In Melbourne.Aus, there were specific changes made to complete the circle of wires around an area with a large orthodox population. Normal wiring in its normal configuration is branch/tree. There is nothing that you can see that is different, unless you look at a specifically labeled map/plan.
Old-style plumbing is a purely mechanical action, and not a Sabbath problem. But the new ones are motion-activated, which causes all sorts of electrical activity, and is indeed a problem. These tend to be in public venues, such as shopping centers and transportation terminals, which we don’t frequent on the Sabbath. But they are also very common in hotels and such, and that is a very big problem for those who are vacationing and such. Same for the door locks which used to be a mechanical key but are now electronic card readers.
Don’t get this.
You’re likely thinking of “Kosher Switch” (http://www.kosherswitch.com). With this, you can flip the switch and not feel like you’re doing anything because you’re not doing anything. You’re only moving a piece of plastic (an activity that’s allowed on the Sabbath) that (un)blocks an “infrequently” firing internal light pulse at a time when this pulse is guaranteed to be dead and with no assurances that the pulse works in any given cycle and with no assurance that the load will trigger despite the result of light-pulse-firing step.
I know I butchered that. The website does a better job at explaining things.
(Emphasis mine.)
So I guess Walter really could roll on Shabbos, so long as The Dude carried his ball inside? 
Anyway, why in the world would anyone get bent out of shape over this? I can see taking issue with stringing wires up and around, as it’s an eyesore. But if it’s just designating an existing set of wires/poles, why would anyone care?
I can’t cite on this, but what you can carry on Shabbos within an eruv has been gone over by the Rabbis (capital R) to a fare-thee-well, as you can imagine.
However, I’ve seen Hassidic kids (maybe they were pre-Bar Mitzvah) shooting hoops on Shabbos.
Hmm, the Dude as Shabbos Goy. Considering that Walter and the Dude consider bowling as a fundamental and planned act of God’s creative beneficence, I’m sure Walt would have to consult the authorities.
Found a quick secondary cite. The Halakhot of Eruv.
AND provided that there was no electric scoring device, nor a catch-the-pins-and-set-them-up-again, nor an electric ball return. But the rolling itself, yes, technically no problem.
Their CLAIM is that it is government entanglement with religion, but the courts usually disagree. I suspect it’s mostly a “We don’t want them moving in to our community” sort of thing.
An (observant Jew) friend of mine pointed out this workaround:
Say you start with an eruvim ring the size of your house. You expand it to the size of your town, country, continent… then keep going until the wraps around the other side of the world. The ring starts shrinking in physical dimensions, even though the area gets bigger. You continue expanding until the ring is an inch across. Since the interior of the ring is outdoors and the exterior indoors, you may then go about your business with impunity.
Why?
Dr. Strangelove:
A very cute thought, but in reality, there are areas in which carrying is forbidden by the Torah (and not merely by the Rabbis) in which a surrounding Eruv would not allow carrying on Sabbath. An Eruv only helps in areas where the Torah says it’s OK to carry, but the Rabbis later forbade it.
“Silly” to you, but let’s look at American taboos. If you have a pet and it dies- why *not *eat it? Why not eat your (died of natural causes) family member also? Why not wipe your ass with the flag, it’s just cloth? Why is chewing with your mouth open a taboo? Why is farting in public? We have many other taboos which other cultures think are “silly”. At least the Jewish ones have the virtue of being traditional.
There’s no problem with flushing or using faucets. There may be a specific problem using the hot water out of the faucet, depending if you have a gas fired hot water tank or a solar water heater.
Imagine some ultra-right wing Christian group got the city council to declare that every utility pole in your town was a crucifix and a monument to the sacrifice of the Savior. Most non-Christians would probably shrug their shoulders and say “whatever.” But I’m sure there would be an equally radical non-Christian religious group somewhere that would have a fit over it.
There is a difference in using city power lines to mark a boundary and declaring that they are something to be worshiped. A better comparison would be using city streets to denote the area inclosed by a parish. 
But would those areas invalidate the entire Eruv, or just those particular areas? If the rest of the Eruv still stands, then it’s still useful.
I really do think that all or nearly all of those taboos are good deal less arbitrary, for a variety of reasons, than the Jewish (or rather, lets face it, just strict Orthodox Jewish) taboos this thread is mostly about. I am not going to take the time to defend them one by one, but get real! And it is not just the fact that other cultures do not share these rules that makes them ludicrous, but the incredibly nitpicky, casuistic and arbitrary nature of what is or is not allowed, and how you are often allowed to circumvent the clear spirit of the ‘law’ so long a you stick to some essentially arbitrary interpretation of its letter. Yes other cultures have seeming arbitrary taboos, but none, apart from Orthodox Jews, are this way about them. Normally the taboos are broad and clear, and you observe the spirit rather than the letter, and don’t try and lawyer your way out.
Come to that, you can find much more reasonable (or at least historically reasonable) justifications for some of the other Jewish taboos, such as many of the dietary laws, than you can for these Sabbath rules. I am reasonably confident that a pre-diaspora Jew would have found most of these intricate Sabbath rules (but not the basic dietary laws, or a less pettifogging version of the idea that one should not work on teh Sabbath) quite as ludicrous as gentiles (and probably many contemporary secular and even religious Reform Jews) do today.
In my experience, when someone thinks that there’s a difference between the spirit of the law and the letter of the law, it’s usually because they misunderstand one or the other (or both). How deeply have you studied the letter and spirit of the Sabbath laws?
The one thing that I kept thinking about in this thread was if the spirit of the sabbath laws was intended to made the letter of the law meaningless. Meaning if we could overcome all the restrictions via innovative use of materials, and make them as effective as the non sabbath ways, the sabbath restrictions are then removed, freeing the people from the law. Just a though.