Several years ago, I won this nice Cuisinart coffeemaker at some company function, and it has always made pretty decent coffee. It has a Thermos-style pot that keeps coffee hot for hours without requiring a heating unit. Thing is, some time ago, the top of the pot appeared to be clogged, and coffee would no longer go into the pot but spill out all over my countertop. What a mess! I cleaned the lid, scrubbed it, threaded a pipe cleaner through it, ran it through the dishwasher... all to no avail. In frustration, I slammed the lid repeatedly against the floor, until all kinds of springs, gears, and random pieces of plastic went flying.
Ever since then, the coffeemaker has been working perfectly.
The moral of this story is... simplicity in all things? Release your inner workings, for they are superfluous shit? A good beating fixes everything? Engineers are idiots? Hell if I know. At least I still get good coffee.
It makes me wonder whether the same kind of solution would work on a few people I know.