I’ll answer this for fear that you leave with the wrong conclusion.
I am one of the two people who disregarded the partially open exhaust pipe. I have a french engineering school education and am competent at levels quite far beyond what The Way Things Work might cover, ie. I can formally and correctly model the whole system including chemistry (with one important caveat, I didn’t know top of my head that multiple-burning cycles with air reuse will lead to CO, and if that’s covered in The Way Things Work than I would have benefited), installation, material wear, safety engineering and process design.
I think a more appropriate conclusion is that knowledge and ability to model the world doesn’t automatically translate to using these skills. Saliency matters, and the house being rickety made shoddy things seem normal, not worth doing anything about. I was going by to reset the heater, a routine every few days activity, one can imagine I had other things in mind. I noticed that the air smelt bad and the pipe was angled and not sealed, maybe emotionally I had as strong a reaction as “Huh, was that pipe always like that?” before continuing with my day.
The one liner I would impart: “Some things, including heaters, are dangerous when improperly maintained, so practice feeling it as important and dangerous when you notice something off about it”. Proper actions follow from proper emotional reactions.
I’ll answer this for fear that you leave with the wrong conclusion.
I am one of the two people who disregarded the partially open exhaust pipe. I have a french engineering school education and am competent at levels quite far beyond what The Way Things Work might cover, ie. I can formally and correctly model the whole system including chemistry (with one important caveat, I didn’t know top of my head that multiple-burning cycles with air reuse will lead to CO, and if that’s covered in The Way Things Work than I would have benefited), installation, material wear, safety engineering and process design.
I think a more appropriate conclusion is that knowledge and ability to model the world doesn’t automatically translate to using these skills. Saliency matters, and the house being rickety made shoddy things seem normal, not worth doing anything about. I was going by to reset the heater, a routine every few days activity, one can imagine I had other things in mind. I noticed that the air smelt bad and the pipe was angled and not sealed, maybe emotionally I had as strong a reaction as “Huh, was that pipe always like that?” before continuing with my day.
The one liner I would impart: “Some things, including heaters, are dangerous when improperly maintained, so practice feeling it as important and dangerous when you notice something off about it”. Proper actions follow from proper emotional reactions.