”

The claims came from a July 20th story in Spain’s El País newspaper about the financial troubles of the Intempo building.  The article discusses the series of problems the builders have encountered during construction and towards the end reads (my free translation): “In January 2012 there was a new surprise: they had not taken into account the shaft for the elevator, as can be seen in the promotional designs which do not not show the spaces typically dedicated on the roofs to the elevator engines. ‘The space had been calculated for a block of 20 stories,’ according to the same sources”.

I will admit that I have no idea what the El País article is referring to, but clearly journalists in both Spanish and English-speaking media interpreted these sentences to mean that the builders had forgotten to build elevators into the buildings.

If they did, however, they had fixed this problem by April 2013, when a blogger visited the building, rode in one of the elevators and wrote about it.  She describes the trip as being incredibly fast, less than one minute to go up 45 stories.  According to the blogger, that’s in “slow mode”.  In fast mode, it can make the ~600 feet climb in about 30 seconds.  The blogger mentions that each of the two towers has 3 elevators.  Four elevators make the trip to the penthouses in the middle.  So in all, it has 10 elevators.  You can see one of the elevators and the space for another one in her blog posting.

She does say, however, that they had to take the stairs to make it to the roof.

Whatever El País meant in its story, it’s certain that the rest of the media that ran with the “no elevators” story did not do the most basic fact-checking of either visiting the building, looking at the blue-prints, calling the construction company, or even googling.  I found the blog posting I referred to above by searching for “ascensores intempo“.  “Ascensor” is the Spanish word for “elevator”.

The real question here is how much can we trust the media, when journalists seem to rush to write stories, repeating what they think they read somewhere, without doing the most minimum fact checking?  To be fair, so far it does not appear that the major English language media has ran with the story, but I wonder if it’s only a matter of time.  It’s troublesome enough that any journalist can be so careless to not even try to check their facts, even when we are dealing with what sounds like a very improbable mistake.

This typical floor plan for one of the towers, shows 3 elevators, in addition to stairs.

This typical floor plan for one of the towers, shows 3 elevators, in addition to stairs.

On Smells

smellI was thinking about smells the other day, while taking a shower.  I had washed my hair with a “freesia” shampoo and then used a “passion flower & vanilla extract” conditioner.  I had a new perfumed body wash from a Promise Me giftset.  Once I got out, I followed with some Imari deodorant (a stronger smell), because that’s what I had opened, and then applied the Promise me lotion from the set.  I finished with some body powder (light scent of  pine needles) and face cream (L’Oreal Advanced RevitaLift Complete, which smells just like face cream).  By the time I was done – and before I actually applied shampoo – I had covered my newly washed body with six different scents.   What did I smell like? I have no idea.

One of the fascinating things about our sense of smell is that it can be quite acute when expose to a new scent, but becomes quickly accustomed to it.   That’s true of our other senses as well – we are able to tune out background noise and images in our field of vision so as to pay attention to a particular sound or sight and we can zoom in on a specific touch -, but what makes smell different is that once we have (automatically and not necessarily willingly) tuned out a smell, we can no longer distinguish it, at least until it once again becomes novel.

What this means is that by the time I applied the last product, I could no longer smell the first ones – so, all in all, I have no idea what I smelled like.  Did all the fragrances fight or helped one another?

Some smells seem to be more enduring for our noses than others.  Today I got a new perfume in the mail, Far Away from Avon.  The first spray was rough and alcoholic, but it quickly became soft and subtly, powdery and feminine yet grown up.  I loved it.  Five hours later, I can only smell the occasional harsh vanilla overtone, it’s not very pleasant.  I had my husband smell me, however, and apparently to him I do smell flowery and light. He liked the fragrance quite a bit.   Whether I continue using this perfume – enjoyable at first but then unpleasant for me alone – is an open question.

What I find more worrisome is all the bad smells that I have become accustomed to but other people do smell.  A few weeks ago my washing machine broke down and while researching what could be wrong with it, I learned that front-loading washers like mine often have a mold problem.  As they are often kept closed – the doors get in the way otherwise -, they are often wet and mold loves moisture.   It didn’t take me long to realize that, indeed, our washer was suffering from that issue and our clothing was showing it (or, rather, smelling it).  If I smelled nasty to you in the last six months, you now know why.  We have a new washer, but the mold smell is only slowly going away.

 

Flor Violeta – Avon

Avon's Flor Violeta

Avon’s Flor Violeta

Flor Violeta is a new fragrance by Avon and I think it will be my scent for the summer (unless it’s a hot day, when I need something more citrusy like True Glow or Just Play).  While I wish Flor Violeta was a bit more violet-like and refreshing, I like the happy, lighthearted bouquet of flowers scent.  It just screams “spring” to me.  It is perhaps a tad too sweet, but it smells less “old lady” than most of the other Avon scents I like, so it makes my kids happy.


SPD: The Devil Knows because he is Old.

Today’s Spanish-language proverbs is one of my favorites:

El diablo sabe por diablo, pero más sabe por viejo.

“The devil knows because he is the devil, but he knows more because he’s old”.

This proverb is a variation of the old Spanish proverb: “Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo“: “The devil knows more for being old than for being the devil”.  I like the first one more, though.

I’ve grown fonder and fonder of this proverb which extolls the knowledge and wisdom that comes with age, precisely as I get older and realize just how true it is.  The past is really the best predictor of the future – which is why knowing history is so important -, and nothing can quite teach you as much about life as living.

 

 

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