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I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

jdstillwater.blogspot.com

191–200 of 331 posts

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#191
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite impressive it kept working for that long, and even more amazing someone was capable of saying "no, let's not cut the power, there might be a problem if we do"

Honestly, that doesn’t surprise me at all. This seems perfectly in line with “I don’t care what it is, or how well I perform it, as long as I have a job.”

Few things in my career have granted me more power faster than taking ownership of decisions.

Some people are so terrified of having to say "I was wrong" that they either will do nothing, or just happily follow decisions that someone else makes. It's one thing when that's a line employee behaving that way, but there are managers so terrified of making a mistake that all they really are is scribes, tracking who said what and who decided what. These weasels don't lead. They don't contribute anything. They just have a quick answer when someone above them asks how this fuckup happened. Well that was Jameson. He decided to do X so clearly it's his fault things broke.

I was in a room once with a guy who was so caught up in the idea of catching me in a gotcha that he had no idea what to do when I said, "yep, that's wrong, and this is how we fix it." His face went through the same roller coaster of emotions that happens when you drop your ice cream cone. I got to say most of what I needed to say before he even recovered. I think I was proudest of keeping a straight face during the entire conversation.

Where has intellectual honesty gone that just being transparent verges on a superpower? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#192

> “Sorry #5, but a toaster is an electrical device, not an electronic one, and I’ve already soaked an electrical device in a fish tank for several hours, while it was running.” Not entirely true. Most modern toasters have some sort of electronics in them

The article is absolutely loaded with falsehoods/misunderstandings.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#193
I put USB keyboards in the dishwasher.

Having done that, I do recommend taking them apart and just washing the upper keycap board, and the elastic membrane underneath it.

The reason I recommend that is that the drying time takes long before all the water is gone from between the contact layers and all the keystrokes are reliable.

If it's okay for the keyboard not to be ready for use for a bunch of days, then you can just wash it as-is.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#194

It 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…

There'a really funny chapter in "Good Eats" by Alton Brown where he has you make your own microwave popcorn (basically put unpopped kernels in a paper bag). It contains a long section on whether it's safe to use a staple to keep the popcorn bag shut in the microwave; he structures it as a dialog with his father, who is a physicist.

He concludes that this specific instance is not unsafe (if you have a turntable, the mass of the staple is low, etc). But then, I've put grapes in a microwave and produced plasma.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#195
post #184
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why not play such games? If it works, it works; if it fails, it only costs $20 to replace at your local Walmart!

Because failure modes of toasters may include fire.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#196
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A toaster (at least a cheap toaster) is an electrical device, not an electronic one, as stated by the author in the article. Please look up the difference if you don't know what it is.

We have toasters that run linux, connect to the internet, and play doom. Explain to me how they aren't electronic devices.

Even cheap toasters (I take toaster apart for fun) have true electronics these days because it's usually cheaper to implement things like timers electronically and if the toaster has a display it certainly has some electronics. But I suspect that the absolute simplest toasters are purely mechanical and electrical.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#197
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite impressive it kept working for that long, and even more amazing someone was capable of saying "no, let's not cut the power, there might be a problem if we do"

Honestly, that doesn’t surprise me at all. This seems perfectly in line with “I don’t care what it is, or how well I perform it, as long as I have a job.”

I don't see how that manager expected to have a job by deciding not to cut power to submerged equipment, and have it flushed of the brine and cleaned, ASAP. It looks completely idiotic/incompetent from where I'm sitting.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just soap, it's good for you. Sorry, but I really can't tell - was that sarcasm?

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…

Wait until you tell people it's not a good idea to wipe-dry the dishes after washing with a rag towel. That's when you start to see true animosity.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#200

It's always interesting to me to see what you can get away with washing/getting wet without ruining it. I bought a bunch of vinyl 45's off of eBay several years ago and they were pretty gross. I stumbled across a forum where someone recommended washing them with water and a little bit of dish soap. As you can probably imagine, a lot of people freaked out in the responses and said it was a terrible idea. I gave it a w…

I've saved a couple keyboards from soda spills by unplugging them immediately, pouring the fluid out and running them through the dishwasher. Doesn't always work the second time, but it works often enough. It's worth a try.
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