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Nifty Kitchen Appliances
Project Gamma writes "Techserver reports about how being lazy just got easier. Too lazy to read the directions on that TV dinner? Soon you may not have to. Your microwave oven will do it for you with the swipe of the package bar code across a special sensor." Okay, fine, but will it E-mail me when it wants me to stir it?
tv dinners are lazy... but not even having to push the buttons to cook it? if you were a hard core lazy geek programmer like me, you would skip even going into the freezer to get the tv dinner in the first place and hit speed-dial on the really cool cell phone for a pizza or chinese
By the way, first post.
... from where is the story linked? i can't work out which it is meant to be. sorry. i'm stupid. i was born that way. (but i am a nerd, so i do belong here -- i just provide the low-end to ensure that you are in the above-average-intelligence category of Slashdot readers)
I wonder if they will use any type of security to verify the info on the tag. Seems to me that Evil People (tm) might get their jollies making fake codes and sticking them over the real ones. Something like making your microwave run for 30mins on high. Of course, if the instructions are wrong by mistake American might sue.
Imagine throwing in a bag of popcorn, sitting down at the TV, only to have it run 30 mins instead of 3 and catching your microwave on fire.
On a positive note, we can network the microwave and include nutritional info in the tags. Then the microwave can tell your Geek Diet Server what you have been eating and adjust your values accordingly.
Hmm, time for coffee...
BORING.
Please shut the hell up and go away. Forever.
One such oven, being developed by Samsung with Rutgers University researchers, will then contact the manufacturers' Internet site, read the directions and cook the meal - even taking care of any necessary turning - while you do something else.
Do I really, really, want some lard-ass company to know when and what I eat? Hell no!
I'm not a techno-phobic, I'm looking forward to getting a direct interface between my brain and the computer. But this... this is just sheer bullshit. "If you're too lazy to read the instructions on that TV-dinner...". Well, if you are, maybe you should stop eating.
What next? A tiny camera/barcode reader into every home so that marketing analyses can be made more efficient? I'm gradually getting tired of these no-brain "inventions" which serve the money and not the people.
no. he stays and you go away. you suck greasy cock.
I wanna stick some pir8 labels on the packages that make em nuke fer 30 minutes... take that american consumer!
Hmm...I actually think that way internally. It seems more logical to put adjectives after nouns - after all, the noun is the most important part. It's only english and a few others that put the adjective first - and, as you just demonstrated, english is still intelliglbe the other way around
How can this post be considered redudant when it was the first post? That is ludicrous.
only yours, sugar tush.
ac.uk
You forgot this morning.
Keep in mind that finger(1) was developed to determine if there was soda in a vending machine...
And of course, the resulting liquid will be something almost, but not completely, quite unlike tea.
Just use the temporary card that they first give you. Or better yet, switch cards with a friend :)
to the Coffee mini-howo?
Better yet, every package should have a "cooking
code" that your microwave understands, just like
there is a standardized code for programming times
into your VCR. The code could contain KJoule
cooking requirements, and your microwave could do
the math. There's really no need for the internet.
All you need is recognized standards, as always.
I got friggin first post at my second day at slashdot. it is a friggin breeze.
Share and enjoy.
If you're looking for lowcarb info, a much better but underpublicised book is "The Ketogenic Diet: A Complete Guide for the Dieter and Practitioner" by Lyle McDonald. It's much more up-to-date and thorough than any other on the market.
I seriously doubt you'd find in a library, but a quick search on google.com brought up some links.
Why would I even want to try? Here's a clue: no one cares.
(Less precise because I may use multiple credit cards, and because different people might also have credit cards with the same name. Also, most vendors don't print the full credit card number anymore, but the fact that they used to means that it's available to them.)
And just what will they do with this dastardly
information?
Eeh gads, they could offer my coupons on stuff I
buy, or **OH NO** advertise stuff that I might be
interested in!
But, with my brain so filled with paranoia, how
ever will I fend off these tailored advertisements? I cannot just refuse to buy something!
Translation: I'm SOOOOOOOOOOO sick of the mentality created by Slashdot's YRO. These people
constantly think of all the "evil" things people
can do with technology, without ever thinking
about how evil it really is.
Please give me your worst case scenario for what
someone can do with a list of all the foods you
microwave, and I will in return try not to laugh
in your face.
-thomas
right if u lock people in a room with no food and force them to exercise then of course they'll lose weight. is that what u call a good life? man u missed something here.
". . . his grammer [sic] was correct."
/." will never amount to more than high-school educated HTML-jockeys.
Um, no? (Neither was your spelling.) Calling a tail a leg does not make it so. My pet peeve? The intellectually lazy, ultra-libertarian attitude that pervades this forum (and, frankly, the minority that is super-geeky computerphiles). It does not make one intelligent or a great social/political thinker to say, "Grammar and spelling are merely oppressive contrivances designed to make me conform to the will of the right-wing conservative establishment." This attitude, when applied to mathematics and the sciences, is the very reason many of the "english speaking [sic] readers of
While the article takes a similiar slant that copal7 did, I do see added benefits of this type of system for Blind and other handicapped people.
When you take into consideration blind people, how many frozen or microwavable products do you see in the stores that include braille on the packaging?
You have been reading "The Zone for Dummies" and have, with your blatant missuse demonstrated yourself to be clueless nutritional newbie.
I sincerely recommend you pick up an animal book on basic mammilian biology and physiology before you embarass yourself any further.
Oh, wait. I forgot that the crowd I'm speaking to dosn't believe in science and gets all its info from the tabloids and NYT best seller list garbage.
So now one can set up a WWW site - The Hottest Chickens In Town - I just love technology.
...i've spent some time in their research laboratory, and they're talking about embedding net connectivity in virtually everything they make, for all sorts of reasons and uses (some sinister and some not). so this sort of thing is inevitable; get used to it. my opinion on this microwave thing is that it's a moot point. you could simply choose not to scan your food before cooking if you were worried about big brother knowing you have horrible taste in food.
The thing is, often technology frees us from these mundane things, like how organised agriculture frees us from having to wander around the scrub all day, picking berries. Technology can free us to do other things, like develop vaccines for deadly diseases, create works of art and literature, play games. None of these are essential to being alive, but I'd say they're nearly essential to being *human*.
Anyway, this idea, of a microwave looking up cooking directions, is exactly the same. And if the 'big companies' co-opt this idea (which is hardly new... read some Heinlein or Clarke if you think it is) it could be a great way to lose our privacy.
But if people like the /. community pick up the ball and run with it, it simply becomes an another technology to free us for other pursuits.
I'm imagining something like the CDDB... are you worried that that's going to become an invasion of your privacy any time soon? These things don't have to be bad, if we take the time... how hard could it be to patch into the control board of the average microwave, really? This is, what, $5 worth of parts from Tandy... hook it over a serial port to a simple app on a PC that looks in the database via IP to see if there's an instruction manual for that particular barcode... and if there are any modifications for your particular model of microwave. If there aren't, then you have the option of entering in what worked for you, and the system grows. Beautiful thing, that.
Anyway, that's just my two cents. Someday I'll actually register here so I can avoid being an AC.
Cheers,
Dylan
>It does not make one intelligent or a great >social/political thinker to say, "Grammar and >spelling are merely oppressive contrivances >designed to make me conform to the will of the >right-wing conservative establishment." No... but language changes. See your dictionary under "prescriptive grammar" or "prescriptive linguistics", then see "descriptive (whichever)". >This attitude, when applied to mathematics and >the sciences, is the very reason many of the >"english speaking [sic] readers of /." will never >amount to more than high-school educated >HTML-jockeys. Well. Good thing no one would be fool enough to apply it to maths or sciences, then.
Even more reason to switch to Linux.. ;)
i think this holds true, but metal in a microwave isn't a problem, some older microwave ovens i've seen have had metal racks to put the food on, it's the edges on the metal that can discharge electricity that you have to worry about, if you were to put a perfectly flat piece of aluminum foil in the microwave and turned it on, nothing would happen, but crumble the same piece of foil and you're in for a light show. Balance (at work can't remember PW) jrh1406@excite.com
i think this holds true, but metal in a microwave isn't a problem, some older microwave ovens i've seen have had metal racks to put the food on, it's the edges on the metal that can discharge electricity that you have to worry about, if you were to put a perfectly flat piece of aluminum foil in the microwave and turned it on, nothing would happen, but crumble the same piece of foil and you're in for a light show. Balance (at work can't remember PW) jrh1406@excite.com
That's been done already. My parents' microwave has a temperature probe you can attach and set to a certain temperature for cooking meat. We never use it though ;-)
What do you mean break yoke? (and paper tent) everybody try this at home at least once (for scientific puposes) - Put an unbroken egg in micro and watch closely......BOOM looks like head exploding. :) put a grape in micro and steam come out the side and makes it spin put a (AOL) cd in micro and watch lightning zip around on it (unusable after this)
Ok, so with E-Commerce, and now this, all we need to do is find some way of automatically getting the food we buy over the internet into the Microwave, which will automatically know how to cook the food and will tell you when it is ready. Hmmm. Maybe some way of getting it to your computer desk too, already tipped out onto a plate.
We need transporters. Come one, scientist type guys, help us out here.
T.
Tea, Early Grey - Hot!
Bah... gimme Kirk:
"Beer. Romulan. Cold."
:-)
That my microwave cooked for me?
It looks like a Star Trek entity.
The bar code reader's gone spare.
Put the right bar in;
Pull the right bar out.
In, out, in, out, I really want to shout!
The microwave's on strike and has just begun to pout;
That's what lunch is now all about!
Sing a sing of kitchens,
The scanners all awry.
Four and twenty readers Quake-ing a pie.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Like it's difficult to
1) Remove contents from box
2) Open microwave door
3) Put foodstuff in microwave
4) Close door
5) Hit "Nuke for 5 minutes" (or however long)
Freakin' laziness... With a heftier price tag. Just what I need. Not.
...till we have a conduit from the smart fridge to the smart microwave and the fridge's loading bay opens into the hallway where the supermarket delivery bots can access it?
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
"It does all the thinking," Daniel said.
As if the people of the world spend too much time thinking as it is.
Come on people. We can spend a few minutes of the day thinking. .
** Martin
This is *not* just for slobs, this is also for those of us who are just plain lazy! (G)
Actually, there are those who wants to see this happen soon (except for the brain-fry). They want a web-appliance on your fridge. I still have a hard time seeing why I would need this, but hey, who knows what people wants?
Lars
__
Reality or nothing.
I don't think the idea of a microwave oven cooperating with the frozen dinner will happen. Sure, the technology works (and I actually can't see why a university has to be involved to make it happen), but it needs cooperation from too many entities: more than one.
My parents still have a VCR with a bad code reader. The Swedish version of TV guide carried full page ads with bar codes for a couple of years, making it possible to drag the bar code pen across a few lines and then beam the data over to the VCR using infra-red light. It was cool, but it required someone to publish the bar codes for the most popular TV programming every week and this is expensive, so naturally it died a premature death.
Similarly with a cheaper coding scheme. Some papers used to have ~10 digit code by the program title which encoded the essential data for the VCR. But who wanted to make sure that those codes were right? Seems that idea died too.
I believe that successful technology development evolves from existing technologies. For instance, I discovered this fall that my new VCR could set the time all by itself. It simply use the time info sent out in the text-TV data. That is an excellent use of an existing technology!
Lars
__
Reality or nothing.
Subj. line sez all...
-----
".sig,
Star Trek, Next Generation, captain picard to his food replicator during part I of "Best of Both Worlds." Life no have I.
Comeon, the worst security exploit would be a buffer overflow in the cup-o-noodles module.
That's why a lot of people (or maybe just me) throw some random item in the cart to screw up the statistics. If you throw in enough items that aren't in your marketing demographic, it might confuse the junk-mailers and such enough that you'll be left alone for a little while.
And of course you shouldn't use your real name, address, etc. when filling out the form for the card in the first place. Duh. And don't pay with credit cards! Make sure you use cash when you're getting those cereal discounts, baby food and Depends! You don't want Them to know where to find you, eating your Cap'n Crunch.
Really, I've been learning Python this weekend, and the annoying thing hasn't been getting up to nuke a meal, or deciding how long. It's been the interval while it nukes... To be able to set a schedule for dinner production in advance, with or without polling for confirmation, that would be cool.
Right, and if there's a built in barometer, it could adjust cooking times for your altitude.
Wow, with a beouwulf cluster of these, you could effortlessly run a cafeteria.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Advanced tea substitute, perhaps?
Uh oh. I bet they only support one specific OS for that part. What OS would that be? Let me guess... Hmm... RT11?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Eventually, it could be connected to a touch-screen computer that allows access to the entire Internet - including everything from nutritional information
about the meal being cooked to weather and news reports - said Rutgers University researcher Kit Yam, who is helping to develop the technology.
I really don't see the desire for a PC in my microwave. I just don't see the market for news and weather in a kitchen appliance.
But the part about tailoring the recipes for the specific microwave is nice. That "cooking times may vary" thing has always bugged me.
Who cares if it emails the surgen general, I'm more worried that it will notify X corp that I ate Y dinner at Z time. Just imagin the potential for marketing and harasment. "How about some pie to go with that dinner your having right now? You can pick some up at the local 7-11 down the street." It's bad enough that most stores can track your purchases if you use credit or debit cards to pay for them. Same goes for those store discount cards. Reminds me of Max Headroom.
Privacy is very important. Guard against it's abuse.
on television or in a magazine.
I'd rather have a microwave with a microphone that automatically shuts off when popcorn is as done as it's going to get.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
I have a button on mine marked, simply, "Reheat". I hit that and press start and it will detect heat and steam from the food and shut off. So far, it's worked perfectly every time.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
while you're waiting, you can read /. and fry both your food and your brain at the same time.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Sorry, that senor should be sensor, I was typing a little too fast ;-)
-Jeff
This is not needed. Do you really want to have to wait for your microwave to contact a website and ask it for directions to have your meal? I know I wouldn't.
;-)
Panasonic has had sensor microwaves out for years. I've got one. It's great. All you have to do is cut a slit on the tv dinner plastic wrap, put it in the microwave oven, and go through the sensor menues: frozen food -> and then either Frozen Entree or Frozen Dinner, and the senor in it automatically determines when it's done from the amount of steam comming off of the food. It's really convienient. And a much better idea than scaning the barcode. I have rarely gotten food that has been cooked too much or too little with this microwave oven. Also, it has a sensor reheat function. No more guessing how long you should put last nights pizz in the oven.
Sharp also has some cool microwave ovens. They've got cooking instructions built into it. I've used one before and I'd buy one if my panasonic oven stops working. It's got a sendor reheat and sensor defrost function too. You should check them out.
I know you can get the sharp microwaves from http://www.appliances.com but I don't think they sell the panasonic microwaves anymore
Well, it's time to go reheat last night's pizza for my lunch now
-Jeff
Geez, it was even in last month's issue of Consumer Reports
--
It won't take long before someone in the geek compound would scan a barcode for the 30 minute microwave product, stick it on the 5 minute tv dinner so your sulsbury steak turns to charcol. All this for a laugh.
Sure are first glance it sounds like a totally bullshit idea. But let's be honest, who hasn't burned something in the microwave because of ambiguious instructions like "heat on High for 3 to 6 minutes"?
If the Microwave showed a little bit of intelligence and took into account the wattage of the microwave when computing cooking time it could save a lot of guesswork when working with an unfamilar microwave or when cooking something you've never cooked before.
If you ever give them real info (such as paying by check, ATM card or credit card) in the same transaction as you use your club card, you've just
de-anonymized every club-card purchase you've ever made, and every one you ever make in the future. Doesn't that just make you feel all warm
and fuzzy inside?
So why not just use the dodgy-details card when you have cash, and leave it in your pocket when you have to pay with a card/cheque?
Personally I don't bother with reward cards at all, for two reasons:
1. The privacy implications rub me up the wrong way, even if I could avoid them myself
2. If I started on that road, I'd end up with twenty of the fscking things and would require a second wallet
The only thing the corporations will do is send you coupons based on what your microwave says you've been cooking. This happens already in a variety of ways. And if Tyson chicken sees that my house cooks 6 boxes of chicken nuggets a week and wants to send us coupons for nuggets and other assorted Tyson chicken products, that's fine with me.
-B
Yup. I'd hope it'd be able to memorise *how* I like my lasagne anyway - that it wouldn't be many trips to Sainsbury before it cottoned on, so I'd be able to tailor my own "frozen -> cremated" range for myself.
;)
Of course, your problem of variability of temperature throughout the lasagne is a sign of not having evolved the art far enough: you should douse it with a bit of water (so the base gets evenly hot all over) and regularly break it up into chunks distributed around the perimeter of the plate - e.g. after 2 mins from frozen, hack it up & redistribute, etc.
Share and enjoy
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Maybe it will try to reduce my calories.
Maybe it will email the Surgeon General if I
start to eat unhealthy foods. Hate to have
a Health and Human Services SWAT team raid my house.
With the small point of NOT BEING ABLE TO PUT METAL IN A MICROWAVE overlooked, your suggestions are otherwise fantastic.
- ----------
-----------------------------------------------
Funny this should crop up right now. I'm currently in the process of implementing a great deal of the features mentioned in that article in my own house. Of course, I'm only doing it for the entertainment value, not for the purposes of convienence.
A barcode scanner will record in an inventory database all food products purchased and those
thrown away. Before you go shopping, you program a menu database with the recipies of the meals you want to eat for the next week, or however long you wish to stock up for, then it prints out a grocery list for you, cross referencing what you already have, along with impending expiration dates.
For general consumables, like sodas, apples, etc,
The program will keep statistics of how long it takes you to consume them, then predicts when you will likely run out and adds them to your next list.
Integrating the microwave, stove, and oven to the computer is a piece of cake. For microwaves, and many stoves and ovens, the interface for it is already a computer, all that is required is changing the input source. The advantageous part, and orders of magnitude more difficult, would be complete mechanical automation of the cooking process. Program in a recipe, and come back an hour later when its done to eat it, and let robotics take care of the mixing, inserting and removing items from the oven/microwave, etc. This
isn't impossible, and could probably be done easier with a less conventional design. Perhaps a fully integrated system where the oven, burners, microwave, refridgerator was all a single homogenious system...
Anyways. I'm rambling. When I have something to show for it, I'll let you know.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
t's bad enough that the shopper-privacy-invasion card (or your ATM card, or your checking account number) keeps track of everything you buy, this would let Big Business see exactly when you ate it.
This is already happening in the US with supermarkets that provide certain UPCed cards that give the consumer a discount on some items while simultaneously logging all items purchased in a central database. It's mostly used for tracking trends on a population scale, but the privacy implications for individuals are still immense.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Now that I think about it, that's just about the only reason to have a microwave hooked up to the internet. What's so incredibly hard about inventing a UPC coding scheme that would code "Cook 55 seconds; rotate 180 degrees; cook 45 seconds"? It would only take a few bytes and it would kick the middle man. "Whoops, network's down, guess that ramen'll have to wait."
I would not say I was joking but more poking fun at what may happen. I have heard a mention in the news of a FAT tax, where they want to tax corporations for producing fattening foods. No matter how much you say you are taxing corporations in the end you are taxing the people. So if we just monitored what went in and out of the fridge for who, then tax it, we would at least have an honest tax instead of a false tax on corporations.
Honestly I hope none of it ever happens.
BTW, I ran the Fat Boy Club on my ship when I was in the Navy. This meant since I was in such good shape (I was a Search and Rescue Swimmer) I had to lead the fat boys in getting in shape. Many did not want to get kicked out of the Navy and listened (others thought I was a sick, sadistic Nazi). The only diet I saw work well was getting the people addicted to working out with free wieghts while watching what they ate. That simple. Hell it made them feel good, they were so big they were already strong, just had to show how to focus the energy. Do it 21 days in a row, feel the endorphines everyday, and you will love it also.
... until I read the article. Why does this have to involve the internet? Some kind of lame attempt to cash in on a buzzword?
There aren't all that many parameters to store- how long to cook and at what power, when to pause and restart, how long to let the food sit after it's done cooking. That info could be stored in the oven (maybe the barcode could be a hash of those parameters) or even in the barcode itself.
A device this complex (contact the company for instructions over the internet??!) will never catch on.
Hands in my pocket
I'm gradually getting tired of these no-brain "inventions" which serve the money and not the people.
Me too. Yet everytime someone invents another worthless piece of junk (IMHO) like this, it's touted as being something worth it. At least they don't call it the next best thing since sliced bread, but that's because we all know it isn't. "Advances" like these are simply recessions into the pit of human desparity; we don't need anything more to make us lazy. If you're having troubls using a microwave, then get off your butt and read the instruction manual. If that doesn't work, then learn from experience. If that doesn't work, cook everything yourself.
Ok, so maybe none of those choices work. The thing is, this is pointless! It's insane! It's inane! I can't believe that any self-respecting person would use this, simply because I, in my twisted world of thought, see inventions such as these to be superfluous and extremely ridiculous.
It serves money more than people, because it's one of those gizmos that may have some flash-bang, but don't have real usefulness. How many people are going to want it to look up all sorts of directions on how to cook their food. Does everybody want their food cooked the same? NO! And as someone else has mentioned, if you're on the net with it, could you not be hacked? Now, I have no real ideas as to what that would bring for the user/owner, but I wouldn't want to find out either. The real usefulness of these things is to take more money out of your pocket, and if they're ever actually bought.. then they've served their purpose. You might as well throw it away.
Just my.. $0.002 worth
Insert mind here.
Don't you gius watch TV?
GE (or somebody) already has a commercial for a fridge like this (general topic, web enabled appliance).
A repair guy shows up at the door to fix a fridge that has not broken yet.
Sort of a reverse of Tom Tuttle in the movie Brazil
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I heard about a project like this a few years back, although I believe they were encoding the timing on the barcode, not a url. Privacy concerns aside, this is terrific for people with sight disabilities. If you can't read the instructions on the box, there's no way you can cook the meal, which reduces your ability to be self-sufficient. Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
if they use 2d barcodes...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Has anyone seen the VCR programming device at Walgreens (or whatever your favorite, local pharmacy/everything store is)? It is like a device you set the start and stop time for a show, set the VCR for the channel, and place it in front of it, and put a tape in the VCR. Basically, what it does is hit "record" for the VCR (at the start time), then "stop" on the VCR (at the stop time).
Yes, peabrains amongst us! You too can pay $29.95 for a device that duplicates what you already comes standard with your VCR (provided you can get past the clock flashing 12:00)!
People are so fucking stupid!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I have eaten a TON of TV dinners in my life. One thing I have noticed in the course of heating these dinners in the microwave, are the following:
1. Most microwave ovens are in the 800-1000 watt range. Depending on where the microwave is on the scale, times may need to be adjusted up or down by a half minute or so.
2. Never heed the directions on a TV dinner - most of the time, they are WRONG.
3. Always use high - despite what the dinner says, doing shit on medium doesn't work - use high, and nuke for HALF the time.
4. Banquent and Swanson TV dinners works the same - for standard 14 oz size, leave all plastic wrap on, no holes, nothing, and nuke for 4.5 to 5 minutes, turning once - do not let sit, eat immediately.
5. For Hungry-Man style dinners, all wrap on, 5 minutes, turn, 5 minutes.
6. Swanson Pot Pies - put in a bowl to catch drips, poke holes in top - nuke 4.5 to 5 minutes.
7. Marie Callendar Pot Pies - leave in box - do not open box. Nuke 5 minutes (for small ones), 10 minutes for large sizes.
8. Do not nuke pizza - it sucks. Use the damn oven.
9. Leftovers - most can be cooked in two minutes, but depending on the amount of food, may need longer. Plastic wrap helps keep in steam (esp for stuffing). Stirring after heating is a good idea.
10. Do NOT reheat biscuits for more than 15-30 seconds on high (unless you like hard biscuits).
11. Bacon - high for 1 minute per slice.
12. Do not reheat pre-made burgers (ala Bugerking) with mayo on them - they suck.
13. Do not heat non-microwavable french-fries.
14. It is possible to fry an egg in the microwave - here's how: Take a saucer, and grease it with vegetable oil. Heat it in the microwave on high for 1 minute. Carefully remove and break an egg on it. Bust the yolk. Heat on high for 1-2 minutes, until done. You might want to cover with a tent of paper.
That is all I can think of. If you want more tips, reply to this message.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Works for me... no more having to fsck around with directions involving "HIGH", "MEDIUM", or "LOW". These thresholds are NOT clearly defined... My microwave takes anything from 1-100 for the power. Every time I try to approximate something like that it comes out either destroyed from too much cooking or still frozen. I can't wait.
rediculous. for slobs only.
ps- 1st?
@end
big boys use bsd.
Better hurry if you want Debian food. I don't suppose it would be as pleasant to stick your Woody in the microwave.
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
dude, debian potato is frozen
Need a Catering Connection
doh!
i hate it when i miss things like that
Need a Catering Connection
Honey, can you order a new hard drive for our PC, I want to cook dinner?
I have wired a rice cooker, a toaster, and my coffee maker on X10 control. Between the 3 of these devices, you can get quite a bit of cooking done. Granted, you won't be eating like a king, but it sure beats a microwaved dinner.
With a rice cooker, I wash the rice and load it in the night before. I compensate for the fact that the water's soaking the rice by using less water; and it works pretty well. With a toaster, I can load the bread in advance, pull it down, and power it on to toast. Rice cookers are great because they'll steam veggies (I'm a healthy geek), make marbled eggs, and cook certain meat dishes. I use my tea maker for tea and coffee, but if I get desperate, it works great for instant noodles too 8)
All this is connected to my Linux box, using BottleRocket (on Freshmeat), so about an hour before I go back home I ssh in and issue away the commands. I can't wait till I can do this on my handspring visor, but until then dropping in to a public access terminal (I'm a college student) works.
... SiKnight
"Database and Food company sued for $1,000,000 as couch potatoe burns bits on microwave meal with incorrect internet cooking instructions."
Or
"Hackers hold cooking instructions for microwave popcorn to ransom."
Also - Not to be a downer or anything - but this was reported on CNET and AP news about a year or so ago...
C-))
"This new 'home appliance' evidently keeps track of the number of twinkies its owner consumes. Consumer innovation? Or geek profiling plot by the FBI?"
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Ok! At a recent geek convention (or just a bunch of us hanging out) someone brought up appliances and home automation. Somehow someone brought up x10 or something, and we got to internet machines. We were throwing around ideas and my friend said that some vending machines can tell you, when fingered, how much of what kind of stuff they have left in them. I would pay a trillion dollars to have a vending machine that would do this. REALLY! I HAVE A TRILLION DOLLARS! So anyone with info about internet appliances, especially dealing with snacks, email me at wh0rde (at) home (dot) com Thanks!!!
[w00t@freaky.bish]# rm
Sounds like a good idea, but why use the Internet to download instructions based on the bar code?
Why not just encode the recipe into the barcode itself?
Seriously, how much data can the recipe consist of? High. 3 minutes.
This would eliminate privacy concerns.
- overflow
Appliance companies are already looking toward selling services as much as (or instead of) goods. Electrolux is marketing a pay-per-load washing machine in Europe; they install it for free and you get the bill added to your utilities every month. The EU has data privacy laws, but in the USA (and Japan?) sales of very intimate customer data are possible just as soon as they become feasible to collect. Sales of the data would pay for the R&D and promotion. A scheme that doesn't lead to any data collection eliminates a profit center in the business.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I've stopped shopping at stores that have club cards (which means I have dumped my former-favorite supermarket).
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
- When you make a non-cash payment, you're losing your discounts and your anonymity.
- You can't take advantage of unexpected sales to stock up using the discount card (unless you carry a lot of cash).
I had one that I got for one sale at one store back in October (I'm still eating the results). I carried it until I had to pry back a bolt on a door... it made such a good emergency key I think I am going to get another one.I may make a practice of this. Those cards have to cost money. Having each one appear in the store's database once or twice and then never again makes it look like their shopper loyalty is reduced on top of their direct costs. It may make them more likely to terminate it.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Sure, it takes a reasonably constant amount of energy to cook most microwave foods; cooking energy doesn't vary seriously until you have time variations which change the heat loss a lot. This suggests a rather simple workaround: print the cooking requirements in kilojoules, and let the user divide that by watts to get seconds. Okay, simple for geeks. The average person cannot even understand the difference between a kilowatt and a kilowatt-hour (and believe me, I've run into it); when their oven doesn't even list the wattage for the various power settings (and how many do?) they are going to be completely out of their depth. Even a geek would have trouble with that; imagine taking 5 minutes digging through the user manual so you can cook a 2-minute burrito. This is convenience? Here, gimme those two sticks, I think I can rub them together and make a fire (and my steak might just get done first).
The advent of Internet-delivered cooking instructions is a privacy nightmare, of course. It's bad enough that the shopper-privacy-invasion card (or your ATM card, or your checking account number) keeps track of everything you buy, this would let Big Business see exactly when you ate it. But for the consumer who has so far had to guess at the translation from "3-5 minutes on medium" to the settings for their under-cupboard or full-size microwave, this is a godsend. The UPC code goes out, the packet that comes back encodes "Defrost requirements 9 KJ at 150 watts typical, cook requirements 60 KJ at 500 watts typical" and the oven can play it from there with power levels and duty cycles. No muss, no fuss. People will love it, and have no idea what they're revealing about themselves or what it will do to the rest of their lives. And that is a shame.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Yet another reason why I'm a cash customer and make no apologies for it.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Excellent! Now all I need is a PRA (Personel Robotic Assistant). Then I won't ever have to get up from my console. I can order my tv dinners online from my favorite grocery e-tailor. My PRA will put them away, and if I ever want to eat something I can just issue a command and it will plop the correct meal in the nuker - voila! Does it get any better than this?
Ten(?) years ago, when I still used to eat hotdogs regularly, I would cook them in the microwave. Personally I liked mine just having plumped.
My father however, would wait until they exploded, then load them with chili, cheese, onions, ketchup and mustard... (coronary on a plate)
But I also had friend who used to like his hotdogs microwaved - very differently. He would microwave them until they were... crispy. I once had the distinct displeasure to witness this - and smell it as well.
Yes folks, try it. Put a couple of small slits in a hotdog (to prevent it from exploding, put about two paper towels over it, set the power to full, and microwave it for TEN minutes... I garauntee you, what comes out appears to be completely inedible.
My point is, different strokes for different folks. I like mine one way, my dad likes his another, and I make no explinations for my friend. What I'd like is something that not only selects the optimal time, but uses individual preferences to better construct the model...
Not that I'd buy it anyway. I don't have a microwave, I don't use a microwave*.
2 cents...
* not completetly true: I do use the microwave at work to reheat last nights dinner for lunch.
You say you want a revolution?
I think someone mentioned this earlier, but what about having the instructions encoded *in* the barcode, rather than having it encode a url? This seems like it would be simpler, and avoid the privacy issue altogether.
I vaguely remember some computer magazine a long time ago having programs that you could key into your computer, but also having the program encoded in a bar code, so you could just scan in the code. Where was that?
Also, is any of this research with the Media Lab's Counter Intelligence project?
Just don't hit the magnetic strip too hard...
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
Barcode! Now that's what I call a short attention span.
Just don't get it dirty...
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
And they can't even make a toaster oven that doesn't get impossibly hot on the outside. Please!
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
You are underestimating the stupidity of the average American. Otherwise, we wouldn't need instructions such as "heat and serve" on a can of soup. "Uhhh... how am I supposed to eat what's in this here metal can?"
So, to add to your microwave cooking directions:
6) When microwave dings, open the door and remove the food. It might be hot, because you have just been cooking it.
7) Peel the plastic film off the tray. It might be hot, because you have just been cooking it.
8) Insert a fork into the food in a scooping fashion. You might need to use the fork to break certain food items into smaller pieces first.
9) Lift the fork towards your face, while making sure the food stays on the fork. Put the fork partially into your mouth, so that the food comes off of the fork and into your mouth. The food might be hot, because you have just been cooking it. Do not eat the fork. Do not stick the fork into your eye.
10) Repeat steps 8 and 9 until there is no food left on the tray, or you are no longer hungry. WARNING: Attempting to continue eating when you are no longer hungry may result in vomiting.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
I sincerely hope that you're joking. Certainly a low-fat diet* works for some people, but eating low-fat makes me and many others gain unwanted weight. Why? Because eating low-fat means eating a high-carbyhydrate diet. Carbohydrates are empty calories, completely devoid of nutrition, and also cause a hunger reaction. This causes us to eat more -- and if we don't know any better, we'll eat more carbohydrates because they're low-fat. And we eat more, and more, and even the most clueless can see why we continue to gain weight. If we eat food that is high in protein, low in carbohydrates, and never mind the fat, we will be full quickly, therefore eat less and lose (or maintain) weight.
* A diet is a way of eating, not a temporary restriction on what one can eat.
What's my point? Not everyone has the same metabolism and body type. What helps you keep in shape does not necessarily make me keep in shape. (ObConspiracy: Remember that the cereal companies are powerful. Remember, too, that eggs were found to be dangerously high in cholesterol, when they aren't, in studies sponsered by the cereal companies.) If you tax fat consumption, I will either go broke or gain unhealthy, unwanted weight. Unless even the most paranoid conspiracy theorist of us is mistaken, that is not the intent of those who cry "tax fat consumption" and "make the fat pay for their own health care".
Sorry for the off-topic rant. I'm tired of being told what to eat to lose weight and gain health, because I'm overweight and unhealthy precisely because I listened to that advice in the past. If any of this strikes a chord with you, check your library for books by Dr. Robert Atkins and the Drs. Heller, among others. Remember, though, my point: not everyone has the same body, so make sure you eat a diet that works for you.
Now this takes out all the guesses of microwaving things that don't come with microwave instructions: forks, spoons, AOL CD's, and small rodents.
I just saw a little clip the other night on TV how Microsoft and Maytag are teaming up to make "smart appliances", though I can't seem to find any mention of it on the Web anywhere.
How long before the script kiddies are able to freeze over my produce drawer and defrost my freezer?
# kitchen_killa -t xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
-> connecting to oven
-> turning on burners
-> connecting to fridge
-> programming icemaker (infinite l00p)
-> done!
-> gr33tz out to Babba Booey and the former h4ck3rz at KitchenAid.
When the idea of affordable (read:free) access to the net became an idea, many people turned to us sysadmins asking "well, what can we do with internetworking"?.
To convey the idea that the internet would as common as refrigorator, most people used the "your toaster can tell your phone when to order more bread", or, "The capuchino maker can tell you fridge you need more milk." These examples were used much in the same way foo-bar is used to describe a variable (i.e.:"Once domain foo.and domain bar are linked, you'll have a "foo-bar link"). When using this little phrase, we don't expect the customer to actually register foo.com and bar.com and link them, they're just examples!
Now here, we have an appliance company (uppon hearing that TTML was the wave of the future (toaster to toaster markup language) actually puts research into the effort.
It's funny, laugh!
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These penny-ante little functionality upgrades are BOOOORING! The proper cooking profile for a meal should be coded ONTO THE MEAL PACKAGE, where it can be read & followed by the microwave.
In short, I want the microwave to have two buttons - Start and Stop - and THAT'S ALL! I just want to buy the damn package w/a funky encoded label, put it in the box, push the Start button, the microwave reads the label & knows exactly what it's supposed to do to cook that particular meal.
(Microwaves might also have some atmospheric-condition sensors like barometer & humidity, which can be used to modify the cooking profile for local conditions).
Of course, you'd have to come up w/some kind of standard for the label encoding, and the microwaves would have to be able to read it (ala a cheap version of the laser readers @ the checkout counters?).
I wonder if you could deal with "normal" (non-packaged) food by having some way of detecting how the microwaves are interacting w/the food (reflect/scatter characteristics?) and to modify the transmission. For instance, if you detect that the food is about to explode because it's absorbing too much energy too fast, the microwave should probably cut back the power a bit.
Why would the package have to be metal?
:)
You can encode the data as fine-grained barcode, or perhaps one of those 2D bar codes. Hell, if you want to get funky, you could encode the data into the picture on the box and the microwave could use a CCD camera & decryption software to get it out. Or, you could outfit the package with a circuit which transmits the data via LED or radio-link when it is _powered_ by microwaves! (damn, my creative juices are flowing good right now
Let's take that a little farther - you could use the microwaves to power little mechanical stirrers in the package to help distribute the heat around for proper all through cooking. You could deliberately create metal strips in the package which deliver radiant heat from the microwave energy to the right places in the package to facilitate browning of your food (I believe they already do something like this for those "hot pocket" thingies).
Perhaps you could even make the package do animated displays powered by the microwaves!
"Hey, who are you guys? What's the straightjacket...wait a minute, don't you dare put that on ME!"
P.S. Does anybody have any guesses/knowledge whether the "harmful" effects (to the magnetron, I assume) of metal in a microwave apply if you have a circuit which is designed properly to accept & use the microwave energy?
Most drinks are like that, anyway. Orange soda is almost nothing like oranges, etc.
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"But really, I think life is just a game of Mao Nomic." -Purplebob
I wouldn't worry as much about someone turning off someone's fridge. I would worry about someone cracking the database on the company's web server and changing all the cooking times around. Making the microwave think that popcorn needs to be on high for 50 minutes rather than 5.
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"If a problem has a single neck, it has a simple solution."
"It does all the thinking," Daniel said.
Finally... i was getting tired of thinking.
Now i can safely go back to my beloved non-stop-shopping-spree, and goodbye to you - left membrane!
To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish. ---Euripides
I hope I don't live that long. :)
Now there's a frightening concept....
By the power of Grayskull, I command you to ZARK OFF!!!
Windows is going the way of phlogiston...
Attempts to keep track of preferences between sessions all fail in the food realm because for most meals people reject cookies.
``The goal is to simplify people's lives by reducing the amount of time they must spend preparing meals'' they say... c'mon. Reducing the amount of time? How long does it take to read the fargin' instructions on a package? Turn a dial?
``"It does all the thinking," Daniel said. '' Proving that in the eyes of Samsung, people are simply too stupid to use a regular microwave oven.
Really, if they wanted this to be for consumer convenience only; how difficult would it be to have a second bar code that contains the basic cooking requirements encoded, and use that rather than connecting to the 'net and report your eating habits to some giant database?
-pf
I don't even *own* a microwave oven. :-) Cooking is a nice artform.
Make affiliate bucks
I have to agree, but I wonder whether it is also because people have less to do, they have more time to get pissed off with stupid little things. Someone cutting me up whilst I drive to work pisses me off no end, but I forget that I am lucky enough to own a car, which means I don't have to wake up at 5am to walk to work which is a nice air conditioned office with a water cooler etc.
Going to third world countries really brought this home to me, as when you talk to people there, they talk of their family and their job, and their home, because they are the important things, and they have nothing else.
On a separate note, I can only think of one good reason why you might want kitchen appliances connected to the net, and that is so that the machine can sense when something is going wrong, and send an alarm to a service company. Course, hackers would start charging their services out to the cowboy firms that come to your house and look at your connected appliance, shake their head, and declare "I didn't think it would be this bad..."
So what do you think? A good application, or have I missed The Bad Thing(TM) about this?
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Getting closer to the Star Trek replicator everyday.
;)
Privacy considerations,
How can this afflict the privacy of the homeowner. I can imagine a lots of ways this can be abused by corporations.
Security considerations,
Do we really need to have everything connected to the net, what if a hacker disconnects/turns on the refrigerator/microwave while the owner is on vacation.
(it doesnt imply its connected to the net yet i feel its relevant)
I have a horrible image in my head of a dancing fork in my microwave... the image resembles a certain paperclip. Nightmarish.
Not like we didn't see this coming. Everything is being automated, why not microwaves too? The only problem is, this is gonna cause serious chub. I mean, if all you have to do is wave the triple-butter popcorn in front of the microwave (unless the scanner is on the inside, then just pop it in), who wouldn't? Just sit back and watch the ass expand. Now we need and automated thigh-master to counteract it...but if you're lazy enough to use this microwave, you probably wouldn't even think of using one...
-BlightX
IMHO, the increase in stress and violence is actually a side-effect of all the extra conveniences.
From what I've seen, people (in general) have gotten so used to instant gratification that they can't deal with waiting.
Don't get me wrong; I do think all of these conveniences are a good thing. But it seems that perhaps the Star Trek philosophy has an excessively optimistic view of human nature.
Okay, flame away...
I'll be impressed if it's able to heat it EVENLY. I've given up on the whole microwave dinner thing due to the fact that it's more work than cooking a real meal to get the whole thing hot, and not burned. Ugh. Half burnt, half cold microwave lasagna. Ugh.
-- Hi! I'm a
Can we turn this "feature" off?
This will be quite a problem. My understanding of the technology is that it will not only tell you when to throw away the milk when it goes bad, the "networked" appliance will also reorder fresh milk for you. The possibilities of creative marketing (and invasion of privacy) are endless.
Can you imagine a telemarketer telling me they got my name from my refrigerator?
I also suppose my refrigerator will now talk to my VCR and tell it to record all those commercials for products the marketers are hawking this week....
"I'm The Bounty Bear. I will find him anywhere. I'm searching."
Tea, Early Grey - Hot!
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reminds me of a thing they had for videos a few years ago where you go a barcode reading pen, swiped a barcode (printed in a listings mag) and sent it off to the video
that failed in the UK as the mags couldn't be arsed to print the barcodes! It was replaced by the videoPlus system where a user typed in a number instead!
So here we have something else to take a little of the brainwork out of living. It does sound like a good idea, since I'm one of those cooking-impaired people (still can't even make french toast). However, if you subscribe to the oft-mentioned Star Trek philosophy, all this convenience is supposed to be freeing the human race up to pursue other intellectual and physical pursuits like exploration and research. So, why is it with all this we're getting more stressed and more violent every day???
Something to think about...
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
What if we'll only be able to buy Microsoft PotPie2000 in the stores? Will there be Apple Macaroni and Cheese?
My question is, how will the Open Source movement respond to this? Perhaps we could get Debian Mashed Potatoes or FreeBSD Uberspicy Chicken Wings.
Do you think Handspring will make modules for this?
--t
I don't dress this way to be scary. I dress like this because it's easier to sort my laundry. "...black...black...blac