Hiding the Fix

The mechanics of a device are often hidden behind various things to keep it out of sight. The “guts” are almost never exposed. The pipes and wires in your house are hidden in the walls, the electronics in a device are covered by paneling.

There are some good reasons for this, sure. Some of it is safety, both to the user and the equipment; exposed electrical wires in your house probably aren’t a good idea. And some of it is aesthetics; most people want their tools to look like they’re functioning by magic, safely ignoring how the sausage actually gets made. And some of it is, no doubt, because people who thrive on fixing those things don’t want you to be able to do so yourself. There’s a reason that cars (often serviced by the same companies that make them) have gotten progressively harder to work on as an individual. It’s bad for business if you can fix your own machine.

Of course, all of those reasons – good or bad, deliberate or not – make things harder to fix when they break. Some plumbing problems are actually easy to fix, but getting to them can be a huge pain, because the pipes are hidden behind inconvenient corners or panels. Hiding the fix even means sometimes hiding the damage; a leaky pipe might be a small problem at first, but if you don’t notice it until your walls have filled with mold, that’s a bigger issue.

All this is to say – when you can, make the guts visible! You can’t do it every time, but you can do it more often than you think. And I like seeing the machine. It looks cool, but also, I like knowing when there’s an issue and being able to fix it!