Forgive my woeful ignorance here: what do you eat on the Sabbath? Do you just make a sandwich the day before and put it in the fridge? Is opening and closing the fridge considered “work”?
I’m not asking from a place of snark. I’m genuinely curious.
Regallag_the Axe:
Not on the Sabbath, no. It is allowed on Jewish holidays (when they fall on weekdays) as per the “oven Sabbath mode” answer above.
Hey Homie:
No way, in fact, the Sabbath is a festive day, and we have deluxe meals. We cook food before sundown on Friday, and we have fresh hot food waiting for us after synagogue services Friday night. For Saturday lunch, we have food that was fully cooked before the Sabbath kept hot on either a hot plate or near a burning fire. Of course, we can also have cold dishes as well, if we want to, or if somehow we were unable to prepare the hot stuff in time, but it is generally considered more festive to eat hot food.
(As a matter of fact, there is a Rabbinic tradition from the days of the Second Temple to eat hot food for Saturday lunch specifically to repudiate the erroneous theology of the Sadduccees.)
Not in and of itself. Only if it causes a light to go on or off. Orthodox Jews have been removing their refrigerator light bulbs for decades 
Not me, but then, I’m from the culture which created the Jesuits. By the time I started having Religion class in school (4th grade), I’d been receiving specific and focused training on the acceptable and unacceptable ways to split hairs for several years. During those massive Saturday-afternoon discussions at Abuelita between all the Basques in the family (the outsiders knew better than to try and keep up), children were supposed to not even be in the room, but my cousin Paul and I would sneak in and hide under the big table in complete silence (his older brother made enough noise that the grown-ups could claim they hadn’t realized he was by himself). If we were heard we’d be sent to the Children’s Room; a few times that one of us popped up to ask for clarification on a point under discussion we were told to get out from under there and get a chair, instead of sending us to the Children’s Room.
None of you asked Sister the classic, “But what if you crossed the International Date Line?” question that made that album an uproarious slice of the lives of fourth grade wiseasses everywhere?
The Dope is full of teachers’ pets/good students, I guess. 
Not familiar with the routine in question — Carlin was 'way after my time in “religion” class. But keeping one’s mouth shut had less to do with being a teacher’s pet or good student than with fear of Dread Pirate Ruler (who leaves no survivors).
Then you’d be the Italian who was Science Officer for Magallanes? 
The guy who discovered it and whose realization of having missed one day inspired Around The World In 80 Days… Antonio Pigafetta. I’m a lot more familiar with Elcano than with George Carlin (I’m assuming the “Carlin” OttoDaFe mentions is that one).
Personally, I always asked a lot of questions and challenged the teacher (in every class I was in) precisely because I was the teacher’s pet. Or other way around on the cause and effect.
The problem students aren’t the ones asking difficult, engaging questions. The problem students are the ones ignoring the teacher and throwing scissors into the ceiling tiles.
Depends on the class/subject. My Sunday School teachers really didn’t like all of my incessant questioning. Eventually, my parents were asked not to bring me back. My plan worked! 
My Sunday school teachers were just in the parroting business.
Teacher: Jesus died for your sings.
Me: I don’t get it. What does that mean?
Teacher: Jesus died for your sins.
Me: How about just the “for” my sins part. “For” how? Explain that.
Teacher: Jesus died for your sins.
Couldn’t explain anything at all. Just standard lines.
Back to the thread, with all of these niggling rules that even the rabbis can’t agree on, Orthodox Jews don’t really expect many converts, do they? 
And the plan works!
dropzone:
Well, Judaism isn’t a proselytizing religion. But overall, the Torah way of life is very satisfying to us, and we (on the whole) take seriously our job to make the G-d’s prescribed way of life look like it produces people of high character. If we succeed in this mission, then some non-Jews are attracted to it as well.
(though the Rabbis niggling on little details hardly ever makes a difference. The basic principles are something that all agree on, and differences of opinion in application are not that bothersome to most)
Our building has two elevators. On Shabbat, one of them becomes our Shabbat elevator. It’s switched on just before Shabbat begins, then becomes a “regular” elevator between 11:30 p.m. and around 6 the next morning. It stays in Shabbat mode until Shabbat ends.
We have timers for the living room lamps. We just leave them plugged in during the week, so I don’t have to worry about setting them. The dining room lights and a few outlets are on a Shabbat timer in the electric closet, so I just flick a switch before Shabbat, and flick it up afterwards. I also plug a timer in one of the kitchen outlets for a hotplate.
The fridge has a few buttons to push to the lights and outside display turn off. The A/C unit has a timer that can be set using the remote.
We set a few lights in the bedrooms, and leave a small light on in the bathroom.
The setup doesn’t really take too long. The cooking is the part that’s time consuming.
I can see how an incandescent light bulb could be interpreted as a ‘fire’ given that it works with wire glowing white-hot bits. Likewise fluorescent tubes used to depend on a red-hot filament to get started, so switching them on is out too.
But what about LED lamps? Nothing approaching the temperature of a fire there. Would they be acceptable to some people? Or does the possibility of creating a spark rule them out totally, too?
Umm… how about cold luminescence? There seem to lots of ways to do it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminescence
(BTW, incandescent light bulbs are pretty much gone in the UK. It’s actually illegal to sell them)
Bert Nobbins:
I’m pretty certain they are considered to not be in the same category as incandescent bulbs, but they are still at least Rabbinically forbidden as all other electrical devices.
Not sure about those. I can’t think of why they should be forbidden, but I am not a Rabbi and there may be issues I don’t know about with them.
One of the recent controversies within Judaic groups is whether quinoa is kosher for Passover. It’s not really a grain. But it looks grain-ish and “might be confused with” grains. Ergo some people reject it at that time.
This is similar to other laws that have been greatly extended over the years due to the “might be confused with” concept.
So quinoa had gotten a lot of popularity among Jewish folk to eat instead of grains at that time, but now maybe not so much. So “ways around” might not last among some people.
This is a serious question. Suppose you want a cup of tea on the Sabbath?
Normally one would switch on the electric kettle, but that isn’t going to be acceptable.
What about one of those taps that dispenses boiling water? Would that be OK?
I don’t know how they work- does turning them on switch on an instant electrical heater?
One might also argue that, regardless of any incandescence or sparks, electricity plays the same role in modern technology and society that fire played in the technology and society of the time and place where the Law was laid down. Just as you might interpret a passage about swords to apply to guns, you might also interpret a passage about fire to refer to electricity (while also still referring to swords and fire, of course, if someone happens to still be using either).
You can buy a hot water urn that keeps the water hot. Instead of using the electric button to dispense the water, you have something that you push down on the top that dispenses the water. (You do have to flick the “Shabbat switch” so the water stays hot without reboiling, and you have to make sure it’s full before Shabbat. No adding water.)
I think this elevator design is the ideal solution for this problem. It has the added advantage of being called a paternoster (I hope I am not the only one who thinks that is funny in this context). And the do exist and are still funktioning! Apart from the examples quoted in the article just in Berlin there is one in the Baubehörde in the Bayrischer Platz and one or maybe several in the Auswärtiges Amt.