Microwave Oven controls #
In the old days, microwave ovens had dials. You turned the dial to the amount of time you wanted it to run, and then it ran. Life was simple.
These days, microwave ovens have lots of buttons. Yes, there are more features, but it's also much more confusing, especially for the simple use case.
The microwave I have has the best of both worlds. For the simple case, it uses a dial. For the extra features that are rarely used, it uses buttons. The dial has a good feel to it, and it has discrete stops (not continuous). The stop size increases as the time increases:
- From 1 to 10 seconds, it's rounded to the second.
- From 10 seconds to 1 minute, it's rounded to 5 seconds.
- From 1 minute to 5 minutes, it's rounded to 10 seconds.
- From 5 minutes to 10 minutes, it's rounded to 15 seconds.
- From 10 minutes to 30 minutes, it's rounded to 30 seconds.
Consider the alternatives. If it had been linear, with high precision (1 second), I'd have to turn the dial for a very long time to reach 10 minutes. In addition, my compulsive behavior would have me fiddling until it's exactly 10:00 minutes, not 9:57 or 10:02. If it had been linear, with low precision (10 seconds), I'd have no good way to specify durations such as 15 or 45 seconds. I'd end up running it and watching it the whole time, stopping it at the right time.
I love using this microwave oven. For most needs, I can turn the dial, then press Start. Rarely do I have to use the other buttons.
Update: [2013-03-14] The updated model is the Panasonic NN-SD997S, $187. There are also some less expensive ones as well that feature the dial.
Labels: review
Evolutionary handicaps #
We evolved alongside parasites that weaken us, and recently in human history we were able to get rid of those parasites. What would happen? Our bodies would overcompensate, just like the “floating arms” experiment.
- If parasites weakened the immune system, then human bodies would adapt by making the immune system more aggressive. Removing the parasites would lead to human immune systems increasingly overreacting to things. There are some people who infect themselves with parasites to treat allergies and immune disorders.
- If parasites increased our aggressiveness (as toxoplasma gondii is hypothesized to do), then humans would adapt by lowering aggressivness. Removing the parasites would lead to more the human race becoming more passive.
- If parasites weakened our mental abilities, then humans would adapt by making extra-powerful brains. Removing the parasites would lead to more intelligent humans.
Is it possible that human brains are far more powerful than they need to be for survival in the wild because parasite evolution forced them to be that way?
Labels: speculation
Cows are like Poodles #
Poodles are man-made creatures. There were no packs of wild poodles roaming the African savannah, hunting antelope. Poodles were created by humans, through breeding, over thousands of years. They act and look very different from wolves because we bred them for appearance retrieving and, recently, appearance (edit: corrected, thanks to Simon Proctor's comment below). That's where we focused our energies, and it shows.
photo by jonner on flickr
Cows are also man-made creatures. Let me clarify: the cows we milk and eat are man-made creatures. We've created them through breeding, over ten thousand years. They look similar to wild cattle (now extinct) because we bred them for what's on the inside. We've made them smaller and more docile. We've made them produce more milk. We've made them produce more meat. We've also altered their appearance, but not as much as we've done for poodles. There were no herds of black-and-white mottled cows roaming across Asia.
photo by hockadilly on flickr
So that's my random thought for the day: cows are like poodles. They're man-made creatures.
Labels: speculation
Diminishing returns in a project #
I've been thinking about why people should ever change projects. The longer they're on the project, the more familiar they are with it, and the more effective they are. We might draw this on a graph, with productivity increasing over time:
Labels: economics
iPhone vs. gPhone navigation model #
I've had an iPhone for a long time. I tried a G1 “gPhone” and thought it was slow and unpolished (I've heard Cyanogen's mod helps a lot with the speed), so I went back to my iPhone. But after trying out the G1 for a bit longer, I've discovered the model is quite different, and possibly better, than the iPhone's model. Here are some scenarios:
Labels: structure