alt.hn

2/18/2026 at 9:59:06 PM

My journey to the microwave alternate timeline

 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8m6AM5qtPMjgTkEeD/my-journey-to-the-microwave-alternate-timeline

by jstanley

2/23/2026 at 4:02:40 AM

> 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

by parpfish

2/24/2026 at 12:37:41 AM

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.

by TheFlyingFish

2/23/2026 at 5:30:33 AM

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...

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 8:26:18 AM

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. :)

by taneq

2/23/2026 at 3:15:50 PM

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.

by ebiester

2/23/2026 at 8:35:01 PM

My Grandfather was around in the early days, had a ham call sign from the early 1930s and was involved in the Manhattan Project as a senior non-scientific engineer.

He was also involved in the development of radar/microwave comms after the war.

He and colleagues did the same - warming their hands in front of microwave antennae.

He developed and later died of some unknown neurological issues related to nerve transmission in the early 1990s. He had been exposed to so many different possible dangers that it's impossible to tell.

After he died I helped clean out and save/donate the double-garage full of ham equipment and home-built telescopes - one was ~.75metre diameter and ~3 metres long, just huge - I was just a teen and let most of it go as my grandmother didn't care by then.

There were also many containers of classified documents, related to WWII and after. Those were appropriately dealt with.

I've always HAD microwaves but have been aware of the issues. I'm a ham as well and still occasionally use the morse key he gave me when I was 7. Still miss him, he taught me so much.

72s

by louky

2/23/2026 at 4:53:32 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer

> According to legend, one day while building magnetrons, Spencer was standing in front of an active radar set when he noticed the candy bar he had in his pocket melted. Spencer was not the first to notice this phenomenon, but he was the first to investigate it. He decided to experiment using food, including popcorn kernels, which became the world's first microwaved popcorn. In another experiment, an egg was placed in a tea kettle, and the magnetron was placed directly above it. The result was the egg exploding in the face of one of his co-workers, who was looking in the kettle to observe. Spencer then created the first true microwave oven by attaching a high-density electromagnetic field generator to an enclosed metal box. The magnetron emitted microwaves into the metal box blocking any escape and allowing for controlled and safe experimentation. He then placed various food items in the box, while observing the effects and monitoring temperatures. There are no credible primary sources that verify this story.

by ceejayoz

2/23/2026 at 2:52:46 PM

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!

by sandos

2/23/2026 at 5:11:21 PM

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?)

by WorldMaker

2/23/2026 at 7:43:09 PM

Er - you know a magnetron doesn’t actually spin, right?

by dmd

2/23/2026 at 10:51:18 PM

Ackshully that's not strictly true. Some (very) old models did not rotate the food, but instead rotated the microwave emitter in the top of the cavity.

by estimator7292

2/23/2026 at 8:19:47 PM

As a first approximation of referring to magnetic fields and their flux and inertia, "spins" is still a useful and common word for that. But yes, not necessarily the best technically correct word.

by WorldMaker

2/23/2026 at 3:56:34 PM

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.

by post-it

2/23/2026 at 4:37:15 PM

The magnetron itself has about about 65% efficiency, but the paper conjectures that the longer duration of the pulses is due to defects in the cavity that result in some emission at a lower frequency (1.4 rather than the normal 2.4 GHz), so the energy radiated must be a tiny fraction of the nominal power.

by rnhmjoj

2/23/2026 at 6:44:46 PM

This assumes all the energy is leaked when you open the door, and that the power is constant rather than ramping down. I'm guessing a -lot less- leaks than this.

(And, of course, you don't absorb all of what leaks).

by mlyle

2/23/2026 at 4:12:12 AM

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

by Groxx

2/23/2026 at 4:18:53 AM

The only thing that comes close is trying to stop the fuel pump on a nice round dollar amount.

by parpfish

2/23/2026 at 5:28:13 AM

Supermarket checkout with a round amount feels like winning some lottery, admittedly.

by nakedneuron

2/23/2026 at 9:28:32 AM

You'd think that it would happen around 1% of the time, but it doesn't seem to.

by SpaceNoodled

2/23/2026 at 5:32:36 PM

Prices aren't random, after all.

by randallsquared

2/23/2026 at 8:10:29 AM

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.

by xattt

2/23/2026 at 9:15:16 AM

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.

by Krssst

2/23/2026 at 8:33:17 AM

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.

by taneq

2/23/2026 at 8:03:15 AM

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

by japanuspus

2/23/2026 at 11:51:14 AM

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.

by pjc50

2/23/2026 at 8:47:57 AM

Or why there's not just a switch you can flip to turn the ring off or on.

by AlecSchueler

2/23/2026 at 2:30:25 PM

Many microwave models have this. It's either a dedicated button or holding a specific button down

by TheCoreh

2/23/2026 at 6:58:02 PM

>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.

by mrguyorama

2/23/2026 at 7:40:47 PM

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.

by toast0

2/23/2026 at 4:42:09 AM

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

by soopypoos

2/23/2026 at 6:43:59 PM

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.)

by hobscoop

2/23/2026 at 4:59:58 AM

It’s in the garden?

by parpfish

2/23/2026 at 6:23:07 AM

Six feet under, but those piezoelectric speakers are piercing

by Groxx

2/23/2026 at 7:58:29 AM

The Tell-Tale Beep, by Edgar Allen Poe.

by rmunn

2/23/2026 at 4:48:05 AM

[dead]

by cindyllm

2/23/2026 at 2:49:42 PM

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.

by ragazzina

2/23/2026 at 3:10:42 PM

> 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.

by jihadjihad

2/23/2026 at 7:00:24 PM

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.

by SAI_Peregrinus

2/23/2026 at 5:46:22 PM

In my head, the old CS "counter-terrorist win" soundbyte plays every time.

by parliament32

2/23/2026 at 3:57:52 PM

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.

by Cthulhu_

2/23/2026 at 4:17:02 PM

no_unused_seconds_meme.jpg

by paul_h

2/23/2026 at 4:24:23 AM

You know that you can remove the piezo beeper from the microwave, right? Or add a series resistor to lower the volume.

by db48x

2/23/2026 at 6:10:19 AM

This defeats your training to achieve zero with no beep though, a valuable skill when dealing with any appliance with a timer that beeps.

by anarticle

2/23/2026 at 3:47:11 PM

I pity the poor bastard that lets this skill atrophy, then finds themselves unable to hit a round number while pumping gas

by Rooster61

2/23/2026 at 9:10:07 AM 

    > a valuable skill
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?)

by throwaway2037

2/23/2026 at 7:49:47 PM

> NES Super Marios Brothers 3 with the slot machine game after each level

a) It's either Super Mario Brothers or Super Marios Brother

b) SMB2 (aka Super Mario USA in Japan) has the Bonus Chance slot machine after each level, SMB3 does have the Goal card at the end of each level with a match 3 mechanic, but I don't consider that to really be a slot machine.

by toast0

2/23/2026 at 6:35:17 PM

I used to endorse people for "spiritual warfare". Sadly they removed this feature, and now my friends can't show off their skills.

by anarticle

2/23/2026 at 7:18:16 AM

You can remove the buzzers from all of your appliances and then live in bliss.

by db48x

2/23/2026 at 5:11:20 AM

Most microwaves have a mute function.

by docymant

2/23/2026 at 7:10:54 AM

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.

by db48x

2/23/2026 at 11:49:25 AM

Microwaves that don't beep after 1930 so that $small_child doesn't hear you dinging a bag of popcorn and get out of bed to come downstairs for some to be confronted by whatever scary-ass film you're watching once they've gone to bed.

Edit: file under "design problems you didn't know you had until you became a parent"

by ErroneousBosh

2/23/2026 at 5:37:52 AM

What? No way!

<checks YouTube>

What!

I guess I should have read the docymantasion.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 8:41:34 AM

YouTube and Google are very confident this feature exists but drilling down to my model the answer is no it does not.

I think I'm getting the screwdriver out this weekend.

by XorNot

2/23/2026 at 8:24:45 AM

Your last word brought to mind the science fiction short, "Come You Nigh: Kay Shuns" by Lawrence A. Perkins, which used exactly this technique as an encryption method!

Analog SF, April 1970 - available here: https://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/AN.htm

(BTW, that site is one of the hidden treasures of the Internet, on a par with Archive or Wikipedia...)

by fractallyte

2/23/2026 at 11:33:29 AM

It’s also the handle of the poster who’s comment I replied to 8)

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 9:18:58 AM

I'm surprised no one has mentioned inverter microwaves. Unlike plain old regular microwaves where power settings just adjust the time that the magnetron is running at full blast the inverter ones can actually change the power of the magnetron. Makes it tons easier to cook food evenly and calmly. Never am I buying again one without.

It's kinda hard to find them though. Most manufacturers hardly list this but Bosch seems to have inverters in most of their mid and higher-end ones. My favourite is the Bosch BFL634GB1. Bosch BFL7221B1 was a huge downgrade due to the shitty touch screen and wheel along with a multi-second boot time.

by tambre

2/23/2026 at 10:45:02 AM

This explains a lot, American microwaves have these settings for different types of food etc, it seems most people throw something in and just 'nuke it'. European microwave ovens on the other hand, have a setting for different wattages (90W up to 720W 'Max' in my case), which, combined with instructions in the recipe or on the box, provide the right setting for this particular food.

by mahrain

2/23/2026 at 11:00:05 AM

Are you sure that European microwaves actually use continuous power at those wattages and not also "simulate" the wattage by using short bursts of a fixed power?

by notachatbot123

2/23/2026 at 11:32:05 AM

Some have inverters for continuous power adjusting, others turn on and off the magnetron.

In any case, all that I have ever used have 2 dials, one for power and one for time (and a button to allow to chain multiple time intervals, each with a different power level). I have always used only these 2 dials and I have never used any other buttons that may exist for preset programs.

For many years I have used microwave ovens only for reheating food. Now I consider that I was stupid and I cook all the food that I eat in a microwave oven, from raw ingredients.

This is much better than by traditional means, because it is much faster and perfectly reproducible. Moreover, cooking in a microwave oven removes the need for continuous or periodic stirring that is required in many traditional cooking methods, because the microwave-cooked food is homogeneous (without lumps etc.) even with no stirring, if the time and power level are chosen correctly.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 11:28:43 AM

They switch the magnetron on and off, unless they have inverters I guess. I have seen the two knob ones (and I prefer these) and the fancy ones, which all have cryptic user interfaces and usually no manual next to them.

by ahartmetz

2/23/2026 at 1:53:54 PM

American microwaves almost always have a fairly easy way to change the power level, it's just nobody bothers to use it.

by cwmma

2/23/2026 at 11:53:32 AM

Rtings has a post saying that they aren't effective: https://www.rtings.com/microwave/learn/research/microwave-in...

Curious to hear more about your personal experience

by elil17

2/23/2026 at 3:03:50 PM

Read that and got to this ludicrous claim:

> The inverter models are marginally better at converting the total power they draw from an outlet (the apparent power) to useful work (the active power). However, your residential electricity bill is calculated based on active power use, so an inverter microwave won't save you any money.

If any power company has the ability, much less the inclination, to not charge you for your appliances waste heat that would be news to me.

by margalabargala

2/23/2026 at 5:31:46 PM

I’m trying to figure out how they misinterpreted things to come up with that statement. Maybe they are mixing up start-up draw and constant draw? Idk

by tired_star_nrg

2/23/2026 at 10:55:03 PM

Power factor is the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me. Utilities don't typically bill you for bad power factor unless you're an industrial power consumer.

I don't know offhand what the power factor of a microwave looks like, but I bet it's not great. I can see an inverter style having better power factor.

by estimator7292

2/23/2026 at 8:31:08 PM

Yeah, I have no idea. The article was published in late 2024, maybe they used a late 2024 LLM to help write it? Seems like the sort of confident-but-obviously-wrong mistake that was common back then.

by margalabargala

2/23/2026 at 6:51:47 PM

I love inverter microwaves so much. I got a cheap one at Target for maybe $100 or so. I almost never use full power, typically I go for 50% or 60%. Food heats through evenly, every time.

I try and tell friends about it and they all think I am crazy. I've had more luck with induction cook tops, probably because there is more general buzz around them.

I really with Alex on Technology Connections would do a video on inverter microwaves to get the word out!

by com2kid

2/23/2026 at 11:22:41 AM

I wonder why microwaves can't work like modern radio transmitters. Magnetrons generate ~2.4 GHz radio waves using resonance and a strong magnetic field acting on free electron orbits. That was necessary in the 1940s for radar transmitters. But today, solid state electronics generate 2.4 GHz (and higher) waves without any trouble - cf. WiFi and Bluetooth hardware. I'm not the first to have this question, and it looks like there is some ongoing work. https://www.digikey.com/en/blog/will-the-microwave-ovens-mag...

by ahartmetz

2/23/2026 at 11:00:26 PM

Magnetrons are cheap, reliable, and work well enough. Their one and only job is to produce energy at about 2.4GHz, and to make a lot of it. You merely put in electricity and through the magic of geometry you get RF out.

A transistorized solution is, simply, inappropriate. The RF section alone will cost more than an entire microwave off the shelf, and plus that you need all the control circuitry and high speed crap to generate a 2.4GHz tone. Not to mention that putting kilowatts through silicon creates a much higher risk of catastrophic failure: transistors blowing out into a plume of plasma and such.

You're asking why we haven't reinvented the wheel. There's simply no improvement to be had.

You want high power RF in a given frequency band, you want a magnetron. It's just a lump of iron with some wires. You don't need any electronics. At all.

by estimator7292

2/23/2026 at 11:46:53 AM

Because transistors for generating even very low microwaves like 2.4GHz are extremely expensive comparatively speaking, and don't produce much power. They're good, though, because you can produce very precisely tuned and modulated signals and very precisely controlled output powers - as long as they're less than a couple of watts.

A cavity magnetron is a block of metal with some holes drilled in, two bits of glass glued on, and all the air sucked out. They're hard to tune to exact frequencies and hard to regulate to exact powers, and modulation is as you've already discovered kind of limited to just turning them on and off - but they're extremely cheap to make, last a very long time, and require minimal support circuitry to generate double-digit kilowatts of RF.

You don't need to be cock on frequency to heat up a pie.

by ErroneousBosh

2/23/2026 at 12:34:36 PM

Now there are gallium nitride microwave transistors that can produce very high microwave power at very high efficiency. So that is no longer a limitation.

Microwave ovens with such transistors have been demonstrated, which have the advantage of modulating the microwaves in such a way as to achieve a more uniform heating throughout the oven, than can be achieved with the fixed-frequency magnetrons.

At least for now, such microwave ovens with transistors might be encountered only in some professional applications, because these transistors together with the associated control circuits remain much more expensive than magnetrons.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 4:43:53 PM

They would be ridiculously expensive compared to a cavity magnetron and have no real advantage though.

by ErroneousBosh

2/23/2026 at 6:20:38 PM

They are ridiculously expensive, but there was an article in a magazine that said that a certain vendor of ready-to-eat food uses for cooking its food an industrial microwave oven with gallium nitride transistors instead of a magnetron.

Like I have said, the advantage of transistors is that it is easy to modulate in frequency the microwaves. This avoids to have standing waves inside the oven, which cause cold spots and hot spots, so they ensure that heating is uniform everywhere in the oven.

I assume that this advantage is more important for a big industrial oven, where many portions of food are cooked simultaneously and it is desired that all of them are cooked uniformly.

But for home users, magnetrons will not be replaced any time soon.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 12:17:52 PM

Ah, thanks, good to know. I thought solid state power electronics had come down in price more than they apparently did. I guess it's high frequency plus high power that's still expensive. For not so high frequencies (< 1 MHz), mass production for ubiquitous switched-mode power supplies and electric cars has surely brought down the price.

(Side note, modern very high power radio transmitters might also still use some vacuum tube technology - my latest information is that there's a slow transition going on)

by ahartmetz

2/23/2026 at 11:39:51 AM

Isn't that just the power % option? I don't think mine is fancy but I can adjust the power %

by candiddevmike

2/23/2026 at 11:52:05 AM

Unless you have an inverter microwave it simply adjusts the % of the time that the magnetron is turned on. So at 50% you will have the magnetron at full blast 700W for 5 seconds and then 5 seconds off (or similar timestemps). On older microwaves you may be able to hear the magnetron cycling between being on and off.

by tambre

2/23/2026 at 5:44:44 PM

I have a new microwave and can definitely hear the magnetron cycling, but it's a fairly subtle difference in sound.

by tmp10423288442

2/23/2026 at 10:33:21 AM

I want a variable power ("inverter") microwave with two rotary knob. One for power, and one for timing.

I hate every microwave I have ever had the displeasure to operate during my lifetime, except the old stuff witn the teo mechanical knobs.

With a rotary encoder we can get second precision and minute granularity at the same time.

Is that time for a Kickstarter?

by bombela

2/23/2026 at 11:40:31 AM

I had until now (in Europe, for somewhat more than the last 2 decades) a couple of Panasonic microwave ovens.

Both of them match your description. They had some other buttons, which I have never used. Besides the 2 rotary knobs, I use 3 buttons: start, stop and a button for chaining multiple time intervals, each with a different power level.

I cook all the food that I eat in the microwave oven, from raw ingredients.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 11:53:06 AM

Breville BMO850BSS

by Gibbon1

2/23/2026 at 10:35:02 AM

Sign me up!

by mietek

2/23/2026 at 4:57:06 AM

Restaurants are doing more of this than most people think.

Here's an article from the head chef from a commercial microwave oven company, on how to get more done faster.[1] Commercial microwave ovens have about 2KW-3KW of power, and some of them have true variable power, not the on/off thing most home microwave ovens use. "I’ve shown teams how to make mug cakes, molten chocolate brownies, and steamed puddings with just a microwave. The reactions are always the same: "I had no idea a microwave could do that.”"

[1] https://totalfood.com/revolutionizing-microwave-cooking-comm...

by Animats

2/23/2026 at 5:05:59 AM

In 1986 I briefly lived in a squat in North London, and the gas had been disconnected. We cooked everything in the Microwave, and we ate nutritious and completely unexpected (to me) normal meals, like Lasagne made with dried pasta, which uses cottage cheese to boost the moisture content so the sheets of Pasta soften. I appreciate at this point some people are saying "normal??" but truly, compared to the alternatives, using a more liquid cheese to make a meal which conforms in all other respects to your expectations, was huge.

(gas reconnection was hard. Electricity, for reasons I never entirely understood, was easy to get reconnected to squats, at the time)

My co-occupants had a lot more experience than I of this life on the edge. I learned a lot.

by ggm

2/23/2026 at 9:56:44 AM

Most convection ovens are electric, not sure why you needed the gas...

by mgaunard

2/23/2026 at 10:56:11 AM

In 1985, a microwave was affordable and portable, if you had to do a rapid flit. If a house was set up for gas, then the stove (which typically was left in a house) was gas.

If you were illegally occupying a house scheduled to be demolished, with only electricity and a judges order to quit over your head, what would you do? Go and buy a full oven or cook in a microwave?

by ggm

2/23/2026 at 1:16:56 PM

I wouldn't be squatting in the first place, and I personally always invested in improving whatever place I was living in even if just renting.

So it's difficult for me to relate to those issues.

by mgaunard

2/23/2026 at 7:17:11 AM

> The actual recipe section starts with the recipe for a bowl of cereal, which I am 70% sure is a joke

For years, I would get up insanely early and be the first in the office, with no-one around other than the cleaners. My breakfast every day would be microwave-cooked oats - but it wasn't quite as easy as the recipe from the book makes it out to be, mostly because of the milk.

Unlike water, when you heat up milk to a high temperature in the microwave, it behaves just like it does on the stove top: it wants to crawl out of the container and nicely spread itself everywhere.

So, I developed sort of a technique that consisted of short bursts of microwaving at full blast, then stopping and stirring, and back in with bowl. I repeated that a few times, but after I had the technique down, it didn't require much attention any more, it worked quite reliably.

The oats got cooked nicely, and thanks to the pectin of an apple that I also added in, it also thickened. (And in case you wonder, the apple's acidity does sometimes split the milk somewhat, but in most cases it doesn't.) However, there's definitely a difference in smoothness between microwaved oat meal and one that's made slowly on the stove top - the latter being much nicer in texture.

But it was a quick breakfast that I really enjoyed (with a dash of cinnamon) at my desk every morning while I was going through my email from the night before.

by kleiba

2/23/2026 at 8:29:33 AM

Every microwave I’ve ever looked at from a distance, or actually used, has the ability to set the power level, typically in 10% increments.

The typical workflow is: power button > number button 1-9

My daily driver is a bit more fancy, and has a single button to cycle through the available power settings.

For your milk oats I’d suggest a power setting around 30 to 40% and increasing the cooking time by a factor of 2.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 6:56:45 PM

The majority of those microwaves pulse the power on and off at intervals, sometimes very long intervals (measured in seconds!).

Good microwaves, with an inverter (see the thread above!) actually adjust the power being output. You can evenly heat a cup of liquid to any desired temp using these microwave ovens. They are well worth the few extra $s (although mine actually cost less than a fancy smart microwave!)

by com2kid

2/23/2026 at 8:36:51 AM

Sure, but you want to go as hot as possible to get the oats cooked. Besides, I wanted to be as quick as possible. Like, quick oats, you know? ;-)

by kleiba

2/23/2026 at 10:57:43 AM

The power setting just pauses the power for % time like your doing manually. I do 70% for my oats in a big bowl so the bubbles die down before the power repeats.

by koolala

2/23/2026 at 11:00:43 AM

I would have to try that but since I never measured exact amounts, I preferred to pause upon visual inspection, as in: as soon as the milk started bubbling, I stopped and stirred.

by kleiba

2/23/2026 at 6:32:33 PM

Nah, sorry, I don’t know.

Rolled oats don’t need to be cooked.

If you want soft outs you can soak them over night in the fridge.

No heat required.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 8:01:34 PM

The starch in the oats get released when you heat them up which is the reason the oat meal becomes creamy. The pectin from the apples helps, too.

by kleiba

2/23/2026 at 10:59:58 PM

That isn’t an argument against my claim that rolled oats don’t need to be cooked.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 11:06:10 AM

What you say is true, but good microwave ovens have fine-enough power control to avoid any such problems caused by milk and also the problems caused by exploding eggs or exploding meat (which happens when you cook raw meat, instead of just reheating already cooked meat).

The great advantage of microwave ovens is that even if the first time when you cook something that you have not cooked before, you must experiment carefully to find the optimum time and power level for a given amount of food ingredients, once you have determined good values you can use them forever with perfect reproducibility and the food will be good every time and there will be no incidents with food exploding or overflowing in the oven.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 7:43:16 AM

I'd never make porridge with water at home - but in winter in the office I used to cover a 1/3 bowl of oats with boiling water and then microwave for just 30 seconds.

Once the oirriois cooked (it really should be already) add a teaspoon or two of salted butter to the middle and stir, then sugar to taste.

Suprisingly delicious, quick and repeatable.

I won a few people over who couldn't believe that porridge made with water would be any good, but it was a great winter staple, especially after cycling in, in the cold.

by ljf

2/23/2026 at 8:31:12 AM

Oats with water is like oats with oat milk.

Revelation hey.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 12:25:59 PM

a surprising amount of people disagree with that!

by bnlxbnlx

2/23/2026 at 7:10:51 PM

It’s not milk unless it comes from the ancient traditional cows from the Milk region in France.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 8:09:11 PM

As a USian, I disbelieve in Geographical Indications in food names, thank you very much. There's no reason to restrict Easy Cheese vendors to cheese processors in the Easy region of Wisconsin or for Cheez Whiz to be limited to the Whiz region of Chicago. :P

by toast0

2/23/2026 at 8:23:18 AM

Another easy microwave win is polenta, I sometimes make a polenta-ish porridge with masa flour because its more nutritious and the taste is nice.

by urikaduri

2/23/2026 at 11:13:04 AM

Indeed, making polenta and any other kinds of porridge is so much better than with the traditional means.

When polenta is made traditionally, you have to stir it continuously, which keeps you occupied and can even be physically demanding. In a microwave oven, you can make perfectly homogeneous polenta without any mixing (except for a few seconds, before putting the vessel in the microwave oven).

You can also bake bread in a microwave oven, and it grows tremendously with yeast or with baking powder. Even without a leavening agent, unleavened bread still grows well enough in a microwave oven, if you use excess water for the dough.

Nowadays, my standard breakfast consists of a polenta made in a microwave oven, which contains not only maize meal, but also sunflower seeds and whey or milk protein concentrate, so that it has an adequate balance of starch and protein, while also providing my daily intake of essential linoleic acid and vitamin E. After this breakfast, I am not hungry again until late in the evening, when I have my main meal.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 8:26:13 AM

My technique for oatmeal is to warm 1 cup of milk in the microwave with the oatmeal, and boil a cup of water in the kettle. Then add the water to the porridge and mix.

by urikaduri

2/23/2026 at 7:40:48 AM

My solution was to half the requested liquid for a thick oatmeal. Ok, thick is underselling it, it’ll be quite dense. Add cinnamon and chopped dates.

by asciimov

2/23/2026 at 9:32:55 AM

That recipe uses a tablespoon of sugar!!

by arethuza

2/23/2026 at 10:32:34 AM

I use no sugar as the apple has enough sweetness.

by kleiba

2/23/2026 at 4:59:21 PM

For whatever reason, I have an 8" floppy disk with one of these microwave cookbooks on it. Mine seems to be (part of?) one called "The Guaranteed Goof-Proof Microwave Cookbook" by Margie "Microwhiz" Kreschollek.

Sadly, I've never been able to read the book in the correct order as I don't know what system it came from - it's something that is single-sided, 77 tracks, FM (single density) encoded with 26 sectors/track, but the text is there in a hex editor.

It makes it pretty obvious that it isn't a joke or trick; someone saw it fit to fill up a 250kB disk with this, so somebody must have thought it was a good idea.

In an unrelated endeavour, my dad told me he once tried to cook an entire turkey in one of those huge 80's microwaves. He said it didn't turn out very good.

by alnwlsn

2/23/2026 at 7:27:04 PM

The number one feature of modern microwaves that I appreciate is the humidity sensor. Figure out if your microwave has one, and it opens up a whole world of better solutions.

Know the popcorn button? Ever wondered why every popcorn manufacturer tells you not to use it, or, if you don't make a habit of taking orders from a paper bag, why it works on some microwaves, but fails miserably on others, either burning the popcorn to a crisp or, more often, leaving half the kernels unpopped? Humidity sensor. In microwaves with a humidity sensor, the microwave runs until the humidity stops rising, (which means the kernels stopped popping) then stops (well, actually mine sets ~30 second timer, then stops). This produces perfect popcorn every time. Doesn't matter the brand of popcorn, it just works.

Unfortunately, because this feature was so great, it got imitated on every microwave, regardless of whether it has a humidity sensor or not. On those microwaves, it just sets a flat timer, which cannot adapt to variations in popcorn. Since popcorn manufacturers have no idea which camp your microwave falls into, and can't assume you have any idea either, they just tell people to neglect a fantastic feature.

by OkayPhysicist

2/23/2026 at 9:06:11 PM

Any recommended global brand with humidity sensor?

by zakki

2/23/2026 at 9:41:37 PM

I have some Panasonic microwave that was in the apartment when I got it, and I know LG has it on at least some of their microwaves. Keyword to look for is something along the lines of "Sensor reheat" (which uses the same sensor for reheating food).

by OkayPhysicist

2/23/2026 at 3:40:08 AM

Excellent article. "Tradwife futurism" is a brilliant term.

I'm worried I'm going to burn a hole in my wallet searching for a pyroceram skillet that I'll end up using for a week and then forget about it.

by messe

2/23/2026 at 3:54:48 AM

I’m suddenly in desperate need of a pyroceram skillet too. I’d love to be able to make proper cheeseburgers with grilled onions one at a time without using a stove or grill.

On the other hand my brother in law got himself one of those smokers that burns wood pellets. I could buy one of those and eat nothing but smoked pork shoulder for the rest of my life.

by db48x

2/23/2026 at 4:14:08 AM

Yeah, I now need a pyroceram skillet too!

But as the solo meat-eater human in my apartment, I ended up buying a gas-canister camping grill to barbecue steaks on my terrace on weekends and then I reheat the rare steaks through the week in the microwave. They get the Maillard reaction and flavor, they get to the correct doneness point when blasted with RF later on.

Cats get happy with the barbecuing, I also grill mushrooms and tofu for my wife and it’s very easy to clean afterwards.

by rescbr

2/23/2026 at 12:03:17 PM

I do not care much about the Maillard flavor, so even when I was using a gas grill I was using the kind with indirect heating, where the grill is enclosed in a box that has one opening on the bottom, where you put the flame. The opening is laterally from the grill, not under it, and it has a wall separating the grill from the flame.

With such a grill, the meat is cooked only by the hot air that comes from the flame without contact with something at higher temperatures, so the meat is browned only moderately at most.

Nowadays, I can cook meat in a microwave oven in a way that makes it pretty much equivalent with the meat cooked using that kind of grill with indirect heating.

I cut the meat in bite-sized pieces and I put them in a glass vessel covered by a glass lid, without adding water or anything else, except salt and seasonings spread on the meat.

Then I cook the meat in the microwave oven, using a low power, e.g. 400 W, and long times, e.g. 20 to 25 minutes for chicken meat and around 30 minutes for turkey meat.

I consider that meat cooked in this way has an optimum taste, but of course preferences vary.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 12:03:24 PM

Coleman stove. Mine lives in the back of my elderly Range Rover along with the recovery gear, a kettle, some dixies, and some basic staples (tea, coffee, aeropress, instant noodles). I've always got a few litres of drinking water, and in any case I live in Scotland where you're generally not terribly far from perfectly drinkable water that's just sitting right there on the ground often spilling majestically over rocks and waterfalls which are slippy as hell when you go to fill the dixies and which you will get to experience right up close, considerably closer than you intended.

There is nothing like sitting on the tailgate up at a remote hilltop site on a pleasant spring day, drinking a cup of tea outside in the sunshine while you wait for the third attempt at a firmware recovery on a radio repeater to finish, contemplating chucking some sausages on for lunch.

Except, possibly, sitting inside the transmitter shed has it gets buffeted by storm winds listening to the rain battering against the roof and drinking a nice hot cup of cocoa as you wait for the 17th attempt at a firmware recovery to finish.

And if you run out of the expensive special magic Coleman fuel, it runs just as well on mogas so you can pop the inlet hose off the injector rail, scoosh some into the stove tank, and get right on back to cooking your dinner.

Me? No, I'm going to be out on site all day long, I won't be in your Teams call. Tell you what, want to come with? It'll be good for you to see some of the hardware in use. Grab a steak or something to do for lunch.

by ErroneousBosh

2/23/2026 at 7:02:02 PM

Many of my good memories of youth have a green coleman stove with the red fuel tank somewhere in sight. I was often the one tasked with pumping it up.

[edit] youth...not you. That read weird.

by kjs3

2/23/2026 at 7:01:47 AM

>Pyroceram is a specialized,, white or slightly amber-tinted, opaque glass-ceramic developed by Corning in the 1950s, known for extreme thermal shock resistance and high-temperature tolerance up to 1292 ∘ F It has near-zero thermal expansion, making it ideal for cookware, cooktops, wood stove doors, and, historically, missile nosecones.

Didn’t expect the missile nosecone.

by Mistletoe

2/23/2026 at 8:10:18 AM

Inbound anecdote.

Dad worked for Corning; when they hired him, he bought a house one town over. It came with a Corning electric range in the kitchen. This was effectively four electrical resistance grids embedded in a giant sheet of pyroceram.

Like an induction cooktop, there is no visible indication that the "burners" are "lit", unless you looked at the control panel off to the side.

Somewhat like an induction cooktop, only certain cookware was compatible with it. Luckily, the primary requirement was "the bottom needs to be flat". You might be surprised at the number of pots which have concave bottoms... or develop them over time.

UNlike an induction cooktop, it does get up to arbitrarily high blackbody temperatures.

Pretty much every accident you can think of synthesizing from these conditions occurred. Nobody in my family would ever buy one. (I love lots of other Corning products.)

Oh, and as for the easy-to-clean surface? Very true... as long as you ignore the case of scorched proteins. Anything else, you wait for everything to cool and then wipe it with a slightly soapy sponge, then mop with a damp cloth. I don't remember the night the grey scorchmark appeared, but it lasted about fifteen years. Then Dad sold the house.

by dsr_

2/23/2026 at 9:58:18 AM

Cookware that isn't flat is usually because it is warped, which happens if you mistreat your cookware with thermal shock.

by mgaunard

2/23/2026 at 8:48:23 AM

Razor blade scraper.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 9:03:45 PM

Is Corning glass the one used in smartphone?

by zakki

2/23/2026 at 7:38:25 AM

Neither did Gottfried

by fgfarben

2/23/2026 at 4:56:01 AM

The skillet sounds cool but I'd rather not have to deal with a microwave door and control panel for searing stuff. I do, however, frequently use it in ways that others find unconventional:

- Cooking dry goods (quinoa, freekeh, couscous)

- Single-serving coffee mug surprises (omelettes, protein brownies)

- Low-carb cheese crisps (via parchment paper)

- Not-fried rice (day-old rice, light sesame oil, soy sauce, bits of egg, leftover veggies, random seasonings)

- Frozen breaded chicken (wrap really well in paper towels to absorb moisture, overshoot on time, unwrap as soon as they're out to avoid sticking - they come out like 66% as crispy as using a convection oven)

I do draw the line at pasta because the texture never seems quite right when you boil it in the microwave.

by alexjplant

2/23/2026 at 9:13:30 AM 

    > they come out like 66% as crispy as using a convection oven
Can you throw them in an air fryer for the last few mins to achieve 100% crispiness but in much less time?

by throwaway2037

2/23/2026 at 7:56:56 AM

For pasta: you can make it fresh so it only needs 2-3 minutes to cook, boil water in the microwave, and cook the pasta itself in that heated water (ie, on the counter as it cools from boiling). Like making instant ramen, but fresh pasta — throw in a stock cube and you can serve in the bowl you cook the pasta in.

by zmgsabst

2/23/2026 at 9:42:40 AM

Very readable. Loved it. Perfect for the too online tech audience and brings magic of 70s/80s futurism with a nod to current AI and Cryptocurrency freaks with the use of "Maximalists". If you are a Gen X geek this is really fun read.

by tokenless

2/23/2026 at 7:03:07 AM

Amazon will be happy to sell you a less impressive, but also less "rare historical artifact" microwave browning dish for $20 or so.

by khafra

2/23/2026 at 6:57:46 PM

A microwave lifehack I recently learned:

If you're gonna brown some onions, microwave them for a bit before tossing them into the pan. The first step of browning onions is just boiling away the water, which microwaves are great at. You may find that it begins to brown sooner this way.

by ufo

2/23/2026 at 6:59:04 AM

I feel like 80% of the microwave's downfall was adopting VCR-like push button interfaces.

The two dial microwave was peak UX. Quick, painless, no wondering what sequence to press on a strange 'wave, zero time delay between input and cooking, and easy use of the (essential) power function.

It even lets you change time or power mid-cook. For maximum laziness it's possible to leave the door cracked with time on the dial, throw in the food, and adjust the dial while it's already on (slightly reducing the wait before eating). Using the microwave becomes forgiving instead of foreboding, because it's so easy to change your mind.

The only downside is that it's slightly less precise, but getting the exact time down to the second is probably less important than you think. It's also a mechanical part to fail, but I've had microwaves die because the push buttons failed too, whereas my dial unit is still going strong. YMMV

by schiffern

2/23/2026 at 7:52:52 AM

There are some use cases where exact time is very important. Warming milk for a baby for instance - it’s pretty low volume and the difference between 30s and 40s is huge. I used to favour the 2 knob microwave, but since having to do that a lot I’d always choose a digital timer. Some have decent interfaces.

by leoedin

2/23/2026 at 7:24:18 AM

We are repeating this same UX mistake with induction hobs now.

by danw1979

2/23/2026 at 7:32:10 AM

I noticed, it's an unfortunate regression.

What's amazing is how the vibe of using the microwave completely changed. Before it was:

"Okay, how much time?? I've gotta get this right, I only get one shot. Think!!"

to:

"Probably 2 minutes." moves knob, cooking starts "Eh, maybe 90 seconds actually." moves knob again

That alone probably reduces the error rate, and it certainly reduces annoyance.

With the new stoves, I've noticed people are starting to dread using their stove the same way they dread the microwave. Hopefully we can fix both.

by schiffern

2/23/2026 at 8:18:47 AM

At least there's a good reason there - they're easier to clean. That's not much of a concern with microwave controls.

But I disagree with the idea that we don't need precise times on a microwave. The article / book disagrees with that, and the think I most regularly microwave (milk for my kids) needs 1 minute 50 seconds. 2 minutes and they'll reliably complain it's too hot.

The real problem with microwave UX is that the interfaces are often simply bad. People think the power/time dial interface is good but that's because it's difficult to mess it up (though they usually manage anyway by having them go up to 30 minutes or whatever).

It's really easy to mess up a button interface but you can also do it well. My microwave is close to doing it really well. You press a high/med/low button, then 1s/10s/1m/10m buttons to the desired time, then start. The only things they got wrong are that it requires pressing the power when 99% of the time you want high, and you could probably get a more useful distribution of time increments (I'm literally never going to use the 10m button).

But apart from that it's nicer than dials, which are often very cheap and imprecise.

by IshKebab

2/23/2026 at 8:56:13 AM 

  >they're easier to clean
I've never had an issue cleaning the dials. They're smooth hard plastic, and they don't get particularly dirty.

  >though they usually manage [to mess up the interface] anyway by having them go up to 30 minutes or whatever
What's the issue? I've microwaved that long before.

  >My microwave is close to doing it really well. You press a high/med/low button, then 1s/10s/1m/10m buttons to the desired time, then start.
We're very different people! That UX sounds dreadful to me, one of the worst I've heard (and unfortunately encountered).

Enter time on the keypad, optionally press Power and enter that, press Start. Also needs a Plus 30s button. This is the one and only correct way to implement a push button microwave. ;)

I count five presses instead of 3 to get 90 seconds, including one way that's just pressing the same button 3 times (+30s).

  >needs 1 minute 50 seconds. 2 minutes and they'll reliably complain it's too hot.
Seven presses?

The dial microwave I use can distinguish between those two. It helps that the shorter times are given more room, so you can adjust them more precisely. 1:50 vs 2:00 will make a difference in my experience, but 7:50 vs 8:00 generally won't.

You could have a hybrid approach of course, but then I suspect the engineering tendency would be to "lock in" the time after starting the oven, so it can't "accidentally" be changed.

Looking for a photo of my microwave dial, I came across this surprisingly relevant post:

https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/90769/why-do-microwav...

by schiffern

2/23/2026 at 11:45:55 AM

> What's the issue? I've microwaved that long before.

Really? What for? Anyway the vast majority of microwaving is going to be in the 1-5 minute range. By making the dial linear and giving it a huge range up to 30 minutes, you end up making e.g. 30 seconds and 1 minute impossibly close.

The commercial microwave oven someone else linked had a solution - make it logarithmic.

> Seven presses?

Eight actually, but it really is quicker and easier than doing the same with a dial though. I agree it could be optimised though. It shouldn't be necessary to select the power and a 30s button would be good (down to 5 presses).

by IshKebab

2/23/2026 at 12:22:51 PM

The vast majority of microwaving is in the 1 to 5 minute range only for those who use a microwave oven only for reheating.

For cooking, times from 10 to 15 minutes are more frequent, though things like potatoes or sweet potatoes need only 7 to 8 minutes. Only a few delicate vegetables or fruits may be cooked in the 1 to 5 minute range, e.g. onion, garlic, leek, parsley and dill, etc. Meat needs to be cooked at low power, which in turn requires long times, typically over 20 minutes. There is also a very small number of vegetables that need cooking times over 15 minutes, e.g. the common beans, for which even times of 30 minutes may be needed.

That said, all the microwave ovens that I have used (in Europe) had rotary knobs with variable resolution, fine for short times and coarse for long times.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 1:22:37 PM

> only for those who use a microwave oven only for reheating.

Which is most people, as the article notes!

> had rotary knobs with variable resolution

Eh fair enough. Maybe I have just happened to only see bad ones.

by IshKebab

2/23/2026 at 6:29:29 PM

For many years, I have also belonged to "most people" and I was cooking in one of the weekend days by traditional means, which required many hours, then in the rest of the week days I was reheating the food in a microwave oven.

Only a few years ago I began to experiment with cooking raw ingredients in the microwave oven. After discovering how much this simplifies cooking I regretted very much that I had not tried to do that earlier.

Because cooking at microwaves is much faster, nowadays I cook most food immediately before eating it.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 12:17:04 PM

I have used only microwave ovens with rotary knobs.

They had a finer resolution of 10 seconds for short times, then the resolution was progressively coarser for longer times, e.g. of 30 seconds for times over 10 minutes.

This is perfectly adequate for finding optimum times, and I cook in a microwave oven all the food that I am eating, from raw ingredients.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 7:28:27 AM

Peak microwave UX is today, IMO — modern commercial microwaves. You seem like my people, so check this out — https://shop.sharpusa.com/medium-duty-commercial-microwave-o...

Consumer-grade microwaves are made to look cool, not to use. Commercial microwaves are made to make money. One dial, no bullshit.

And check out the scale on the dial. That’s modern, no old-skool 2-dial microwaves can do that, AFAIK.

by sonofhans

2/23/2026 at 9:07:42 AM

So this can only do the full 1000 W power? Kind of a one trick pony, no way to melt butter or a dozen other things that need lower power. For a restaurant that only needs to heat a few different items at high speed it's probably fine.

by shellfishgene

2/23/2026 at 9:01:56 AM

Up voted for basic commercial unit recommendation.

I have one of Panasonics upper model flatbed microwaves that also acts as a fan forced oven with traditional oven element and fan, and as a grill with two overhead halogen grilling elements.

I picked it up for 50% RRP as it marked down for a minor defect I can’t even recall.

It’s 1900 watt on full microwave power, if I recall correctly, where most on the market amend here are 1400 watt. Makes a lot of difference, browning the top of food is easy with a bit of oil.

I can’t really fault it, it’s super easy to keep clean and works great for baking where using full size oven is overkill.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 12:05:54 PM

I quite like how mine has a rotary knob that sets preset programmes (which I never use) but also you just tap it to increase the time in 30 second increments. Tap tap tap - wait - <HUUMMMMMM> and it's on for a minute and a half.

I do prefer the mechanical wind-up timers though.

by ErroneousBosh

2/23/2026 at 12:33:41 PM

No mention of the Miele Dialog which gets as close as I've seen (though not quite there) to my dream of crispy fried eggs with runny yolk in the microwave. Their big example is being able to cook a fish while it remains in a block of ice. Pretty damn cool!

https://www.reviewed.com/ovens/features/we-tried-an-oven-tha...

by OisinMoran

2/23/2026 at 5:45:42 AM

I discovered a (lame) party trick some microwave ovens are capable of.

Many microwaves will let you set the power to 0% by pressing the power button then 0 or 00.

You can then put a cup of hot water from a kettle or the hot water tap in the microwave on 0% power for two minutes and it will come out colder.

Bonus points if you have a thermometer at hand.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 6:46:51 AM

TIL microwaves can double as a Blow Air Across It machine.

If one person in the house can't tolerate very hot foods, it could be useful for eg cooling off grandma's bowl of soup so she doesn't need to wait.

by schiffern

2/23/2026 at 9:45:41 AM

Kettle doesn't have 90C tea settings? No problem just boil at 100C, then pop in the microwave for 2 minutes at 0 megawatts. It is even faster if you live at altitude!

by tokenless

2/23/2026 at 12:26:50 PM

Colder than if you'd just left it on the table for two minutes?

by dghf

2/23/2026 at 1:53:40 PM

Well, it’s more nuanced than that.

The microwave does have a van in it, so potentially yes.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 11:55:02 AM

Clearly you need one of the special commercial microwaves which has a -800W setting, to suck the heat out at a much higher rate.

by pjc50

2/23/2026 at 7:04:03 PM

More recent alternate universe is where everyone cooks everything in an Instant Pot, and even more recent is where everyone cooks everything in an air fryer. Every new cooking appliance is a revolution, until it isn't, and only a handful of real use cases for it remain.

by MarkusWandel

2/23/2026 at 7:57:05 AM

The microwave has two big related issues (both mentioned in the article).

The first is that it is not easy to make a mental model of how it works. The second is that since it takes little too cook the food, it is unforgiving and you have to be very careful with both timings and amounts.

This makes it hard to learn how to properly use it just by trial and error. Also since now we have inductive stoves there is even less reason to use it.

by mrighele

2/23/2026 at 8:51:41 AM

Adjust the power setting.

I’m surprised almost everyone I’ve shown this to in real life hadn’t known, and goes on to never use it.

This was less of an issue when more microwaves had two knobs rather than buttons only.

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 5:16:44 PM

But on most of them the power setting just changes the percentage of time the magentrotron is 'on', but while it is on, its full power. So something like 'low for 40s' becomes a game of russian roulette

by codeulike

2/23/2026 at 6:24:47 PM

Oh no! An imperfect tool!

by nandomrumber

2/23/2026 at 8:14:15 AM

Microwave ovens have been a reliable way to heat milk without scalding at the bottom.

by xattt

2/23/2026 at 6:23:52 AM

My pet theory is that, humans have an inherent desire to spent a certain amount of time dealing with food.

If our lives are to efficient, say because we do not have to butcher a pig and cure it’s meat to get ham, we start to become obsessed with all kind of strange diets from cocovorism to paleo.

by niemandhier

2/23/2026 at 3:38:54 AM

In the 1990s, the first microwave our family owned came with a small cookbook and I made an edible cake.

by crtasm

2/23/2026 at 4:48:08 AM

I don't know if this is common knowledge, but microwaves are great for "mug cakes" [1] (or brownies, or cobblers), where you throw the cake ingredients in a mug, mix 'em, and microwave it. Makes for a great quick dessert (for one) when you're feeling snackish.

[1] Here's an example: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/241038/microwave-chocolate...

by abound

2/23/2026 at 5:32:54 AM

The downside is that mug cakes are one of the few things my dishwasher can't quite handle (yes, even with prewash and preheated water). That and certain kinds of very paste-y pesto.

by phyzome

2/23/2026 at 5:51:44 AM

For sure - it basically just creates dried lava in the mug. Probably need to soak it for like a day. I wonder if a couple paper cups would be good, or if the heat that is absorbed and re-radiated by the ceramic mug is critical to baking it properly.

by xp84

2/23/2026 at 3:44:32 PM

Yeah, next time I'm going to do an overnight soak and see what happens.

by phyzome

2/23/2026 at 8:32:21 AM

You described the Kodiak brand.

by system2

2/23/2026 at 7:13:44 AM

Thanks Hacker News for surfacing such jewels, and kudos to the author for such a great piece.

Although I will never use anything of what I learned from this article, I feel a better person since I’ve read it.

In one of the alternate universe I like to imagine, AI slop doesn’t exist and the Internet is filled with gorgeous pieces like this one.

by fzaninotto

2/23/2026 at 9:53:37 AM

I do not have a microwave, but I remember having one, and never managed to intuitively use it to iterate on my cooking.

Meanwhile, throw stuff in the pan, move it around, adjust the temperature, add in some stuff as it goes, is a much more interactive type of cooking that is much more likely to take me where I want to go (tasty food).

by mgaunard

2/23/2026 at 12:15:02 PM

It depends what you're trying to make. There are two things I almost always cook from scratch in the microwave, and that's trifle sponge (because I don't care if the sponge cake is going to be a bit dry and heavy, because I'm about to break it all up, mix it with diced fruit, and pour some sherry and quite a lot of jelly over it) and onion paste for curry.

If you want to make curry from scratch you can either do the whole thing in one pan and get "homestyle" curry - which is good - or you can make an onion paste by either cooking a very mildly spicy but ultimately rather bland onion soup for an hour to make the "base gravy", or by just chopping three or four onions and sticking them in the microwave on full blast for ten minutes before mooshing them with the hand blender.

Then you just bloom your spices in a bit of oil, chuck in some garlic and ginger paste (literally about the same amount of peeled garlic cloves and peeled ginger root mooshed up with the blender in a little oil and water) and let it bubble a bit, chuck in whatever veg and meat you're adding, and then slowly start adding your onion gloop, and boom, restaurant-style curry.

If you make the garlic and ginger paste in advance, and precook the meat a little (beef kind of wants to be stewed until it's tender, and then you can fire in the stock it's stewing in) then you can knock out an incredibly tasty curry in the same amount of time it takes to cook the rice.

And that's how restaurants do it, because you're not going to wait two hours for a homestyle curry to cook off properly.

by ErroneousBosh

2/23/2026 at 5:22:43 AM

Does anyone knows if using microwaves might possibly affect the nutritional value of the food? Or if radiation can leak and act upon your body if you stand very close to it. Heated plastic doesn’t sound too healthy either. And why do we never see commercials about microwaves?

I know nothing about these things, but I still only use it to heat my cold cup of coffee - and I’m standing way back while I do :) I even own a pyroceram skillet.

by bronlund

2/23/2026 at 6:00:27 AM

> Does anyone knows if using microwaves might possibly affect the nutritional value of the food?

Cooking in general affects the nutritional value of food—some nutrients are easier to absorb when cooked, so cooking effectively increases their amount, while other nutrients are destroyed [0] [1]. But given that you're probably cooking your food anyways, there's nothing specific to microwaves here.

Microwaves might actually be slightly better than other cooking methods here, since they produce a lower heat that's less likely to destroy nutrients, but the cooking method has such a minor effect that I wouldn't really worry about it either way.

> Or if radiation can leak and affect you body if you stand very close to it while it’s running.

Microwaves are classified as non-ionizing radiation [2], so their main effect is just heating things up. So if you're standing near a microwave and your body starts heating up, then something bad is happening; otherwise, you're probably fine.

The only health risk from microwaves (aside from a hypothetical accident involving someone being cooked inside one like a rotisserie chicken) is cataracts [3]. But this usually only affects radio technicians, who put their heads beside much bigger and much more powerful microwave emitters than a domestic microwave oven. And even cataracts are only due to the heating effect.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Effects_on_nutritional...

[1]: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooking-nutrient-conten...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract#Radiation

by gucci-on-fleek

2/23/2026 at 7:24:05 AM

Thanks.

by bronlund

2/23/2026 at 6:37:24 PM

In general the nutritional value of the food is less affected by microwave cooking, because you can use much lower heating times and it is easy to ensure that the temperature is not too great.

Moreover, at microwaves it is easy to cook without adding water (whenever you are cooking meat or vegetables with high content of water, e.g. potatoes; when not adding water, using a glass vessel covered with a glass lid is normally mandatory), or only by adding a minimum amount of water, which avoids the leaching of water-soluble nutrients.

These properties ensure that food cooked at microwaves in the right way (e.g. without water whenever that is possible) is frequently tastier than when cooked by traditional means. The only exception is for people who like burned food, as this method for degrading food is more difficult to do at microwaves.

While the fact that food is less affected by microwaves than by most other methods of cooking is intuitively obvious, there have been published several research articles where it was investigated the degradation of several essential nutrients, e.g. vitamins, during cooking by various methods, and they confirmed a minimum degradation during microwave cooking, caused by shorter cooking times and lower peak temperatures.

When cooking at microwaves, you normally do not cook everything together, because meat requires different parameters than vegetables and there are 3 or 4 classes of vegetables that require different parameters. So you typically cook the ingredients separately and you mix them after cooking, when you also add ingredients like oil, which should better not be heated.

You can cook multiple classes of vegetables together, if you start with those that require the longest cooking time, and microwave them for the time difference vs. the next class of vegetables, then you add the next vegetables and microwave them for the next time difference, until you add the last kind and microwave again everything for the remaining time.

by adrian_b

2/23/2026 at 9:40:36 AM

If you get a built in microwave get one that is also an oven. Great at Christmas time, you are ready with 2 real ovens!

by tokenless

2/23/2026 at 5:11:01 PM

This is fascinating because I remember this era when Microwave ovens were a new thing and my parents got one, along with a glossy cookbook with a roast chicken on the front. All of that 'roasting things in the microwave' gor quietly forgotten about in the late 80s, along with the idea that CDs were 'indestructible'.

But somehow modern microwaves always have a button on the front with a picture of a roast chicken. Why are microwave UIs so delusional? Just need power %age and time.

Microwaves are good for making porridge (oatmeal) though. And I've had some success with scrambled eggs, if you get the method right results are very consistent.

by codeulike

2/23/2026 at 6:52:53 AM

Microwaves were invented to reanimate hamsters from hibernation. No joke.

by iberator