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I'm sure most people, every now and then, get a nagging doubt in their mind: "Did I *really* remember to turn the oven off?"
Some people wonder just occasionally, some forgetful worrywarts suffer this anxiety much more often. Mostly, we usually decide we did turn it off, and we're usually right.
But it's all so unnecessary - unnecessary worry, or unnecessary trips home to check, or unnecessary flaming infernos if we really didn't turn the oven off.
So, let's wire up a switch to the door. When we shut the door (or better, when we lock it, but that might be trickier to do), that trips the switch and, after a minute, the circuit turns off the power to the oven. Of course, we don't want the oven turning off when we're at home, or just because someone else has come in while we're cooking, so the one-minute delay gives you time to press a button by the oven to override the door, if you're actually cooking at the time. That same button lets you reset the circuit and restore power to the oven when you get home and want to cook.
Now, with this nifty device in place, you need no longer worry about remembering to remember whether or not you turned the oven off. If you didn't, your door did!
Also, with increasing awareness of the need to reduce energy use, you could set this up to turn off other household appliances too. You can cut power to the TV, you can turn off your heater, you can even trip the light - fantastic!
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yeah, but did you turn the cat door to *in* and the alarm on to *away* and did you leave fresh water and... |
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budgie, I left my key in my other handbag... |
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and the iron turned off and your bedroom alarm clock off |
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Did I remember to close the door? |
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...but the coffee maker, hair dryer, iron and cappuccino machine are just lurking in the corners... |
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Of course, sometimes you want that roast cooking while you're out shopping, and then you're wondering, did I forget to turn off the peace of mind switch? (I do like the annoyance that this thing would cause at dinner parties--something right out of Monty Python.) |
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No, [po]'s budgie is trained to retrieve keys. Didn't you know? The secret is in the treat/reward thing. |
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But this will just displace your worry. According to my hastily-concocted theory, everyone has a 'normal' level of worry, angst and fretting and reducing the level in one area of your life will cause you to begin worrying about another area of your life in order to rebalance your overall level of worry. So, for example, if a technology solution no longer allows you to worry about leaving the oven on, you may start to worry about whether there's a mouse living under your fridge. The way out of this is to manufacture artificial worry 'targets' - unimportant things which can act as a receptable for all the worry transferred away from other things by bold technological innovations like this one. So, for example, the "Peace of Mind door" could come with the "Ham-fisted Electrician Lightswitch" - a perfectly safe lightswitch, which you fit somewhere in your house, carefully engineered to emit a nasty buzzing noise and a few sparks occasionally. You'll then transfer your "Is the oven on?" worry to a new "Is my house burning down?" worry, but will secretly know that the "Ham-fisted Electrician Lightswitch" is actually perfectly safe. |
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So I can't bake overnight anymore? (-) |
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