Do your own electrical work
I was doing a bit of exercise this morning, and listening to music. It was a radio station - automatically generated. A song came on I hadn’t heard before - but now I’ve looked it up: it was “Dumb ways to die” by Tangerine Kitty.
I won’t sing it, but I will read you some lyrics, from the start.
Set fire to your hair
Poke a stick at a grizzly bear
Eat medicine that’s out of date
Use your private parts as piranha bait
Dumb ways to die
So many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die
So many dumb ways to die
Get your toast out with a fork
Do your own electrical work
[long pause]
That’s the line that caught my attention. Some people will know that I’ve done a fair amount of my own electrical work. Most of it has been done in the dark while my wife shouts at me to turn the lights back on. I have 13 internet-connected light switches, mainly downstairs. They’re not wired like normal light switches. Putting them in was basically trial and error. Some of the bulbs flickered or wouldn’t turn off so I just wired some extra resistors into the line. I’ve a couple of smart relays - they’re like radio controlled switches - wired into two electric towel rails and yesterday evening I finished wiring a power supply into the downstairs lighting circuit for a new smart motion sensor over the porch light. It was weird: when I first switched the power back on, the circuit breaker tripped, but now it seems fine-ish.
I have two justifications for taking what is probably a modest risk, also on behalf of my wife and two children. The first is that I have 9 internet-connected smoke detectors distributed throughout the house. When you burn toast in the kitchen, it tells you in the bedroom.
The second justification is that these are the risks we bear in the name of progress.
On this day - the 9th of October - in 1779, the Luddite riots began in Manchester. “Luddite” is one of my favourite derogatory remarks, and this is where it comes from. The rioters were reacting to the introduction of machinery for spinning cotton. Their businesses were being undercut and they feared a future with fewer jobs for expert cotton spinners. Luddite protesters clashed with the army, and there were some deaths, but in the end the movement died out because smashing up factory machines was made a capital offence. The threat of execution was bigger than the threat of having to find a new way of making money.
Progress is inevitable, so there’s no point resisting it. It isn’t Tangerine Kitty’s intended meaning, but for me “Dumb Ways to Die” is about ways of really living. Driving progress and accepting risk are ways of living. So - go on - wire in a dimmer or splice a mains cable. Just try it.