Comment by parpfish
4 days ago
> It’s about staring blankly at the buzzing white box, waiting for the four dreadful beeps that give you permission to eat.
I thought it was near universal that everybody staring at the microwave was engaged in a game of chicken where you try to open the door as close to zero as possible while preventing the beeps.
The beeps must not sound.
I have no idea why it’s important to prevent the beeps, but it feels like a deep primal compulsion. Our ancestors must have learned that the beeps attracted sabretooth tigers or something
Just be careful doing this if there’s a radio telescope nearby:
However, about 25 FRBs detected mainly by the Parkes Radio Telescope and a few other observatories presented signatures that were very different. Although they covered a wide frequency range just like the other FRBs, the frequency-time structures of many of these events defied any physical model, and they did not show differences in the arrival times between the higher frequencies and the lower frequencies of the burst. Also, the location of these FRBs was difficult to pinpoint; the radiation seemed to come from all directions. The Parkes astronomers, mystified, dubbed these "abnormal" FRBs "perythons" after a mythical figure invented by the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. The perythons’ signatures caused astronomers to doubt the extragalactic origin of FRBs [PDF] althogether. They might originate on or nearby Earth, the scientists began to believe, and some astronomers even suggested that these strange bursts might be produced by extraterrestrial civilizations.
Not long after focusing their attention on the perythons, the Parkes astronomers noticed that these FRBs seemed to take off during weekends. In 2014, they installed a radio frequency interference monitor at the observatory and decided that the culprits were probably some microwave ovens inside the observatory building. Tests with these microwave ovens yielded nothing—they emitted no radio pulses while they were running. The astronomers were flummoxed—that is, until one of the testers, during a third attempt, opened the door of a microwave oven before the magnetron was shut off by the timer.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/microwave-ovens-posing-as-astronom...
I know it's silly, but I always used to open the microwave door to stop it, and since reading that story, these days I always stop the microwave with the 'stop' button before opening the door. Just in case. :)
I heard a story from someone whose relative was in the Korean War - apparently people manning radar stations used to warm up by getting in between some microwaves. I just looked it up and the danger isn't cancer - but you stay too long you can get unexpectedly cooked (particularly eyes) because your body isn't detecting being warmed up like that.
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Seriosly? They leak emissions if you OPEN THE DOOR WHILE ITS RUNNING?
I thought they were actually, like, certified? How can this not have been tested and fixed... shutting down the magnetron can not take long, right? Making it react fast enough doesnt feel like an intractable problem at all!
Having been trained to listen to the hum of the magnetron for several reasons (among them: it affects how popcorn pops and if you are in lunch room setting with a complete mixture of models you have to listen to know which sort of microwave you "lucked" into that day and adapt to its challenges to avoid burning popcorn) it takes a surprising amount of time for even a good one to spin up to full speed as much as a quarter second. As microwaves age or get cheaper some of them take a full wall clock second or two. Some of the cheap models even lie to you and don't start their own timers until after the magnetron hits full speed.
Something that becomes more apparent the more you listen (but also if you actually pay attention to diagrams of how a microwave works): the magnetron is a spinning thing with its inertia. Even if you immediately cut power to it, it still spins on its own for some amount of time. Given how much energy and wall clock time it takes to spin up to full speed, it shouldn't be surprised it needs similar wall clock time, if not energy to full stop.
But also, yeah the door pull sensor is a classic analog latch detector that has a slower sensing time than a button would by its very nature (and trying to avoid false positives from a loose/vibrating door). It's an easy thing to cut corners on and some sensors are worse than others.
(And also, safety certifications include a margin of error that it still "generally regarded as safe", what's a few extra microwaves escaping into your body among friends as long as it isn't full power?)
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If I'm understanding the paper correctly, the bursts had a mean duration of 0.14 seconds, which for a 1000 W microwave would expose you to 140 joules, enough to heat about a shot's worth of water by 1°C. Seems plenty fast to me.
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Those extremely rare moments when you open the door literally on zero, with no sound, and the display showing 0s, are like half of the reason I use a microwave. Man vs machine at its most visceral, it makes me feel alive
The only thing that comes close is trying to stop the fuel pump on a nice round dollar amount.
Supermarket checkout with a round amount feels like winning some lottery, admittedly.
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I’m half-expecting a Therac-25 situation in those edge-case operating moments, but then remember that microwave ovens, unlike the Therac-25, have physical interlocks to prevent open-door operation.
You really don't want to succeed in faking it out, though. Not because it'll microwave you, but because part of the safety mechanism is a fuse that blows if the door is open while the magnetron is on.
I remember having some microwave oven that started rotating if I opened the door partially at just the right angle. Hopefully does not mean the magnetron was actually running.
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I completely agree in the game of chicken. Usually I spend the time up to T-3s wondering how the crazy beepers on microwave ovens is still a thing, generations after the novelty has worn of.
I can sort of understand why beepers where a cool sales gimmick back when the microwave was the only appliance with a micro controller, but really -- it doesn't make sense: Firstly, immediate attention is not critical when the time is up: unlike a stove or an oven, energy transfer stop the moment the magnetron is de-energized. Secondly, the microwave (at least my microwave) is not exactly silent: if you are not deaf, chances are you can easily tell when it is done.
Maybe I should apply the Joe-treatment from my old lab: whenever there was a new shipment of frequency meters for the lab (we always needed more), Joe would meticulously unbox them and stick a pointed screw-driver through all the piezo buzzers to make sure the would never make a sound.
[Edit] microtron (sic) -> magnetron
My rice cooker has solved this: it plays a pleasant little tune, once, at almost inaudible volume, and then shuts up while keeping the rice warm.
>Usually I spend the time up to T-3s wondering how the crazy beepers on microwave ovens is still a thing, generations after the novelty has worn of.
Because, for at least 40 years, it has always been something you can turn off. It's like two sentences in the manual. They often have more options than off/on too.
It's astonishing to me how often people own something, don't read the manual, and then complain about something that already exists.
I read every instruction manual I ever had access to. There used to be tons of great info in them, niche use cases explained clearly, things to watch out for, how to know if it needs maintenance etc.
But nobody every read it, so now manuals have nothing, and the people who used to be paid to write all that important info are gone, and all the features they helped sell and the quality they helped emphasize is gone. I'm so sad.
The problem with turning it off is they usually don't keep the settings when you have a power outage, and often not even a power flicker. So then you need to remember to set it every time it loses power... pretty soon you just give in and open the door as the time expires.
Or why there's not just a switch you can flip to turn the ring off or on.
Many microwave models have this. It's either a dedicated button or holding a specific button down
My microwave beeps regardless. It beeps with every button push. It beeps when the door is opened. It beeps when the door is not opened. I swear I heard it beep unplugged in the garden just now
Do you have the manual? It might be possible to configure a non-beeping mode. (I recently learned this was the case with my Panasonic model, to great delight.)
It’s in the garden?
Six feet under, but those piezoelectric speakers are piercing
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I once managed to trigger what I think was a race condition in a microwave's beep routine. It was one of the type that does a single long beep rather than individual beeps, and like most it would cut the beep short when you opened the door. But one time, one single time, I managed to open the door PRECISELY as the timer finished, and the beep just didn't stop. I finally closed and opened the door after maybe 30 seconds, and that stopped it.
I was never able to trigger it again, so I have no idea whether it was a race condition or some other random one-in-a-million happenstance, but it makes a fun theory at least.
Only the people who grew up with microwaves are obsessed with the beep. For most of my life I didn't have one but wanted one, now I own one and let it sing.
> try to open the door as close to zero as possible while preventing the beeps
To go easy on the door switches, which operate at high voltage and can wear down if they're being used to break the circuit on every run, it's better to press the Stop/Cancel button instead.
But believe me, it is a hard, hard habit to break.
I thought the microwave beeps several times to ensure the radiation has completely dissipated from the chamber before you open it. I always let it beep and then some.
I hate machines that beep at me. I disable them wherever I can. My current & previous microwave have both had a built-in method to turn off the beeps, yours might too (check the manual). For devices which are safer to open than microwaves that lack such a setting, physical removal of the piezo buzzer works.
In my head, the old CS "counter-terrorist win" soundbyte plays every time.
The gamification of microwaves and food preparation has gone TOO FAR!
...or not far enough, if there's anything that a smart microwave would have any benefit it would be this, lol.
no_unused_seconds_meme.jpg
You know that you can remove the piezo beeper from the microwave, right? Or add a series resistor to lower the volume.
This defeats your training to achieve zero with no beep though, a valuable skill when dealing with any appliance with a timer that beeps.
I pity the poor bastard that lets this skill atrophy, then finds themselves unable to hit a round number while pumping gas
I am really laughing at this one. You got me good. This is either some kind of farming game where I need to "unlock" a valuable skill... ("training" makes me think of NES Super Marios Brothers 3 with the slot machine game after each level), or a skill that I need to add to my LinkedIn profile to check if anyone is reading it. (I recall years ago two guys adding recommendations to each other's profiles with very funny and implausible notes to see if anyone was looking. Does anyone remember that?)
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You can remove the buzzers from all of your appliances and then live in bliss.
Most microwaves have a mute function.
Removing an offensive buzzer or beeper or overbright LED is far more satisfying. Plus, nobody can trivially unmute the thing.
But that said, I wouldn’t mind a microwave that could be quieted without completely muting it. They could mute the buttons but still let it beep once when a timer or cooking cycle finishes. On the other hand I have a phone that I can time things with, so I’m not really looking to replace my microwave merely for that.
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What? No way!
<checks YouTube>
What!
I guess I should have read the docymantasion.
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