YSaC, Vol. 1042: Faster than a (Blu) Ray of Light.
Microwave
Microwave great condition…not needed any more i bought a blue ray player… has a remote and cables. Panasonic makes it.
Can contact me via. text at ###-###-####
He doesn’t need his microwave any more, because he bought a blue ray player? For that to make sense, there are only two possibilities – he was either using his microwave as a DVD player or he is now using his blue ray player as a microwave. Since it’s difficult to imagine him getting the requisite coherent beam from a microwave, the only logical possibility really is the second. (Fortunately* the math is pretty much the same either way.) So what can we determine here?
The wavelength of the laser in a home Blu-Ray player is 405 nm, or 4.05 * 10^-7 m.
The wavelength of microwaves in a typical home oven is 122 mm, or .122 m.
Now the relevant equation here is the relativistic Doppler shift:
where
λo is the wavelength observed by Sparky.
λs is the wavelength emitted by the source appliance.
β is the ratio of the velocity of the appliance to the speed of light: v/c
So if we do the math, we find that in order for a Blu-Ray’s laser light to arrive at the FCC-approved microwave frequency of 2.45 GHz, the hapless home entertainment product would have to be moving away from Earth at 0.99999999997796 times c, or just barely short of the speed of light.
That’s an amazingly high velocity for your average appliance, and well ahead of the record set in 2003 by a toaster moving at .983c.
Note: *fortunately for me, not you.
Thanks for this incredible news, Alexandra!
No wonder my kids were always trying to shove Pop-Tarts and pb & j sammies into the VCR.
They were way ahead of their time.
We had to get a new dvd player because the kiddo broke ours. Or rather, I had to open it up to get the HUGE stack of dvd’s that he’d managed to shove under the tray which is what ruined it.
Did you know that those old style sony dvd players could hold 34 dvds in a nice little stack?
It’s only been recently that I’ve started showing him how the microwave works, but only the popcorn button. ha 🙂
At the risk of outing myself….
I have placed a DVD on top of another in our current DVD player..not once, not twice, not even three times.
I’ve done it FIVE times.
Who does that? I mean, besides me?
Seriously, it’s a problem. I am DVD retarded.
And, it’s not like you can just pull both DVDs out and there you go.
Oh, no…not my player. If you stack one on top of one already in there the bottom one shoves way back inside the player’s mechanism. The retrieval of the errant DVD requires a flashlight, tweezers, patience and a LOT of cursing. A LOT of it.
In my defense, being short and having the player on one of the upper shelves of the entertainment center means I can’t see there’s a DVD in there before I put another one in.
Yes, I could feel around to check for one…but do I? Apparently not…at least five times not.
The solution?
I’m not allowed to load the DVD player anymore.
I’ve done it several times, CJ. Luckily our blu-ray is blonde monkey proof, it just spits the whole works back out at ya.
I might should look this guy up and make him an offer on the microwave. I keep forgetting to monitor ours when I boil water in it. I’ve blown the door open on it twice. Scares the cats so badly that they poop pebbles for days.
Once when I was about six, I loaded two CD-ROMs into our computer’s CD Drive (I do not remember what letter it was, as I was only six) to see what would happen.
Neither CD was functional again.
Way back in the olden day when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, my sister got the very first CD player in our family. Until that point we had record players, cassette tape decks, and a massive stereo with an eight-track player that took up a fair portion of the hall. She showed me how to turn it on and put in the disks and left me to listen to her CDs (both of them) and about an hour later I had to go find her because I thought I had broken her brand-new toy. When she saw what I had done, she laughed so hard I feared for her bladder control.
I had been following along on the back of the CD case and when it reached what I assumed to be the end of side A, I had ejected the disk and turned it over to play side B. Just like I would have a record.
How about this: When our family got our first VCR in the 80s, I would rewind a movie by standing and holding the rewind button on the VCR. Stand there until it was rewound and the machine ejected the tape. I did this for at least 20 movies before I knew better.
Ah blondes – What would civilization do without us, Ghostie?
Wait, that’s not how you were suppose to rewind tapes?
I know, right? Come to find out, you could simply push that rewind button one time, AND THEN LET GO! So much easier! Why, you could go to the little monkeys room or pop some popcorn or go check the mail while that bad boy was rewinding. Unbelievable.
As least these days you have the convenience of dedicated DVD rewinders.
I’m so sad, thinking of all the employees that made the “Be Kind, Please Rewind” labels. What will they do for a job now?
My youngest son enabled me to find out that the quarter capacity of the stock stereo in a Honda Civic Wagon is $6.50 before it shorts out most of the electrical system.
Note that a microwave does make a nifty DVD dryer.
The sparkles mean it’s working!
My blue ray player broke, so now I use it as a blue ray rewinder. It’s nice that I was able to repurpose it so well.
We used to do this regularly back in the days when the odds of a CD burning properly were only slightly more than winning a straight-up inside at the roulette table. When you put one in the microwave for a few seconds, then put it through the laminating machine to seal up the center hole, they make lovely coasters.
Maybe Sparky just bought the Blu-Ray version of this.
Can you set it and forget it?
I think the reason he no longer needs the microwave is that he used the microwave to make popcorn to have as a snack when he would sit down to watch a movie. Now that he has a blu-ray player, with the long load times, endless forced previews and firmware updates, he seldom actually watches movies anymore thus no need for the microwave.
Remote and cables for the microwave… not sure what that’s about.
The remote is to signal to his maid that it’s time to fetch the popcorn out of the Blu-Ray.
I could use a microwave with a remote. Think of the possibilities!
Microwave ON! *click*
Microwave STOP! *click*
Microwave ON! *click*
Microwave STOP! *click*
Microwave ON! *click*
Microwave STOP! *click*
This is no fun anymore.
Microwave STROBE LIGHT! *click*
I think it’s fun again.
*microwave explodes*
Nevermind.
If you burnt your popcorn you can just rewind it a little…
Can I fast-forward my TV dinner? I’m in a hurry.
Never mind that. Can I record a chicken dinner for playback whenever I’m hungry? I know, I know, it’ll never be as high quality as the original, but that’s okay.
I’ve got so many TV dinners stored in memory that I’ll never get around to them. I’m afraid that some will be deleted soon.
If you had a microwave TiVo, you could get a Season Pass for that chicken dinner and have it every week. The microwave TiVo would even record other chicken dinners it thinks you might like.
Earl Grey, hot.
I made the mistake of recording Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.
Ew Hammy! Hubby Monkey loves that show. I have to make him turn it while we eat tho.
Unfortuneately, I have so many meals saved on my Microwave that the system is bogged down. Now it takes over 4 minutes to produce a decent cup-noodle.
You should clean the cookies out of your cache. The crumbs really slow things down.
Not to mention all the ants that attracts.
Have you tried rebooting your microwave? Sometimes that helps. Also, you have to make sure you cook your food thoroughly or you could get viruses.
I’d be much more worried about how the blue-wave-io “extracts” that dinner for re-ah-er-“viewing”
Something Pinky-n-the-Brain nagging about a perpetual Chicken motion machine not going quite right in going altogether too well . . .
Consumer electronics capable of doing the Kessel run in somewhere around 18 parsecs (and improper units of measure) notwithstanding, the answer may actually be much simpler.
You see, Sparky’s parents once owned a VCR. Sparky knew, as did any self-respecting kid, that VCRs love peanut butter sandwiches, and so Sparky would dutifully feed it. Sparky’s mother didn’t like that though. She seemed to think VCRs didn’t need to eat, but Sparky knew better. Just the same, his mother forbade him from feeding the VCR. After a few more feedings (because he just couldn’t stand to led the poor thing starve) and a couple of rather vigorous spankings, Sparky stopped feeding the VCR peanut butter sandwiches.
Then mom got a brand new microwave oven. He didn’t know if microwaves needed to eat, but they had a really big mouth, so he assumed that they probably did. He didn’t know what they usually ate that they needed such a big mouth for, but he fed them peanut butter sandwiches anyway, because that’s what Sparky knew how to make, and the VCR seemed to like them. But feeding the microwave wasn’t fun. You had to manually press buttons to get it to eat, and then it didn’t so much eat as make a hot, gooey mess. But what can you do? Appliances gotta eat.
Well, time passed and Sparky grew from a boy to a man and eventually he had to move out. He bade a tearful goodbye to the microwave, and also his mother, and moved out of the house. He got his own microwave and fed it as often as he fed himself, but life just didn’t seem the same. He missed his mom’s old microwave and worried that it wasn’t getting enough to eat — but more, he missed their old VCR. That VCR was his best friend. He didn’t realize it at the time, but absence making the heart grow fonder as he now understood it did, hindsight provided him with the melancholy nostalgia for his youthfully exuberant days of frolicking in fields of heather with his 4-headed, hi fidelity, movie-playing buddy.
So it happened that he found himself browsing the shelves of his local Target, lamenting the extinction of the VCR when he saw it. A new, shiny, sleek-looking Blu Ray player. Oh sure, he had lived through the days of DVD but at the time he still nurtured an ache in his heart for the consumer electronics of old. But reasons Sparky would never come to fully understand, this Blu Ray player spoke to him, it truly did, no matter what the other shoppers said when he asked them if they heard it, too. There was an instant connection, and all at once he knew they had to be together, and that was only a credit card swipe and protection plan away.
He brought his new Blu Ray player home and freed it from its cardboard-and-styrofoam prison. He looked it straight in the faceplate. It wagged its cord. This, he knew, was love. The pure kind of love, as that between a man and his VCR, something he had not known since he was a child with tender buttocks. He held his new Blu Ray player aloft and spun around in circles until he was dizzy with delight and an inner-ear imbalance. He placed it on the middle rack of his television stand and plugged it all in. The Blu Ray player sprang dutifully to life, blinking and flashing its joy, a joy that echoed within his own heart and multiplied a thousand times until it burst forth in a tearful laugh of unbridled joy that he could not contain, and also a little bit of urine.
But there was no time to change. The Blu Ray player’s tray slid open with a quiet, pleading whirr. Yes, of course. It had been in that box, deprived, for far too long, and he knew just the thing to sate its desires. Sparky headed into the kitchen to get the peanut butter and bread. There he saw his microwave, its gaping maw closed. There was a brief, very slight pang of regret on his heart, but he knew what he had to do.
He had to move out? Or he had to move into the apartment above the garage? The latter sounds a bit more realistic.
He did move into the apartment above the garage for a short time, but after he caused a fire trying to feed his clock radio some chicken noodle soup, he was asked to find accommodations elsewhere.
“since he was a child with tender buttocks”
Um….
Er….
Nevermind. Great story! Srsly!
Glad you liked it! And I’m not a pervy pedo. That was a reference to the spankings he got. Srsly, Pedobear, get the hell out of here. There’s nothing for you here.
Awww…
Bad Pedobear! Back to the cheezeburger site with you!
*points*
No Taco! Think of the kitties! WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE KITTIES?!!!
I always think of the kiddies.
Aghhhhh! Wrong answer! No! No, you perverted little critter!
*squirts with water bottle*
Just why would Pedobear wander over here to YSaCL? Has someone been leaving honey covered toddlers in the lounge? If y’all bring some of those from home keep them covered or put them in the fridge. Jeez, people!
My toddler is frequently sticky, but I think it’s usually juice and stuff. We haven’t given him honey in a while, though I did give him pancakes last night…
I’m frequently covered in honey.
You know, because bees. I don’t know what you were thinking, or indeed are thinking now, but get that dirty mind over to the corner. This is a family floor. And for Bob’s sake would someone get that damn bear away from the picture of Gary Coleman? He’s not a child!
Are you sure it’s not because of the ninjas?
Only the ones wearing heat vision goggles. The honey masks my body temperature.
Everyone knows you catch more ninjas with soy sauce than with honey. If you’re hunting pirates though, honey (preferably fermented into mead) is definitely the way to go.
ninja-bees FTW
Thanks, FM. Now I see Pedobear in a wet t-shit contest.
:looks at Blu-Ray player:
I don’t think I could fit a peanut butter sandwich in mine.
I might be able to squeeze a quesadilla in it though, if I trim the edges first.
If you smoosh the sandwich down flat enough and don’t use too much peanut butter, it’ll fit. I mean, theoretically.
This is why the VCR was invented. Those blu-ray players aren’t worth a damn when it comes to peanut, butter and jelly ker-smooshing.
flatbread peanut butter blu-ray sammich
Was that supposed to be a Google search term?
I like the new Blu-Ray sammiches, they have so many more features and enhancements then the regular old DVD sammiches. They cost more though.
Saddest part of that tale, is that I’ve met (still know <sigh>) people who ascribe such emotions to bred-to-brain-damaged lap-creatures.
They tend to talk to appliances in similar fashion (if with less pantomiming of the responses).
[Insert obligatory Marvin quote here]
If Dan’s comment made anyone else’s head spin, please join me in the “dummie corner”. The coffee slices aren’t very fresh, but there’s a Highlights magazine from 1986 here.
Do I gotta wear that pointy hat?
It made my brain hurt. Like when I poke it too hard with a Q-tip.
Sorry about that. Please enjoy this photo of a baby koala bear instead.
Dan’s working my side of the street!
At least he doesn’t try to hide what he’s doing!
How dare you suggest that I’m hiding things.
Aww, so cute!!!
What were we talking about?
The cuteness, it has wiped my memory!
:looks at photo again:
Awww…
Who are you people again?
I honestly don’t know what you people are talking about.
Actually, the “brian-hurt” was in how we appear to be lacking an axis for the mass-energy curve that is inextricably coupled to relativistic velocities.
Or the asymptote for where bread/breaded products are either soggy or plastinated.
Or the pick-up-stix marketing Math that could prove–without recourse to digits or formulae–that there is a “tipping point” demographic wanting a Blu-Wave Right! Now! with disposable consumer income.
*brains drip out of ears onto the floor*
Whaaa?
Yeah! What the Cap’n said! You know…ninjas!
Right, right, twas brillig and all that…you know, ninjas.
1. From E = MC²
As velocity nears C, both Mass and Energy approach infinity.
Following Dan’s postulation above, as we accelerate Sparky’s putative appliance to the calculated velocity, it will also increase in mass proportionately.
Consider a similar situation, a given amount of pyro, to which is added an equivalent amount of flammable fluids, which are also given a suitable amount of tampering–now recalculate the damage effects radius. You need to have an axis for tamped pyro, then another for pyrobaric effects, all in parallel to the original pyro algorithm.
2. Take slice of bread from freezer. Microwave 01:00 minutes at 10% power and observe. Then, MW 02:00 minutes at 100% power, and observe.
Curve should follow f(x) where x is (limit >drippy-soggy) to (limit <polycarbonate)
3. All Marketing Majors are Math Whizzes. Many to the point of transcending the need for integers at all. Which means they can gleefully postulate that there is an infinitely rich, infinitely-lazy, 18-47 age cohort that would balance a pantry and fridge onto a self-loading blu-ray and MW combination that would produce ad-driven consumer products via remote from the couch. QED ipso facto.
Did you say something about Dan and prostitution?
I’m not following. c is a constant. As mass goes up, so does energy, but I’m not sure how velocity affects that…
AR, recall that C is an exact constant which is (limit 1.0)
Since it’s Mass times velocity squared, you reach a value that is asymptotic to 1.0
if C > 1.0 the E has to become infinite in that nifty way would can divide by infinitesimal amounts right up until they equal zero.
Unless I have the physics wrong–possible, has happened before.
c = speed of light. There is no term for velocity. The equation given above is used for calculating the energy equivalence of an object. If we are stationary observers watching Sparky’s appliances move away from us at nearly the speed of light, relativistic measurements come into play, but I don’t think the mass of the object changes based on its speed.
I also could be wrong. Physics was a long time ago.
Dan, your thoughts?
Hurrah! we’re going into competitive cute pictures of little furry creatures (or food as we Tig …. Not A Lions call them)
PS My proper avatar has returned from its holiday in fractal-land!
Does that mean you’ve been eating the yogurt that makes you regular?
It made my protons spin. Does that count?
Sounds like something someone could go to the corner for.
Protons are nature’s streetwalkers. They really know how to move those quarks.
Up quark! Down quark! Up quark! Down quark! Yes, faster! Next time you can be the bottom.
Aw, I really wanted to be the strange.
Strange is supposed to be best.
Ahem. So I hear. Not that I would know.
Around here, everyone tells you that if you’re ever in the speed of light district, ask for Auntie Quark. She’ll totally destroy you.
Charmed, I’m sure.
just be careful around those muons and leptons–they get up to all sorts of things, waves, particles; as bad as those tachyons!
Movie and popcorn at the same time!
Smartest Sparky OF ALL TIME!
There’s something to be proud of. Rates right up there with being the Monarch of Manure Mountain.
I was the archduke of Manure Mountain for a time, but the peasants were revolting, so I quit.
Bandini?
I was Mayor of Monarch Mountain for a term, right after my tenure as Sheriff of Shite Shoals. They have a statue of me in their square. A monkey on a pile of poop. Mama Monkey was so proud.
A blue ray player is much less interesting to watch than a microwave with a turntable. The player just sits there and blinks after the tray closes; the microwave adds spinning action and steam. However, a front-loading washing machine with a glass door is even better entertainment.
The dryers at the landromat beat that.
And for the ultimate entertainment? The snowcone machine!
Nope – the best ever is a cotton candy machine.
It’s sugary, swirly, fluffy awesomeness!
Nope. Clearly none of you have ever seen a ramen making machine in action. It’s about the only time your brain will ever form the words “river of noodles.” Well, outside of one of my stories, maybe.
Ramen…..making…..machine? Yummm…
Well, not the small kind. The big, commercial kind. Like this.
Heard of an incident, where some bored-from-not-having-a-BluWave-types went to the thrift store and got various vegetable-patch dolls and “salted” the dryers in several laundromats.
Apparently, seeing a babby-shape spinning in a drier excites some folks.
Miscreants were shocked to discover this.
I got ALL y’all beat.
Watching paint dry – best.entertainment.ever.
I myself am partial to watching the grass grow.
Here in Tennessee, it’s all about watching bug zappers. When anyone in the neighborhood gets a new one they throw a BBQ and have everyone over to watch it. The food is incredible: The burgers have that extra crunchy I-don’t-know-what taste to them, and people will get all fancy and throw raisins in the coleslaw and fruit salad. They go all out I’m telling ya.
You stole my comment.
*Tsk Tsk* Dan!
You forgot to carry the Sparky, it put your end result off by at least half a Nebraska.
*Pumps the equation into his catulator, and adjusts for the Sparky Quotient*
Add in the lambada, the forbidden dance… summarize Prost…
“Meatball parade”
There you see? You were off by a whole wildebeest wearing a badger.
Meatball parade. Don’t they have that during pride week?
Mmm… meatball pride…
**shakes himself**
Anyhow.
Taco, you silly chinchilla, you forgot to divide by the square root of the Watusi!
And then you have to multiply by the electric boogaloo…
Larch+cos(elebenty)i²
**plugs into catulator**
And the answer is…
A polygon! An ex-parrot!
Silly Chinchilla for band name of the day!
Silly Chinchilla is IF’s Modest Mouse cover band.
It’s spelled Microwave, but it’s pronounced Disaster Waiting to Happen.
Help! I have updated the box with Irregular Fractal, but it won’t show up here. I saved it, and I can go back and open the box and the update is there, but it’s not showing on my screen. Anyone see IR instead of the Capn?
Still seeing Capn in TacoLand.
Cap’n still on deck here.
(Aside: “On deck” but not “At Bat” is the 37 month story of my life)
Was IF when I got here.
I just refreshed twice and I still see Cappy.
Methinks our Cappy is onto something. He’s not giving up his kingdom so easily.
We all knew it would happen someday. Box kingdom is highly coveted land. It was only a matter of time before someone siezed it for their own so they could sit back and watch the box set of Designing Women in peace.
Of course you know, this means war.
It’s wabbit season!
Ooh, it does!? I finally get to use all that Command and Staff College training!? Cool!!
Kabooms! Giant, Earth-Shaking Kabooms! WooHoo!!
[listens]
Oh, dangit
[wanders off, muttering, kicking dirt clods . . . ]
I’m still seeing the Capt.’s quote in the box on the admin end. Let me see if I have better luck.
Edited to add: think I got it.
You did. BBUY.
Thank you! Guess my freeze ray went off accidentally. I may make a subtle change when I get home and see if the problem still exists at my end. Our DSL is through the phone, and Mike had to have the phone company come out and check out an odd noise on the line. Could be related to that. Maybe.
ahEM.
I loaned that to you with the promise that you would be CAREFUL with it.
Sorry, sorry. I will put it back in the case. Sorry. PLEASE don’t tell Bad Horse!
And Hooray! My box-updating skills have been returned!
0.99999999997796c? No problem. Let me just get my sublight trebuchet out of the garage and we’ll be all set.
Oh, and if you’re standing at the corner of Victoria and Peel in Melbourne, Australia, you might want to duck. Now.
I think Sparky dropped some quotation marks there. His VCR has an identity crisis and thinks its a “Microwave.” In order to prevent domestic stress, Sparky agreed to refer to it as such during the Craigslist posting.
“Dude, what are you doing?”
“Watching some movie called “Kettle Corn” on the VCR.”
:pause:
“Ummm … You know that’s a microwave, right?”
“Shhhhh! I think this chick’s getting ready to take her top off!”
:DING!:
Mmmm, popcorn sounds good… (I think I’ve been preoccupied with food lately :-p )
Heh heh. Corn on corn p0rn. With extra butter.
Greeeeat. Now I have this disturbing images of two Beavises bumping uglies screaming “TP FOR MY BUNGHOLE!”
Aaaaand, now I do, too, MF. I’ll be sending you my therapy bill. 8)
So, you are suggesting this is a Bulwer-Lytton contender for worst “Fake Adult Services” ad?
Would explain the remote and cords references, though . .
I can heat up pizza in my blu ray? This is a cause for celebration.
Yay, it’s a party!
:pops popcorn in iPod:
There’s an app for that?
Would you believe yes? Yeah, you’d probably believe yes. There’s a (cr)app for everything.
Just like how in Japan there’s a vending machine for everything. There was one for beer in the hotel when I was there. It was epic.
Dan, I love your commentary! The snark here is very tasty on it’s own, but the topping of nerdery is what makes this site my favorite.
I know, right? Of course, I think if I understood one iota it’d be a LOT funnier.
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Zip-A-Dee-A
My oh my what a wonderful microwave
Plenty of movies I have to play
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Zip-A-Dee-A
Play my blue ray’s in my Amana
It’s the truth
It’s actual
Everything is Spark-tacular
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Zip-A-Dee-A
Wonderful microwave
Wonderful blue ray
Yes Sir
For Sale Cheap
1 toaster used may work or not
contanes many usefull crums
some hole grane some glootan free
i just baught a frisbey and no longer need it
and i got a antipasta maker 2.
BluRay? But I just met Ray!
I’ll be in the corner.
You can call me Ray, or you can call me MisJay, or you can call me Sparky or you can call me snarky, or you can call me BluRay… but ya doesn’t hafta call me PECIL.
Can I call you Betty? If so, you can call me Al.
doo doo doot-doot
doo DOOOO doot-doot
Whatever you do, don’t call me Shirley!
Hey, I know that song – was done by the same guy that did “Bridge Over Troubled Daughters”, right?
IF, I polished the Freeze Ray nice and shiny and glued back on the bit that fell off. Here’s your Punchity Punch Punch!
G’Night, Manure Mountain, Tennessee, and Taco Land!
That microwave will work great with this projection TV I just got! I’m just hoping it comes with a screen.
Q: If β is the ratio of the velocity of the appliance to the speed of light: v/c, what does the r stand for? v/cr is what I have that plays DVDs of the Blu Ray variety. I just need to figure out if it’s moving fast enough. OR should I buy the microwave to be sure?
If you’re driving the v/cr in a cr-v, you might reach the Honda dealership in record time.
And they say Relativity has no practical day-to-day applications…
Digi ahd ghostie, I am sorry to tell you that starting today, no one will get in the box if they have been there before. No exceptions. So clear out your stash and leave quietly. Punchity Punch Punch!
April Fools! LOL I crack me up!
Good Morning, Doc Brown!