And Solution begat Problem

Institutions, governments and countries all have structural inertia. I worked for several years teaching science in The Institute. Science has been the driver of the technical changes impacting Life for at least 100 years. I can do things from my sofa you 11.y.o. me wouldn't believe (video call to CapeTown; pay Joe the washing-machine whizz; buy a book from Kennys; order Tesco to deliver bacon, cabbage and spuds asap). Tech which is commonplace now, was unimaginable 5 or 10 years ago. We teachers at The Institute aspired to launch students who were equipped to thrive in the New New. Devising a new course was was easy: ask what needed teaching, and what resources were needed to achieve that. But, getting the new course approved by management was trudging through a paper mangrove swamp: learning outcomes LOs had to be written up in Officialese; deliverables had to conjured in optimistic babble; technical staff had to be schmoozed into, like, working with new kit rather than drifting between tea-breaks. What gets lost in the obsession with curriculum, documentation and LOs is teaching our technical good-pair-of-hands students to think on their feet rather perform by the book.

Although life is 'more convenient' it is also more complex. The number of things Ordinary Folk can/should do themselves diminishes with each passing year. In the house we bought in England, I installed a new electric-socket on the far side of the living room by hauling a cable after me in the crawl-space under the floor-boards. I wouldn't do that now: I've known at least one case where faulty wiring caused a fire between the studs of a kitchen wall. This January, I learned about RCD [residual current detectors] which are now routinely installed in domestic electric circuits to trip before incommming water causes an electrical short, fire and multiple deaths. One thing I learned in January was that you really don't want to lose power to your fridge or freezer while you're away on, say, holiday or a field-trip.

But modern Sparkses are aware of that issue and modern best practice is to put the fridge-freezer on a separate circuit. So that, for example, a leaky kettle doesn't trip off the entire kitchen circuit and ruin your wholesaler stash of frozen pizza. That's a solution to a potential problem, but the devil is in the details of implementation. Pat-the-Salt's old gaff on Costa na Déise has spent the last year undergoing a major refurb and refit. We were down there for a few days at the beginning of May: cleaning and gardening and chopping wood for a new stove. As we were leaving, Dau.II pointed to the wall switch [as L ☉] beside the fridge and asked "Should that be off?". We agreed that the light should be red and the fridge should be left ON. And it was so, and we left, without getting into blame about who had switched the freezer off.

Four weeks later we were back in the house and I opened the fridge to get a dash of milk for the tea. Because I was alone in the kitchen and right in front on the door, I heard a click and noticed the fridge light went off. Aha! If anyone opens the fridge door fully, it makes contact with the separate-circuit rocker switch on the wall and turns the fridge off. The electrician's solution to a vanishingly rare eventuality was to install a switch which is far more susceptible to getting switched off accidentally. Very slow hand clap.

We are now canvassing solutions. I favour gluing half a beach-combed tennis ball to the fridge door (anywhere will do, except right opposite the switch). But a stack of hilarious fridge magnets, or half a wine cork would serve as well. Someone else suggested a frame round the switch - it just needs to be 2cm proud of the wall.