Yes/No/Cancel

Since it is Lent now, our roman-catholic friends are doing without meat for 40 days. I am protestant and vegetarian anyway, so this does not really mean much to me. Anyway, some of them asked me if I would also forswear something for that time. I usually answered that I’m trying to pass the days without golfing. This is not a great relinquishment since I’m not golfing anyway, but it usually leaves them sufficiently impressed.

But all that made me think of one thing: Would it be possible to spend at least one day without computers, integrated circuits, digital devices and all that? Let’s think it through. I use the following rule: I may not use any semiconductor-operated device at all. Other electric devices will do ok, although I will try to avoid them. Also I will let others use digital devices for me. You may call that cheating, but I can only control myself, not others as well, and I cannot entirely shut down public life.

First, I would have to replace my radio controlled alarm clock by some good old mechanical device. And there’s the first drawback: I can impossibly sleep with a ticking clock around. Of course, I might wrap it in lots of fabric, but then its ringing will also be muffled. Not good. Also I would have to rewind it from time to time, but that’s a minor problem - at least if it doesn’t stop in the middle of the night, which according to Murphy’s Law it will do the nights before important meetings and stuff. But my digital clock once let me down also, because I failed to program not only the time but also the weekday. (Let’s call that a draw.)

Luckily my bathroom works on a somewhat hydraulic base, I even switched back to shaving foam some years ago since the electric razor broke and left me half-bearded one morning. But on the breakfast table I am unsure again about whether toasters and coffee machines are usually IC-controlled or not. On closer examination, the toaster has a simple bi-metal control, so I can use it safely. About the coffee machine, I still don’t know, so I decide to postpone the coffee to when I am at work. (The machine there is certainly not under digital control, and even if it would be: it’s usually my roommate who’s handling it because in earlier times I never got the amount of coffee powder right. But that’s another story.) Looking around in the kitchen, I notice that nearly all devices have at least an LCD display which means there are semiconductors at work. Well, except for the fridge which is that old it’s even strange it works on electricity and not on steam power. By its energy consumption and noise radiation, it wasn’t invented long after that. Usually this annoys me but this morning I even feel something like gratitude. Good old fridge.

Note to self: Replace it.