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Microwave Experiments Cause Sponge Disasters
gollum123 writes "Reports about a study that found microwave ovens can be used to sterilize kitchen sponges sent people hurrying to test the idea this week — with sometimes disastrous results. A team at the University of Florida found that two minutes in the microwave at full power could kill a range of bacteria, viruses and parasites on kitchen sponges. They described how they soaked the sponges in wastewater and then zapped them. But several experimenters evidently left out the crucial step of wetting the sponge. "Just wanted you to know that your article on microwaving sponges and scrubbers aroused my interest. However, when I put my sponge/scrubber into the microwave, it caught fire, smoked up the house, ruined my microwave, and pissed me off," one correspondent wrote in an e-mail to Reuters."
People do not understand microwaves. Berating them for not using their understanding of microwaves is like watching a Spiderman movie and saying "Why doesn't he just fly out of there?"
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
holding your breath underwater for 5 minutes cures stupidity. I take full responsibility for all results of home trials.
Back in good old days, many centuries ago, there wasn't any kind of this Politically Correct stuff and neither was there protection of the idiots. There was one rule: survival of the fittest.
If you made mistakes dumb enough to kill you , you didn't get anybody to pull you out and nature did its thing and eliminated the "idiot's" gene.
Of course this had nothing to do with real accidents, but in the long term idiots would dissapear.
Nowadays there is no personal responsibility. People do their own mistakes and blame it on somebody else.
This idiot should have had at least his genitals burned so we wouldn't have anymore kids.
Mind you, I am all about protecting and subsidising the weakest, the handicapped, the sick and al. I just believe that dumb people that bring it upon themselves deserve no attention and no compassion whatsoever.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
You could easily read that as if the soaking in wastewater was just to add some nasties to zap.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
You are implicitly supposing that IQ is a genetic trait, which may not be the case. Intelligence (or the develoment of) could be more related to social or monetary issues.
Oh, but you say, taking things as fact without questioning why is a folly committed only by stupid people, thus making them ignorant. The two are really the same. I would then ask you why light is both a particle and a wave and why electrons jump to a different energy level when hit by the right frequencey of light. There's probably less than 1,000 people on the planet who can give a good answer to these questions, and unless you're one of them, you've committed the same folly as your average suburban mom - you still don't truly know why a microwave works.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
People read the original article and played dumb for a bit, temporarily throwing out conventional wisdom regarding non-food objects in the microwave as they followed Reuter's authoritative instructions.
But, hey, this is slashdot and people don't play, rather, they are dumb, and we all have a good laugh at their misfortune while we're glad it was somebody else who ruined their microwave and not us.
And yes, I did make a whole bunch of toxic smoke years ago by forgetting to put the bowl of water while nuking a CD.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
> I mean, can you imagine 1 billion well-educated people working on innovations or being "artists"?
Sure. According to Mr Jobs, that's what's happen inside their Cupertino HQ.
640KB of virtualized ram will be enough for everybody
": the more intelligent, well-educated people will be more at the top,"
I presume you're not an American?
Even if natural selection would step in hard at that point and we'd be left with only with 1 billion people, all well-educated, what would THEY do all day? I mean, can you imagine 1 billion well-educated people working on innovations or being "artists"? Soon enough there would be little left to invent, or at least not enough to keep 1 billion people occupied, and then what? Spread out across the universe and colonize other planets? Sure, but seeing as everybody would ofcourse take all the knowledge with them there'd be nothing "real" to do on those planets as well, apart from just living. .... So, we'd have 1 billion people, of which 99.99% have nothing to do, except to just try and enjoy themselves. My guess is most of them would get really bored really fast...
Errr, what the hell are you arguing? Seriously, I can't figure it out. That there's a finite limit to our intellectual pursuits and/or technological achievements? That existence itself is pointless? That smart people don't know how to have fun?
Society as a whole will always figure out something to itself occupied. Individuals that don't see the point anymore will inevitably withdraw from society and/or commit suicide--either way, removing themselves from the gene pool--leaving only those individuals who are able and willing to find a purpose. I don't see how intelligence or lack thereof has anything to do with it.
The traits you may think are useful and great may not be the traits mother nature approve of, but the nice thing about mother nature is that you know her judgement's not personal, whereas if it's a person deciding, it's just his selfish genes being especially despicable, and wanting to get rid of its competitors.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
The Nazis practiced genocide and encouraged eugenics. The fact that the distasteful former has so completely colored the latter to the point of tainting its meaning is obvious in your case.
Eugenics is practiced with every prenatal screening, gene screening to discover genetic abnormalities prior to conception, and with almost every in-vitro process. Do you consider those "horrible"?
This is merely encouraging a subset to remove themselves from the gene pool. There's a major difference between showing someone cliff-diving and describing its wonders vs forcibly shoving someone off a cliff.
Or do you hold that the Darwin Awards website is an abomination as well?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
"...those who take advantage of the opportunities presented to them in western society tend to reproduce at a much lower rate than those who get hammered and start breeding while the more capable are still in education"
I understand what you are saying and largely agree but I kind of object to the "more capable" tag, perhaps "more mature", "more fortunate", "more materialistic" or just plain "wiser".
Wisdom and comfort are the twin goals of many humans, and often the reason for desiring wisdom is that it's seen as a path to comfort. Evolution does not have goals, it has survivours called "genes" who's lineage goes back billions of years, these "genes" are actually just patterns of interacting atoms originally created in exploding stars. "Strong people", "loyal people", "pious people", "educated people", ect, are the result of conceptual tools that humans use for dealing with each other, the deep rooted tribal tendencies found in our genectic makeup appeared long before our particular species did.
"....but really stop running yourselves down, have a shower and go out and breed people!"
I did that while my "more capable" friends finished high school, some went all the way into thier thirties totally clueless about kids or the value of a buck. I am now 47, my youngest is 21 and is getting married next year. Having worn collars of both colurs for a minimum of 15yrs I can attest that a good education can buy you time via a healthy paypack, intellectual satisfaction via interesting work, and the comfort of not fighting the checkout-chick to the death over a 50 cent overcharge. Personally, formal education doesn't rate highly with me in a relationship - after all, even the most "retarded" red-neck can teach you something.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
No, common sense is not part of Darwin's theory. Natural selection is based on an organism's fitness to its environment. Since these people live in an environment that includes microwave ovens, sponges, and Reuters, their ability to interact with these elements without removing themselves from the gene pool is part of being 'fit' for their environment.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
The weird things isn't that people forgot to wet the sponge so it wouldn't catch on fire...
The weird thing is that people are so afraid of bacteria that they are going be microwaving their sponges!! Not only that, I see they sell anti-bacteria material sponges pre-made at the store... and anti-bacterial soap... and anti-bacterial air-sprays (don't worry about lung cancer from breathing that crap!). Anti-bacterial teething rings... anti-bacterial towels... anti-bacterial shaving cream...
When did people get paranoid about bacteria all of a sudden? You gotta admit, bacteria isn't a significant problem for most people in the industrialized world, even without all the extreme anti bacteria tactics people are using.