And on to the next WTF topic. New cars
Wtf is every system on new cars so slow? Among other bothersome features.
The radio comes on slow, not to mention I can't change volume going in reverse. Can't be about safety as they give you a giant touch screen to operate while going down the road. Putting an automatic in gear is slow the ac comes on slow and gently. Dammit when I hit on, I want the air to blast out of the vents. Wtf does the fan speed need to ramp down? Hell its still blowing when I jump out.
WTF are power windows such a pain. Remember you could push down and they went down until you released. Not now, they keep going on less you tap button or lift up on button, but that might make them go all the way back up.

"If a little is good, a lot must be great", right? I have seen videos of people in war zones and backward places where people had no health care except for the Medicine Man/Shaman and standing water was everywhere.

This article tells about California dumping it into the ocean near a place where Sea Lions mate.

[Link: sciencenotes.ucsc.edu]

For that matter, WTF do toasters have adjustments that go to 10 when a piece of bread exposed to the setting 4 comes out as a bread-shaped piece of charcoal? I once wrote to a toaster company about this (I admit, I was bored) and they chose not to respond. Of course, the email was dripping with sarcasm.

And that reminds me... I spent two days in Dubai once and visited a large grocery etc store, sort of like a WalMart except having mostly higher quality stuff. In the outdoor living section I ran across bags of charcoal made in Namibia. What the hell is special about Namibian charcoal?

(Why did I go to that store? Because it was almost US Thanksgiving Day and my Saudi client wanted me to pick up four frozen turkeys and bring them back. Bought a huge cooler, bought the turkeys, headed right for the airport. The turkeys were, by the way, imported from Idaho. True story. Now there's a WTF!)

Ernie, I thought you had to be confused on the charcoal. I thought it must have been Japanese charcoal charcoal, which I was thinking was called Nimbu. Then googled reminded me that Nimbu is a Japanese manufacturer that made WWII firearms.

Then I searched Namibian charcoal and found that apparently charcoal is a big industry in Namibian. So big that they have the Namibia Charcoal Association. WTF

Fins,
I take my bow.
I'll note, too, that this store in Dubai* had a section of Christmas decorations, and when it was prayer time, the store didn't close -- they just played prayers over the PA system of the entire mall.




*Muslim

The ten setting on a toaster might get an English muffin crispy and get rid of the raw flour flavor. That might not work on a slotted style toaster as an English muffin would require a tool to get it out since muffin is small and not pop up high enough. I am sure that goes aqainst the instructions for safe use. So yes wtf is there a 10 setting?

Many years ago now, when my wife and I were dating, we went to Raleigh to see her sister at State. We picked her sister up and went over to her boyfriend's fraternity house. I don't remember which fraternity, but they were predominantly a brotherhood of rednecks, and their house was almost dead in the middle of what one might call the hood. Any way, they had a toaster in the kitchen that was quiet disgusting looking. Very dirty and nasty. I still gag if I think about that toaster. Turned out, it was the house cigarette lighter. 10 is for lighting smokes.

0-10 is the time, not heat level.

Not quite, in this analog world with ramps and delays and even hysteresis.

A toaster -- let's be clear here since the English Muffin was brought up -- a two-slice (the slices are vertically oriented) toaster pops up when an element inside the toaster reaches a particular temperature. You can verify this by trying to push it back down right away; usually there's a buzzing sound if you hold it down and the toast just pops back up. If you move the lever to a higher number, the toast will stay down. If the room is a lot colder than normal, the toast will stay in just a tiny bit longer.

So it's heat causing something to reach a temperature that pops up the toaster.

But it's heat above room temperature, and it takes some time to reach whatever temperature will release the bread.

Sure, the heating elements are at full blast almost right away, but there's no actual timer in a toaster like that.

Hysteresis comes into play when you want to toast two more pieces and you try to do so right away.

I have a toaster with analog dial from 0-10 but also displays a digital cook timer. When I have the dial set to 4 or 5, the digital timer is around the 2:30-3 minute mark. Even at 10 I don't think my English muffins would be toasted enough.

I accidentally discovered that microwave timers are kind of interesting. I've checked this with a few microwaves I've had, and they've worked this way. My present one is a Sharp.

If you enter 59, you get 59 seconds.
60 gives you sixty seconds.
99 gives you 99 seconds.
100 gives you 60 seconds.
160 gives you 120 seconds but it counts them as 60, two times.
199 gives you two minutes and thirty-nine seconds. (Just verified it.)

Also, it you want a minute and a half, it's easier to punch in 99, and be 9% over, than to punch 1, 3, 0.

For that matter, I usually punch in 33, not 30. I reheat a cup of coffee with 88 when I first worked out that 90 seconds (or 1,3,0) worked right. Same button twice is quicker and easier than two different buttons. It's also 10% over the two buttons, but cooking times are always approximate anyway. Ratios of ingredients matter a lot, but times a bit less so.

To heat the water for my coffee, I don't hit 4, 0, 0, Start. I hit +1 minute, four times. Same button four times instead of a mixture of three buttons.

Does your microwave do any of this stuff?

My microwave has a reheat button and a popcorn button. I don't think it does anything else. ;)

And now, WTF happened to Apple Jacks. Decades ago the were nice and round. Probably the size of a nickel and had red specks on the. I assume some facke apple something or other. Daughter breaks some out. Tiny, poorly shaped and no specks.

They make the control panel to be easy enough for the average user to operate and that tells me the average user has the mental ability of a bag of hammers.

I have a Sharp microwave at home. Gotta try this now.

I also have a Haier window air conditioner that has an IR remote. The remote has an LCD screen on it that shows the temperature. At first (when I was looking online, before I had it in my hands) I assumed it was a two-way RF remote that was reporting the temperature from the LCD readout on the AC unit itself.

Nope. It's the last temperature that you sent FROM the remote to the AC unit. There is an actual discrete IR code for every temperature setting. What a weird way to do it.

Set AC to 70 degrees on the front panel
Go in another room (so the IR remote is out of range), take the remote and hit + twice.
Now the remote reads 72 and the AC unit reads 70.
Stand in front of the AC unit with the remote and hit + once.
The remote screen goes to 73 and the AC unit goes to 73.

It works, but WTF. We can't even get discrete power commands in cheap TVs anymore, and these guys are embedding a different code for every possible temperature you can set the AC unit to.