The dryer stopped drying. Specifically the heating element, which I can sometimes see glowing like the Eye of Sauron if I open the dryer when it’s still running, though it immediately shuts off and fades away once the door is opened, died. I try to use the dryer as little as possible anyway. We have a much more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient dryer called sunlight, but it’s not always reliable.
The guy who did the repair job left me the old burned out heating element which was an interesting thing. It’s not exactly aesthetically pleasing but then it’s never meant to be seen, hidden away at the back, though it’s incredibly important. Looking at it reminded me of when I was a kid and I’d find old electronics that people had thrown out—alarm clocks, mostly, some radios—and take them apart. I tinkered with an orphaned toy walkee talkee until it picked up audio from a local TV station. I have no clue what I did because I really didn’t know anything about electronics and most of the time I took the discarded equipment I found and built imaginary robots. They were imaginary because they couldn’t really do anything on their own, but that doesn’t make them much different from the robots in most science fiction movies and TV shows that are really just people in suits.
The heating element also reminded me of the coils inside the kiln one of my aunts who had a whole ceramic studio in the basement of my grandparents’ house. She made various pieces, including an R2-D2 that I used as a nightlight. Upstairs, in the bathroom, there was also a wall heater that had similar metal coils. I don’t remember when I figured out how these things worked but because I was always interested in science it seems like I understood pretty early on that, when turned on, electrons flowed into coils but because the coils weren’t very conductive the electrons would get slowed down, putting pressure on each other. This pressure would then turn into heat. I know that’s greatly oversimplified but that’s the basic principle, and that’s where all understanding starts. Resistance is a powerful thing; if something went wrong with the kiln or the wall heater they could easily start a fire, burn the whole house down. But the heater provided warmth, and the kiln could turn wet clay and liquid glaze into something glossy and hard.
It just made me think about the power of resistance and how it can be harnessed, either in destructive or useful ways.
I love that you have a mortal coil, lol. Ken likes to take things like this and attach them to birdhouses and wooden figures—I wish he would learn to weld and make actual robots instead of terrifying the birds😉
That sounds like a good use for discarded electronics, but making actual robots would be better. Even imaginary robots would be better. Those would make nice perches for the birds.
I love air-drying things, but I also love the way my dryer, which vents into the back yard, sometimes smells makes my whole yard smell like clean laundry. It’s a toss up.
The whole yard smelling like clean laundry sounds like a definite plus. Our dryer is above the basement so it vents out into the air. Sometimes, though, when it’s really cold the air blowing out forms a mist. It’s really quite pretty.
An irresistible post, Chris, in so many ways.
Going back to science fiction I still think one of the most valuable lessons from Star Trek is that resistance is not futile.