[on power switches, icons, and liability...]
Hey, I resemble that remark! When working in Switzerland, I bought an old
coffepot at the local Brockenstube (thrift store) for heating water in the
office where I worked. You had to unplug it after each use, so I went down
to Migro (kinda like a cross between Wall-Mart, Safeway, and Home Depot)
and picked up a nice, big push button, about 1 1/2" in diameter (that's
about 4 cm in the real world).
This was a push-on, push-again-off button, and people kept losing track of
whether it was on or not. So I wired a neon bulb -- the kind that are in
night lights -- across the switch, and it could be seen through the
transluscent button. When the switch was closed, it shorted the light,
which went off; when the switch was open, the light drew a small current
through the heater and turned on. The alternative was to tap into the other
mains wire, which at that point had intact insulation. I judged the danger
of having a "backwards light" to be less than the potential shock hazard of
tapping into the earth wire of the mains.
One morning we came in to find several plant security people clustered
around the coffee-clutch with a camera, taking pictures of a large burned
spot on the table. It seems the night watchman had stopped in, saw the
light on the switch glowing, and thoughtfully turned it "off."
After begging and pleading and filling out an incident report in triplicate
and reporting to three layers of management, I was allowed to keep my job.
Obligatory Olympus content: if they had been using an OM to take the photo,
it probably would have required one less security officer, but I guess
Olympus is Not Allowed in Switzerland, due to the threat to their
full-employment policy... :-)
(Typical Swiss joke: "All that is not mandatory is not allowed." While in
Geneva for an international peace conference, Solzenitsen was heard to
remark that he couldn't wait to get back to the Soviet Union where he felt
he had a little freedom... )
: Jan Steinman <mailto:jans@xxxxxxxxxxx>
: 19280 Rydman Court, West Linn, OR 97068-1331 USA
: +1.503.635.3229
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