Don’t blame the machines.  Blame the designers of the machines or the makers of the machines or the users of the machines, but it’s useless to blame anything on a machine.  The problem is that as soon as you blame the machine , you lose your ability to manipulate and use it to your benefit.  Once it exists, in whatever form and with whatever limitations, it may be useful.  Like a stick or a rock ….  you can’t blame a rock for not working properly.  The fact is that we live in a world filled with the most amazing devices,  almost any one of which would have been coveted in the not-to-distant past, and it is only our expectations running ahead of the actual utility which make things ‘not work right’.  Unrealistic expectations and a sometimes pathological reluctance to recognize and accept limitations causes more damage than all the ‘planned obsolescence’ and ‘shoddy workmanship’ foisted upon us (of which there is a great deal, I must admit).  Man is often distinguished as a ‘tool user’, and we should encourage this characterization and teach each other to use and care for our ‘tools’ in the same way that an apprentice carpenter is taught. Frank used to say ‘It’s a poor carpenter who blames his tools’, and I believe this observation applies to the rest of us as well. Automobiles, appliances and equipment, kitchen accessories, even the houses we live in, are tools with optimal operating conditions and a limited range of capabilities, and it’s up to us to recognize these and make them work for us.

A recent Department of Energy study looked at how people use their houses by studying energy consumption among residents of a large housing development where every house or living unit was nearly identical.  Comparing units with equal numbers of inhabitants, they found that the highest energy users consumed nearly 20 times as much as the lowest energy users.  These are the extremes and most users were close to the middle but the opportunity for improving our skills using our ‘house’ tool to provide our ‘creature comforts’ is obvious.