My biggest gripe about heat (or cooling loss) is with automatic doors. Not with the doors themselves, but with irresponsible parents who let their children play with them. I was recently in a hotel lobby, where a mother let her two children play with handicap access doors, by hitting the buttons every time the door closed; like some kind of race to see who could open the door quickest.

When I made a suggestion to the mother that her children were wasting energy, and making the lobby uncomfortable for other people, this classy-appearing mother, morphed into a gutter-mouthed bitch, who told me in no uncertain terms to mind my own "fu%%#*&&ing" business!!

Great technology. Pitiful example set by miserable parent!

I agree with Herbie2 here, but along somewhat different lines. I recently started graduate school in Syracuse after many years in Moscow. The amenities for the handicapped are, as you might imagine, much better in Syracuse than anywhere in Russia. I know it's somewhat unreasonable, but watching healthy, unencumbered people (and mostly women) using the "blue button" really ticks me off. The door isn't that hard to open folks! As it is, we're so fat we can't take the stairs! Can't we at least open the door for ourselves? Lazy expletive deleteds!

Lighten up. It's just a door.

Remember way back when, when adults all seemed to be old farts.

Look at you now.

I couldn't agree more. When they put the handicapped access doors in to UMASS-Boston, I watched as more and more students gradually started using the button rather than pushing the door open. Since it takes a few seconds for the automatic door to open, it's actually more trouble, but they'd rather get the free ride of pushing a button than push the door and get on with it. Now, at my local library, I see 5'11''-200 lb 14 year old boys standing waiting for the automatic door to open - and Mommy encouraging little tykes to run up and hit the button as some form of play-time. And you wonder why this is a country of fat pigs? Don't blame fast food, or advertising. We have met the enemy, and he is our own lazy asses.

The whole point of the article is that it's not just a door - it's wasted energy. Waste not, want not.

I agree that there is no point in getting exasperated over behavior most people don't realize is wasteful. People should be educated about the energy costs of their behavior.

I must say that seeing otherwise healthy individuals press the door opening buttons has never bothered me. I've never really thought about it.

In fact, I even press them on occasion. Personally, I hate large buildings with a dozen+ doors, with all but one locked. I always feel like a iditot trying to open each glass door until I find the right one. It's just so much easier to walk up to the one with the button and go that route. If that blue button is available, I usually push it because I don't feel like dealing with the extra resistance on the door from it.

Life is complicated enough just trying to worry about ourselves. It's really not worth getting too concerned about how other people walk through doors.