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[–] 33 points 10 months ago

The thing that fascinates me is that every single digital microwave I've ever used behaves the same way, and allows the "seconds-place" to be 0-99.

My best guesses are

  • There's some ASIC that's been around forever and everyone uses it (a cockroach chip like the 555)
  • The first digital microwave did this and all subsequent ones followed
  • There's actually some implementation reasons why this is way more sensible.

Writing it in software, there are different ways that folks would probably implement it, for example, "subtract one, calculate minutes and seconds, display" seems reasonable. But nope, every one I've ever used is just the Wild West in the seconds department.

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  • [–] 26 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    so did they assume a colon was I between those? like this 1:20 instead of 120?

    if not, the microwave probably either has a bad display, is is badly programmed.... or im missing something.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago*

    It’s just the way microwaves are programmed. Same reason 99 cooks longer than 100. It interprets a 100, 200, etc as minutes. I think most microwaves handle anything over 100 as minute + seconds, treating it like it had a : in there.

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  • [–] 23 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    Well, on a more serious note, it is odd that some microwaves let you type in 90 and time down from "90" instead of "1:30". I should type in something like 190 and see what it does. My bet is it only does the weird seconds format when it's 99 seconds or less. Because obviously 100 would be a minute, not 100 seconds.

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  • [–] 29 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I tried 190. Its counts down 90 seconds to 1:00 before rolling over to 0:59.
    190 is 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

    I've also tried 0 and it just beeps.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I used to have an old digital 24h clock and one time I was watching close to midnight. It went from 23:58 to 23:59, then a minute later 24:00 blinked for a second before it went to 0:00.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    Honestly it's a nice feature.

    I have a thing that takes 45 seconds to warm. I take two of them, type in 90 and it just works!

    Of course that breaks down if I take four of them and type in 180, but meh. Worst case is that it'll be a little cold.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    Well hold your horses, why does heating up two take exactly twice as long? Your microwave heats everything inside. I can understand it being longer, but exactly twice as long? Hmmm... I think we need more data.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago*

    why does heating up two take exactly twice as long?

    A microwave works by exciting the water molecules in an object. They start to vibrate from the microwave energy hitting it, and vibrating molecules is what heat is. The microwave energy mostly bounces around inside the metal microwave until it hits something that has water (which is why you should never turn it on empty), so it doesn't really get wasted.

    So, if you put twice as much stuff inside, it will take twice as much energy to heat it to the same temperature, so at the same setting it will take twice as much time.

    If you want to get nitpicky, it will require very slightly over twice as long, because by needing more time to warm up, it will give off more energy to the air around it, so you need to compensate. But the question of "how much will my food cool down in 90 seconds compared to 45 seconds" should be answered by "shut up dude" and not with a number.

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago

    As a side note, I'm glad my early teen Yahoo Answers account was purged before I became an adult and the internet archived everything

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I mean everything is hard if you've never learned it

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Around eighteen years ago I linked a Yahoo! question to a then friend of mine. He said "I love Yahoo! Answers, trolls trolling trolls."

    Not sure why this comes to mind at the moment ...

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago*

    My favorite story about yahoo Answers is that I was a huge troll. Like, telling people the wrong thing in recipes, and certain things was interchangeable. All lies. And I don't know shit about food.

    And worse, id get lots of Helpful reviews.

    Then a decade later Yahoo Answers sent me a email saying that some of my answers were Abuse and would be banned.

    So for 10 whole years, my lies were up?

    Then the year after, yahoo answers was deactivated.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago

    Has science gone too far?

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Any other 99 second homies up in here?

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    120 seconds is not 1 minute 20...

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    And despite all this, Remmy P. can still form babby.

    (And vote. And drive a car, keep and bear a firearm, etc.)

    Scary.

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  • [–] 24 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    No, it's not.

    Scary is the guy who can form babby, and drive and own a gun, who is also absolutely and completely convinced that they are right about everything.

    Remmy P is not the problem, because Remmy P encountered a situation where their poor information didn't mesh with reality and immediately stopped and asked for help. Remmy P is learning. Remmy P recognizes their ignorance.

    There are people with PhDs who do not have this basic life skill.

    Those people scare me. Remmy P just needs a little help.

    Remember, everyone is a fucking idiot sometimes. Even (especially) smart people.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago

    You know what, that's a fair point. It does take some humility to be able to admit that one might be wrong. And it seems like that kind of humility is somewhat hard to come by these days.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    And it takes a second or so before the magnetron starts generating energy.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    ok seriously what kind of microwave does everyone have? none i've ever used had a builtin calculator that let you add 60 to 60

    the only thing i've ever seen that was addable was +30 on the turn on button, and that one when pressed twice always adds a minute

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    We're through the looking glass here, people.

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