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[hierophany]

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Comments

un: alter ego

[freshprints]

Describe the process for preparing instant oatmeal.

[hierophany]

If it’s instant why the fuck would it need preparing?

[freshprints]

...

Oatmeal is eaten hot.

[hierophany]

That isn’t in question.

If it doesn’t start out hot, it’s not instant. It’s ‘however long it takes to boil the kettle’ oatmeal.

[freshprints]

If you don't know the steps of the process, you can just admit to it, rather than trying to obfuscate by fixating on an irrelevant point of order.

[hierophany]

I know how to make oatmeal. It just isn’t instant. They shouldn’t call it that.

[freshprints]

And to think I had intended to prove a point about how impossible it is to prepare instant oatmeal incorrectly.

Thus far, my sample group seems to struggle with the concept.

[hierophany]

INSTANT OATMEAL WOULD JUST BE EATING OATS

THE PRODUCT YOU ARE ASKING ABOUT IS INCORRECTLY NAMED AND OUGHT TO BE CALLED FASTER THAN AVERAGE OATMEAL

[freshprints]

...

Describe the process for preparing faster than average oatmeal.

[hierophany]

Take oats. Take twice the volume of boiling water. Combine them.

[freshprints]

How do you measure the water?

[hierophany]

Use whatever you used to measure the oats, just do it twice.

[freshprints]

And then what do you do with the measuring implement?

[hierophany]

Wash it and put it away. Or recycle it, if you're using the container the oats came in.

Are you struggling with faster than average oatmeal? You seem to need a lot of the steps explaining to you.

[freshprints]

An acquaintance is soliciting me for help with it, actually. She microwaved the oatmeal with the water as measured, still contained in the measuring implement.

You're acting as my control group.

[hierophany]

Oh.

I'd need to see for sure, but that could well be a failure on the part of the instructions. They've already made the mistake of describing it as instant. If the instructions were simply to measure oats and water and then microwave both, there are a great amount of assumptions that the reader would need to make in order to follow them.

Some of us have come here from places without microwaves, after all. They really should consider that in their documentation.

[freshprints]

Why would the makers of microwavable faster than average oatmeal contemplate its use by consumers who have no conception of microwaves?

[hierophany]

This place was prepared for newcomers in other ways. It would have been foolish of them not to consider the possibility that a customer might be unaware of microwaves.

It's a terrible oversight that so much effort has been expended to ensure that we're informed about magic and the like, and yet not to ensure that we know about the technologies we're encountering. It's only luck that they match up with the things some of us are familiar with.

Microwave lessons should have been provided alongside magic lessons, really.

[freshprints]

Are you going to take it upon yourself to accommodate for the deficit?

You might have to change your username to "technologyfacts".

un: technologyfacts

[hierophany]

Microwaves are a device used to cook food quickly and with less energy expenditure than a traditional oven*. They cook food by using a form of electromagnetic radiation, which is also known as a microwave, to excite the molecules found within food. This generates heat using friction.

*An oven is a device used to produce and distribute heat.

[freshprints]

Username technologyfacts, what are:

1) electromagnetic radiation
2) molecules
3) friction

[hierophany]

Thank you for your thoughtful questions, AlterEgo.

1) Electromagnetic radiation is the phenomenon of energy moving through space in waves. Examples of electromagnetic radiation include visible light.

2) A molecule is a group of atoms. An atom is the smallest possible quantity of a substance. When two or more atoms form chemical bonds, the result is a molecule. They are very small, and most items are made up of many molecules.

3) Friction is the force generated when two or more items in contact move against each other. An example of friction is two sticks being rubbed together to generate heat, resulting in a fire.

[freshprints]

Username technologyfacts, if all that is true, then why doesn't my faster than average oatmeal cook just by shining a light on it?

[hierophany]

Most forms of light do, in fact, produce heat in addition to light. However, devices such as flashlights are made to distribute this heat in a way which makes them safe for a user to touch. Unfortunately, oatmeal is perishable once the oats are mixed with water. While a light could theoretically eventually cook oatmeal, it would be unlikely to do so before the oatmeal ceased to be suitable for consumption.

In other words, it would be slower than average oatmeal.

[freshprints]

Username technologyfacts, what does any of this have to do with how to prepare a bowl of faster than average oatmeal, in a practical sense?