For all you physics mavens out there...

Whilst making myself some tomato-ramen noodle soup yesterday, I began to ponder this:

Say you have a microwave oven with an automatic turntable in it. Say you have a large bowl filled with soup or other liquid or mostly liquid food you wish to cook. Say your bowl is round. Microwaves tend to head food unevenly -- everything in the middle can still be frozen solid while the stuff on the edges is boiling. How do you place the bowl on the turntable to get the most effective cooking? Do you place it dead center? Or off-center? If off-center, by how much? Remember also that you cannot have any part of the bowl hanging over the edge of the turntable lest it hit the inside walls of the microwave.

This, my friends, is a truly practical use of physics.

I'm going to ask this of my Algebra teacher tomorrow. He should find it amusing.


Well. We've been having simply avalanches of mail at work lately, with the result that we've more than once lately been called upon to stay overtime. A couple nights ago I realized this could cause me problems with regards to school -- I have to be up at 9 AM in order to get washed up, dressed, and to school by 10:30 to do my homework, then class at Noon. I was told to speak to my supervisor about this, and the next day brought a copy of my school schedule to explain why I really couldn't stay past midnight. Yet again I got the "hell with your life, we've got mail to process and you have to stay at least one hour over." Apparently all my supervisor heard was "class at Noon" and didn't hear my qualifier of "but I go in early to do my homework". So I have decided I've had enough of this. I'm actively looking for another job now. I've put my resume' up on Monster, and I'm applying to jobs I think I could handle. I am so out of there.

After eleven years, I've finally had enough of perpetual second shift, no weekends, no holidays with my family, no social life, the dead end job, the mind-numbing work, blue walls, and being expected to be loyal to a job that doesn't give a rat's ass about its employees. So. As I prefer to vote with my feet, as it were, I am doing so.

Therefore, if any of you have need of a desktop publisher/writer willing to work for enough money to pay the bills and keep myself in Diet Coke and Funyuns, drop me a line. I am willing -- nay, eager -- to relocate.

Sometimes, you just have to take care of yourself.