I’m a total sucker for robots and bleeding-edge technology, but the Jibo campaign is throwing up all sorts of red flags for me.

Update: The crew at GeekWire liked my post, so I moved it over there. Read the rest at GeekWire.

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Allow me to explain. Here are a few examples of your typical microwave:

This LG microwave has 31 buttons. Thirty-one (non-tactile) buttons, when all I want to do with a microwave is heat up food for a specified amount of time..

Talk about overkill.

This Jenn-Air microwave sports 34 buttons. Thirty-four buttons! The microwave in my kitchen at home is a similar Jenn-Air model, also with thirty-four flat, zero-feedback buttons. The vast majority of the time, I use exactly two of these buttons: “Add 30 Sec.” (which also starts the heat) and “Stop / Cancel.” For those of you keeping score at home, that makes 94% of the buttons on my microwave a total waste of space.

Combine an excess of useless buttons with a completely flat surface that has zero tactile feedback, and you’ve basically designed the worst interface possible. Which comes standard on most microwaves. For some reason.

Let’s say I’m watching a movie in the next room over and would prefer not to divert my eyes from the screen and turn on the kitchen lights just to reheat my tea. Too bad. Thanks to the totally flat, non-tactile button style that has somehow become standard on microwaves, coupled with how tiny each button needs to be in order to fit that many buttons on the face of the microwave, hitting the correct buttons to heat your food or drink requires a well-lit room and your full attention.

Thankfully, microwave user interface design is not a completely lost cause… You won’t usually find them on the shelves of your local Sears or Target, but there are some microwaves that manage to avoid “death by mega-button-pad.”

This is the microwave in the kitchen at my office, the awfully-named Panasonic “NN-SD681S Genius ‘Prestige'” ($180 on Amazon) It’s definitely a step in the right direction, with 14 raised tactile buttons plus a simple knob, but most of the buttons are still completely superfluous. What the heck is “Inverter Turbo Defrost” or “Inverter Melt & Soften”? No doubt some microwave engineer worked long hours coming up with these clever features, but seriously… why?

I don’t need my microwave to “sensor cook” my food. I don’t need it to tell me the time. I don’t need an entire button dedicated to “Pizza Slice” (I kid you not, that is a button on my microwave). I just need it to heat up food for a specified amount of time.

The really strange thing is that things have not always been this dire when it comes to microwave UI. Here’s a typical microwave from the 1970s:

Source: Ranch Wife

That’s more like it. Two knobs and three nice, big, tactile buttons. It doesn’t get much more simple than that. Okay, well maybe it does…

I have been able to find one currently-available microwave that satisfies my simple use requirement of “heat up food for a specified amount of time” in the most elegant way possible. A microwave that sports a user interface that’s actually an improvement over microwaves of forty years ago, instead of a dozen giant steps backward.

Behold the Sharp 1000W/R-21LC:

One knob. That’s the entire user interface. Zero buttons. Zero fancy-sounding features that never get used. Just turn the knob to the desired time, and the microwave heats the food. Lights blink around the knob to indicate how much time remains. So simple, so elegant. (Although I could do without all the superfluous text.)

I purchased this UI masterpiece at a surplus store, but I have also seen them at a “business” Costco in my area, or you can get it at Amazon for $280.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t come in an over-the-range style, so I won’t be able to replace the 34-button monstrosity in my kitchen just yet. For now I’ll have to be satisfied with only having a microwave that’s actually user friendly in the basement, but since that’s where I’m relocating my movie room to anyway, that will do nicely.

[2015 Update]
After this was posted on HackerNews and BoingBoing, some of the commenters on those sites brought up some info worth sharing.

First, a few people complained that I didn’t answer the “why” question in the headline. As it turns out, Reddit user colorimeter addressed that in a recent /r/AskEngineers thread (hat tip to BoingBoing commenter t3knomanser):

Guess what: US appliance controls are all contracted out, and there is very little institutional knowledge that is retained across the designs. … They are mostly pathetic designs, because nobody in the corporate side of this business seems to know what they are doing anymore. The poor sods who do this kind of work are probably some of the most disgruntled engineers out there, since they literally aren’t allowed to do a good job of it.

Also, HackerNews commenter ZeroGravitas pointed out another modern microwave with a clean, simple interface, the Samsung MS23F301EAK/EU:

[2020 Update]
The YouTube channel Technology Connections made a great video about a 1997 Sharp microwave that is pretty nifty. The button layout isn’t the best, but at least they are actual physical, buttons. And I will admit, the features of this microwave sound pretty darn useful. Give it a watch.

The post Why do most microwaves have such a terrible user interface? appeared first on Ellis.FYI.

Seriously, how can such incredible devices be available for just five dollars? Just a decade or two ago something like this would have been either impossible or unimaginably expensive.

Truly we live in an amazing time.

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Pastor to church leaders: Get off Facebook or step down

Rev. Cedric A. Miller has had it with what he says Facebook is doing to couples coming to him for help and is giving his married church leaders until Sunday to get off the social-network website or resign their posts.

Miller, senior pastor at Living Word Christian Fellowship Church, the popular interdenominational and evangelical church on Route 35, said a large percentage of his counseling over the past year and a half has been for marital problems, including infidelity, stemming from Facebook.

Miller said there was no problem when people just met with friends from high school in a platonic way.

But that has changed, he said, and now people are reigniting old passions and connecting with people who should stay in the past. He said a marriage can be going along fine when someone from the past breaks through and trouble begins.

I’m the last person you’ll find defending Facebook, as I personally think it’s an enormous waste of time (to put it lightly). That said, this pastor is deceiving himself if he really believes that “a marriage can be going along fine” and suddenly Facebook is to blame for leading a spouse to infidelity.

People don’t just decide one day to go out and break their marriage vows by having an affair. “Reigniting old passions” on Facebook is the symptom of underlying problems in a marriage, not the cause.

If Rev. Miller thinks that banning Facebook will somehow magically prevent marriages from falling apart in his church body, he is going to be in for an unfortunate awakening.

In my opinion, misguided dudes like Rev. Miller are part of the reason that Christianity is perceived so negatively by much of the culture. What if, instead of focusing on nonsense like Facebook, Rev. Miller launched a campaign in his church to teach husbands and wives how to meet each other’s needs, and strengthen their marriage against all forms of temptation? Wouldn’t that be time much better spent than sermonizing about the evils of Facebook?

[Update]
Like I said, Facebook is not the cause of marital infidelity. Guess what Rev. Miller managed to do ten years ago without any assistance from the big blue internet evil: Pastor who banned Facebook had three-way sex affair.

The post OMG, Facebook is Destroying Marriages! (Yeah Right) appeared first on Ellis.FYI.

1. Reboot your computer.
2. Re-install the program or drivers for the software or hardware with the problem.
3. Re-install Windows, then proceed to step 2.
4. “format c:” then proceed to step 3.
5. Replace troublesome hardware.
6. Replace entire computer system.

   And if none of the first 6 worked…

7. Denounce technology and move to Montana.

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