Rearrange the lightswitches in your home so they control lights in rooms other than the one in which the switch is located. Have the switch for the kitchen located far down the hallway. Have the switch for the upstairs bedroom in the bathroom at the bottom of the steps. Then, we must consciously consider which rules to apply when lighting our path, rather than unconsciously flap our hands at the staid unchanging wall in order to see where we are. If done cleverly, it would cause the residents to have to memorize perhaps a dozen simple rules:

Kitchen -> Upstairs BR Hallway -> Kitchen Stairway -> Garage Garage -> Anteroom Downstairs BR -> Basement Living Room -> Hallway

Make some of the rules sensical; i.e. Garage -> Anteroom. But definitely throw in some oddballs, like Downstairs BR -> Basement. This forces us to think, and it also offers guests an opportunity to _explore_ your home instead of being merely directed through it.

(Of course, they'll probably think that none of the lights work, because they'll operate the switch and perceive no changes. Pity.)
-- Hypnagogic, Jul 28 2002

This is demented. Croissant.
-- calum, Jul 28 2002


This is demented [watermelancholy]. Neutral.
-- watermelancholy, Jul 28 2002


the upstairs bathroom light in the downstairs hall would actually make a lot of sense for my house..
-- yamahito, Jul 28 2002


Have the switches effect different rooms everytime they are toggled. That would be truly demented.
-- Jinbish, Jul 28 2002


And some switches toggle back to off/on by themselves, and some give you a shock (see if you're faster than light).
-- FarmerJohn, Jul 28 2002


The function of any given light switch should depend on the position of at least one other light switch.

So:
IF BedroomSwitch = ON
HallSwitchRunsDen = True
ELSE
HallSwitchRunsKitchen = True
ENDIF
-- phoenix, Jul 28 2002


Oh, absolutely, phoenix. That's perfect. We can turn our lighting controls into complex AND, OR, and NOT gates. And think of the value for children: "Your house is so cool, nothing makes any sense! My house is so boring, they actually put the on switch for the bathroom in the bathroom. Duh! Can I live in your house instead of mine?"
-- Hypnagogic, Jul 29 2002


"In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Germany. She said, 'Cut it out'."
-Stephen Wright
-- waugsqueke, Jul 29 2002


I've been in houses like this. You'd walk in the front door, into the darkened hallway and see a panel of 3 or 4 lightswitches. You'd flick them one by one. The first might turn on a light outside the house, one would light the landing on the next floor up, another would have no discernible effect, and the fourth controls the trapdoor to the shark pit.
-- pottedstu, Jul 29 2002


Steven Wright has a joke about this:

He said that one switch in his new house didn't do anything. Sometimes he would flip it on and off a couple of times, just playing with it. Six months after moving into that house, he got a postcard from a lady in Germany, saying "Cut It Out !"
-- Jkirk3279, Feb 16 2004


This would be a great adaptation of the hall of mirrors idea. Make a maze where each room has 5 or 6 switches. Pad the walls, put NV cams and watch the stumbling ensue.
-- Bighongry, Oct 08 2007


I imagined this would be migrating light switches - small units which were wirelessly linked to the house, and allowed to wander across the walls on little gecko legs (or something).
-- moomintroll, Oct 09 2007



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