What we're told is realer than what we see.
I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
161–170 of 331 posts
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. The point is that it's not just soap but soapy water that has just washed off all kinds of gunk and dirt off your hands or dishes. It's a good idea to rinse it off. But, apparently, that's not the done thing in certain sectors of British society, e.g. see: I wash up like a normal person: I fill a sink with hot water and washing-up liquid, and scrub the dishes in order of what needs the least attention. Glasses n…
Don't you then have soap residue on your glasses, plates, and cutlery? I assume it's probably not a problem for your health to consume trace amounts like that, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't affect the taste of whatever you later eat using them.
> Don't you then have soap residue on your glasses, plates, and cutlery?
Maybe a little, if the soap somehow stuck to it and didn't slide off while it was drying. But never enough to notice (at least, I never heard of anyone noticing - even foreigners who are horrified at British washing up have always talked about being grossed out by it rather than actually tasting anything).
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#163My favorite example of conventional ignorance: some guy was traveling on a plane the girl sitting next to him asked him whether there was wifi available so she could browse the internet. This was about 20 years ago... and the guy was convinced that the girl was an idiot. "We were flying in the middle of nowhere, 20000 feet in the air, and this girl is asking me whether we have wifi?? Some people have no common sense!" Turns out there's a fine line between being an idiot and being ahead of your time.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#164It is because people use heuristics to navigate their lives. Instead of doing complicated engineering reasoning all the time to ensure their safety they learn simple “rules of thumb”. These rules are incorrect in as much as they have both false positives (something which the rule prohibits, but is safe) and false negatives (something which the rule lets you do, but is not safe). I’m a hobby jeweler and I use an ordin…
I think the social friction from getting all of this right/wrong really damages inquisitive minds.
The visceral negative response you get from, "Wait, I don't think that's right, it's more complicated than that", helps prevent speaking up the next time, unless you have an inherently disagreeable personality (which I cherish working with). I see it all the time with kids. They'll see some fundamental truth that takes a sideways perspective to see, and be told they're wrong, hacking off an interesting way of perceiving the world. It's unfortunate, but it's also something most adults are bad at, including myself.
And, I very often microwave my spoons, forks, even metal bowls, without them heating up at all. But I also have a basic understanding of resonance, absorption, insulation, apertures, and the wavelengths involved. I don't do it at work, because it's not worth the effort responding to "you're going to break the microwave", even if you show them that the food is hot and the fork is cool.
That said, I wouldn't melt metal in an expensive microwave. The metal has poor absorption relative to the magnetron antenna itself, so both will heat. I wouldn't be surprised if the antenna is also glowing a bit (at least early on)!
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#165It is because people use heuristics to navigate their lives. Instead of doing complicated engineering reasoning all the time to ensure their safety they learn simple “rules of thumb”. These rules are incorrect in as much as they have both false positives (something which the rule prohibits, but is safe) and false negatives (something which the rule lets you do, but is not safe). I’m a hobby jeweler and I use an ordin…
You can also just have a spoon in the microwave too, right? I think It's only from things like crinkles in aluminium foil and the prongs of a fork that produce sparks and arcing inside.
Nice! As a perfect example of what he's saying, you've been downvoted for stating something that is absolutely true, outside of certain circumstances, driven by the downvotes not having an understanding of those circumstances.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#166It is because people use heuristics to navigate their lives. Instead of doing complicated engineering reasoning all the time to ensure their safety they learn simple “rules of thumb”. These rules are incorrect in as much as they have both false positives (something which the rule prohibits, but is safe) and false negatives (something which the rule lets you do, but is not safe). I’m a hobby jeweler and I use an ordin…
Exactly. All models are wrong, some are useful. And a simpler model is easier to teach and remember.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#167As a electronics person with microscope-level repair experience: the problem isn't the water, it is what is in it. And it can become an issue weeks later when residues of minerals and detergent combined with current flows corroded your contacts away, leakage current ts flowing in all kinds of unintended places. PCBs are laminated and can do funny things when treated wrongly. Whether that kills the device or not is ha…
> But as a physics teacher he probably has heard about galvanization, oxidation and similar chemical things.. I hope. As the post says > I learned two things [...] (2) GFIs only trip off when in bodies of water that are grounded. They won’t work in an aquarium sitting on a lab table, or in a plastic laundry sink with plastic drainpipes, or in a plastic shower with plastic drainpipes. I'm neither an electrician nor a…
> Why else do all electrical devices with a metal case or a metal structure have these metal bits connected to ground, if not so that most shorts will lead to the circuit being closed towards ground?
That predates GFCI, it's to ensure that in the event of a short the metal case/structure will always remain safe to touch by a (presumably grounded) person. Tripping GFCI is just a bonus.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
New homeowners: Know where your GFCI reset switches are located. I just had a fun time debugging why some of my outlets weren't working. Turns out there was a GFCI tripped in the garage, a few rooms down from the outlet.
I have never seen a GFCI reset switch in a different room from the outlet. I’m not surprised it exists, but it would make me unhappy.
I've had the GFCI switch in the main fusebox in a couple of modern-ish apartments. That seems a perfectly sensible place for it, it's where you'd go to check whether the room breaker had tripped anyway.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#169> These commenters are speaking authoritatively on subjects about which they are completely ignorant, but they are strident in doing so because they are repeating what everybody knows. They are intellectually secure in the center of a vast mob; their wisdom was received, not crafted. This is an important takeaway for me, maybe even more than “electirc devices are washable”. World is filled with conventional wisdom th…
It's not the water that's the issue generally - it's the minerals in the water. The article author got lucky this time - when electronics die from water contact, it's usually the minerals bridging connections and creating shorts. Letting the device dry does not remove those shorts. Some places have such hard water (lots of minerals) that evaporated water leaves calcium, limestone and other deposits on the surface of…
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Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#170I used to ask electrical engineers who design building utilities if they ever touched a live wire with voltage running. If not, "how do you know it is really dangerous? How do you know it will electrocute you?" They don't. EVER. Want to talk to me again if they don't have to. #ConventionalIgnorance For reference, I touched 10k volts with microcurrents. It hurts! I touched 240 volts wire and felt the vibrations run up…
> That hurts too much but doesn't kill.
It didn't kill once. Not enough of a sample to draw a firm conclusion from.