The Problem with Microwaving Tea:
Typically, when a liquid is being warmed, the heating source — a stove, for example — heats the container from below. By a process called convection, as the liquid toward the bottom of the container warms up, it becomes less dense and moves to the top, allowing a cooler section of the liquid to contact the source. This ultimately results in a uniform temperature throughout the glass.
Inside a microwave, however, the electric field acting as the heating source exists everywhere. Because the entire glass itself is also warming up, the convection process does not occur, and the liquid at the top of the container ends up being much hotter than the liquid at the bottom.
A team of researchers from the University of Electronic Science & Technology of China studied this nonuniform heating behavior and presents a solution to this common problem in the journal AIP Advances, from AIP Publishing.
By designing a silver plating to go along the rim of a glass, the group was able to shield the effects of the microwave at the surface of the liquid. The silver acts as a guide for the waves, reducing the electric field at the top and effectively blocking the heating. This creates a convection process similar to traditional approaches, resulting in a more uniform temperature.
Placing silver in the microwave may seem like a dangerous idea, but similar metal structures with finely tuned geometry to avoid ignition have already been safely used for microwave steam pots and rice cookers.
Journal Reference:
Peiyang Zhao, Weiwei Gan, Chuanqi Feng, et al. Multiphysics analysis for unusual heat convection in microwave heating liquid [open], AIP Advances (DOI: 10.1063/5.0013295)
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:08AM (5 children)
A problem with microwaving tea is the rip in spacetime that causes soylentnews to reboot.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:27AM (4 children)
TMB isn't allowed to have a moment's rest... :)
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:42AM
There is no "rest" clause in his contract.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:58AM (1 child)
So you say SoylentNews is not RESTful?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @04:20AM
Or just Resting Buzzard Face? [urbandictionary.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @05:42PM
I think he was just enjoying a nice cup of tea.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:35AM (28 children)
Put the teabag in the fucking cup in the microwave. It stirs the liquid AND focuses heat more uniformly towards the bag.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:54AM (2 children)
Teabag? Heresy.
Loose leaf, ftw.
(Score: 1) by nostyle on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:46PM (1 child)
Indeed! In fact, most brands of tea-bags are sealed using plastics, and using said bags adds to the micro-plastic pollution of the planet and the attendant propagation of estrogen-like compounds into the environment which leads to rampant gender-confusion when they interact with our precious bodily fluids.
tldr: only girly men use tea-bags.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:48PM
Who read "Only girly men tea-bag"?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kazzie on Wednesday August 05 2020, @05:58AM (20 children)
The default in this part of the world (UK) is to use an electric kettle to boil the water, and then pour it out. Pour it into a teapot, or pour it into a mug with a teabag in, and the water's going to be mixed around by the process of pouring anyway.
I've never come across anyone making tea in a microwave; every household and workplace kitchen has a kettle. Reheating a cooled cup of tea, sure, but the paper's comparison to heating a cup/mug from the base indicates they're not thinking about that.
(Score: 1) by deepgrey on Wednesday August 05 2020, @07:22AM (15 children)
Heating water for tea in the microwave is decently common in the US where we only have 120 V mains. I don't know anyone with an electric kettle. If they were as great here as they are in the UK I'd buy one, but I'm unfortunately stuck with a stovetop kettle.
I'm pretty sure China has 220 V service though, so I guess it was just an interesting emag problem to solve.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:50AM
Electric kettles are crucial. It boils faster than a stove ever can, so you can pour boiling water into a pot and cook faster.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:13PM (8 children)
You have Amazon, they sell Zojirushi's at 110V, there's no excuse to ever use a microwave.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by deepgrey on Wednesday August 05 2020, @03:01PM (6 children)
A 120 V kettle isn't nearly as good as a 240 V kettle, so yes, there is an excuse. I prefer to use a kettle on my stove though because it makes better tea and actually boils water in a semi-reasonable amount of time, unlike a wimpy electric kettle. You have to realize that the current handling capability of the circuit is roughly the same for your 240 and our 120, but the voltage is halved, so the power is rougly halved. Your kettles heat much faster than ours.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:56PM (4 children)
Just put a NEMA 6-15 receptacle on your countertop, buy the 3000W kettle from the UK and put the North American 240v 15A plug on it (the 6-15, with sideways blades) and you're golden.
Most semi-modern kitchens are already wired with split-duplex plugs on the countertop, so all you do is remove one of those that has two circuits to it for the top and bottom, and simply install the 6-15 in place of the standard 5-15.
You're totally allowed to have 240v plugs in North America.... It isn't even difficult.
My neighbor's Tesla charges at 11 mi/h instead of 3 just by changing to a 240v plug in their parking stall and the appropriate $20 adapter from Tesla for the charger cable included with her model 3... All it takes is a 6-15 plug and a double-pole 15A GFCI breaker instead of the single. Wrap the ends of the white (formerly neutral) wire in red electrical tape to denote that it's the other phase of 240, put the cover back on and charge away. :)
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @10:53PM (2 children)
If somebody doesn't already know how to do that, the correct way to instruct them is to say "Hire an electrician."
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday August 06 2020, @02:09PM (1 child)
Obviously if you aren't competent or comfortable doing a particular job, especially something like electrical work, you should hire a professional to do the job. (hopefully, correctly!) You need to at least know that something is possible, though, before you can ask said professional to do some particular thing for you.
My point was simply that you CAN get a "proper" 3000W 240v kettle and have a proper, safe, valid plug for it in your kitchen. The same plug also works for things like one of those small countertop-sized commercial deep fryers if you're tired of attempting to make your wings and fries or fish or whatever in tiny batches in a wimpy little 1500W residential joke of a deep fryer.
Believe me, I've seen my fair share of scary electrical work, even relatively simple things like changing a plug, that were obviously done by clueless homeowners or handymen. On one renovation we did many years ago, someone had changed all the plugs on the main floor of the home, and only two of the plugs were even wired with the correct polarity. The other 20 or so were all wired with the hot and neutral reversed. Egads!
If you don't know what you're doing, hire a professional! :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:30PM
When you get to the point of instructing what color tape to put on exposed wires, you are a bit past "it's easy and fairly cheap to get 240 volts in your kitchen, an electrician can do it in a few minutes".
(Score: 1) by deepgrey on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:26AM
Yeah, I'm just happy to have a ground in my kitchen. You can forget trying to easily change mine to 240 V. It's not split duplex. In fact, I just realized that I've never put a GFCI outlet in there, and I probably should.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday August 07 2020, @06:52AM
My family in Canada use 120V kettles, but that may be a cultural/family thing, given that they emigrated there from the UK.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday August 07 2020, @05:34AM
A Zojirushi is actually something completely different, it's a Japanese-made triple-vacuum-insulated thermopot that boils the water once and then uses a small trickle of power to keep it warm, so you get hot water on demand whenever you want it. Runs just as well off 110V as 220V since it uses (for my 4L one) 17W to keep the water at temperature.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:16PM
Sean Connery's comment on this practice [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday August 06 2020, @12:47PM (2 children)
I absolutely guarantee you that no one outside of a restaurant has ever used a 220v kettle.
(Score: 3, Informative) by drussell on Thursday August 06 2020, @02:17PM (1 child)
I'm assuming you must have been meaning "in North America" or something...
Everyone in the UK (where it can nearly cause a blackout due to overload when they all turn on their 3000W kettles at the same time after some televised event or something) would beg to differ.
eg: https://www.johnlewis.com/browse/electricals/kettles/3000w/_/N-ahtZ1z0ejjz [johnlewis.com]
Standard ring mains in UK homes are 32A at 240V, so plenty of power for things like 3000W kettles in virtually every home.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday August 06 2020, @03:01PM
We typically get double 120v in NA, at least residential. We use the 240v almost exclusively for stove/clothes dryer/air conditioning. Their is practically nothing else that uses it unless you purchase a welder (and they have been making some pretty good 120v welders lately), I think it is pretty much considered something only an expert should install/screw with.
You can boil a cup of water in like 30 seconds on 120v over a thin electrical cord, so what would be the benefit of anything higher? I think we max out at about 3000w appliances as well, I think I have seen toasters that put that out (120v).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:56PM
I have an electric kettle in the US, it works just fine. You can even get the fancy Japanese ones here, and they work even better.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 06 2020, @12:51AM
Even here in the US i have an electric kettle, and used a stovetop and saucepan when i didn't. The idea of a nuke oven for anything aside from convenience foods is odd to me.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday August 06 2020, @03:42AM (2 children)
I make tea in the microwave every day... large mug, teabag, water, two minutes, another minute to steep. Good enough.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday August 07 2020, @06:58AM (1 child)
I don't doubt that it's good enough, and that's fine. But I'd hazard a guess that you don't own a kettle.
In a culture where every household owns a kettle, making tea (or instant coffee) in a microwave would be an odd choice.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 07 2020, @02:12PM
Actually, there's a hotpot around here somewhere (probably what you'd call an electric kettle -- dedicated gadget for heating a small teapot worth of water), and Before Microwave, that's what I'd use. And Before Electricity, a kettle on the stove, the kind that whistles when the water boils (I still have that'un, too)... was a day when every American household had one of those.
But microwave is easier, and good enough. Some teabags seem to be formulated for this abuse and the tea turns out really good; others, not so much, and the result is kinda yucky. (Or, how I came to prefer Stash brand tea for everyday.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:08PM (1 child)
It involves a special instrument called a "spoon", ca. 3000BC. You insert it into the cup and rotate in in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction according to preference to mix the hotter vs. colder portions of the liquid.
Silver electroplating of nanosurfaces azetylenoszilliert in phänomenaler kugelform. Yeah, that would have been my second guess right after "stir it with a spoon".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @02:13PM
Already tried the plated edge cup thing (by accident, not for the stated purpose here). The lightning in the Microwave was spectacular.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:10PM
It stirs the liquid in the cup or else it gets the hose again!
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:22PM
I also wonder why it was done in China of all places, the proper way of making tea there is fairly similar to the better-known Japanese tea ceremony, it's more like an hour-long tea aroma appreciation class than a way of preparing a drink. It's about the last place I'd expect anyone to use a microwave to make tea.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:41AM (5 children)
Put your teabags and water into a nice sized glass jar - 1 gallon, 5 gallon, or 20 gallon all work well. Put that jar out into the sun on a sunshiny day, early. Come back before nightfall, remove the tea bags, and refrigerate.
This is known to balance the microwave, inrared, ultraviolet as well as all the visible light spectrum, providing perfectly balanced radioactive nutrition.
Remember the Old Testament teachings: Man does not live by microwave alone!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:10PM (1 child)
This. In the summer a kettle boiling when the AC is on Is wasting electricity- switch to ice tea.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday August 05 2020, @10:59PM
I once visited Boulder, Colorado and by mistake put a new teabag in a glass of ice water. After a while the water turned brownish. It was exceptionally weak as tea, but I had to conclude that America has invented cold-water tea bags.
At home I put tea leaves in my two-litre the teapot, and pour in boiling water from an electric kettle. The wait a while.
The kettle has an automatic shutoff that doesn't trigger until the water is actually boiling. Without that I'm likely to cause damage by forgetting I'm making tea.
That makes tea I can drink all day long by microwaving it cup by cup.
-- hendrik
(Score: 3, Informative) by datapharmer on Thursday August 06 2020, @12:36AM (2 children)
No. Please no. Tea is filthy and if you leave it in the sun it gets to the perfect temperature for all the nasty microbes to grow like crazy. It is incredibly dangerous.
Consider cold brew tea instead!
https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/06/did-you-know-iced-tea-safety/ [foodsafetynews.com]
https://livesmartohio.osu.edu/uncategorized/miller-59osu-edu/is-sun-tea-safe/ [osu.edu]
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/steep-risk/ [snopes.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday August 06 2020, @03:39AM
I use a half-gallon jar (about what I'll drink in a day) and a single teabag, and brew it overnight in the fridge. The flavor is much better than 'sun tea' (which always seems to taste muddy) and it's already cold for drinking, and has little chance to grow nasties.
Trader Joe's Irish Breakfast and Tetley English Tea both make excellent fridge tea. (For some reason it's best if the bag floats.) No need to find 'cold brew' tea.
I suppose if one wished to further mitigate risk, one could wet and microwave the tea bag just long enough to get it thoroughly hot before tossing it into the cold water.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Friday August 07 2020, @08:41AM
Mr. A sterilizes his apartment daily, washes hands twice before eating, eats only branded food wrapped in plastic, the first microorganism that gets past his body barriers does like Attila the hun in a monastery of Buddhist nuns.
Mr. B considers expiry date a challenge accepted, drinks room temperature tea and coffee, uses one disposable razor for months and when COVID 19 enters his body it finds a display and a sign: please pick a number.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @06:24AM (4 children)
I have a crazy idea, but bear with me please...
What if you use a spoon to mix the liquid in the cup after it has been microwaved?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @06:39AM (1 child)
Well if we can just bring in any old object to solve the problem, why not bring in a perfectly made* cup of tea and tip the microwaved garbage in the sink.
*Obviously the English method.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Saturday August 08 2020, @02:43PM
Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday August 05 2020, @06:55AM
Doesn't even have to be a silver spoon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @10:59PM
Why are you trying to deprive these hard working scientists of their inside job with no heavy lifting and potential patent royalties
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday August 05 2020, @07:22AM (2 children)
As a tea drinker I'm naturally interested. TFS or the TFA seem to be sloppy on some point though.
1. If microwaving creates uniform temp but the top is hotter in the end that implies convection, right?
2. The premise of uniform temp is wrong to begin with as microwaving heats nodes in the microwave space from which local convection emerges.
3. What if I heat my water in a water cooker (as I usually do)? If I poor it into the tea pot temp is now really uniform (although there is still mechanical movement). Would that water have to be topped of with cold water for the gradient?
I demand further research to clarify my points. I recommend the researchers try different colors of the silver strip, real tea in the cup but also to step into the microwave themselves for closer inspection (while the experiment is ongoing).
(Score: 1) by jurov on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:41AM
Convection happens only if denser (cooler) liquid is on the top, so it tends to displace less dense liquid under it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:50AM
I think the premise is wrong. It is not uniformly heated. A good trick if you're heating a plate of food is shape it as a torus or else the middle will end up colder.
As far as I remember microwave heating creates microexplosions in water molecules and it intuitively makes sense that most reactions would happen as soon as possible near the outer edges.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:54AM (10 children)
Microwaving tea is just silly since it ruins the aroma but for milk it should help prevent spills and scorching when preparing / reheating chocolate milk, coffee, salep, and so on.
Well, personally I just use a 4:1 container to milk ratio staying under 1/2L of milk but it's probably a waste of energy and some people might want to cook 'em by the gallon.
compiling...
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rich on Wednesday August 05 2020, @10:25AM (8 children)
Microwaving tea is the worst civilizatory habit I have. Still, I find the taste degradation less bad than when the tea is kept on a tea-light, and it's MUCH more economical. Actually I'm more concerned with the slightly foamy top the tea has out of the micky. Not a big issue though, when you stir it - which also solves the heat distribution issues from the article.
I once found out that with adding milk to the tea before microwaving the foaminess goes away. That led to a funny episode where I did that at a customer site. Their resident senior PhD mathematician, usually a very thoughtful, precisely speaking guy, came in and switched into a panic mode that I had never experienced in the years before:
"What are you DOING there?"
"Me? I'm microwaving my tea." (thinking he is offended by such a cultural misdoing) "Works well enough for me."
"YES! But with MILK!"
"Oh, I figured out that if I add the milk beforehand, the tea will come out smoother."
"Don't you know there are PROTEINS in the milk?"
"Uh?"
"They might be bent by the microwaves!"
"Uh? You think like the prions of mad-cow-disease?"
"Yes! Precisely!"
"Um. I consider this safe enough. I mean, there are 300 millions USAians who have been using their microwaves daily on anything since when we've still cooked on fires. They would've gone into full retard mode if there was any effect."
"Yes! Precisely! That should be proof enough!"
I must say I was scared enough not to put milk into the microwave from then on ;)
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday August 05 2020, @10:56AM
Lol if you want to freak him out let him know about carcinogenic carbon electrophiles forming during heating... That should be fun :D
compiling...
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:57PM (4 children)
There are proteins in meat and cheese, which are probably among the most microwaved substances. I think you're safe.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @03:16PM
Nachos FTW!!
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday August 06 2020, @12:52PM (2 children)
What sort of barbarian would put meat in a microwave?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 07 2020, @02:23PM (1 child)
One who has figured out how to do so with precision. But it's helpful to have a low-powered microwave, so it doesn't instantly shoe-leather the meat. (Can't do it in the 'new' microwave, but in the old 900w I could cook delicate stuff. Even used it to make souffles.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @06:06PM
You can do it in a new microwave, just use a low power setting.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:21AM (1 child)
I usually microwave my tea -- yes, the liquid tea itself, not the water used to make it.
I add milk *after* microwaving -- even if the tea ended up boiling, this helps limit the temperature to something tolerable.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:34AM
Oh yes. I make tea in a 2-litre teapot. Lasts me a full day if I microwave a cup at a time.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 05 2020, @02:51PM
Man, you must have some *really* thick mugs.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:03PM (4 children)
Why would you microwave tea? Drink it cold or just make a new cup, it's not like you are saving a lot of money by reheating something that will then taste awful.
Unless you are drinking some very expensive blends a bag (or enough leafs) is not exactly expensive, water isn't expensive and heating the water to boiling isn't expensive either. Even combined these cheap items won't amount to much per cup. Certainly not enough to warrant a reheat compared to just making another cup.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @03:53PM (1 child)
I prefer the NH4NO3 method. Get 2750t of it, place your cold tea on top and light the welding arc. Boom, hot tea.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:29AM
If you find your mug, I doubt it would still be holding your tea. Seriously, one ton should be plenty enough to warm a mug of tea. No need to bother the neighbors' neighbors when the stove goes off.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 07 2020, @02:26PM
There I agree with you... while I routinely microwave my tea, I drink it before it cools. Reheated tea made by any method tastes yucky, and I'm not sure it's just because the water has had time to go 'flat' (were that the case, fridge tea would also be yucky, and it's not).
At ten cents a teabag, reheating does not happen in my house. Not even in the household of a microwave barbarian.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:27AM
Microwaving previously made tea is faster then making tea from scratch. And it requires only one scheduled interaction -- taking it out of the microwave. Making tea takes two -- pouring in the boiling water and then, a while later, pouring the tea.
The first action (putting it in the microwave, or starting to heat a full kettle) isn't a scheduled action. you just do it whenever you notice you don't have tea ready.
If you're easily distracted, a simpler schedule is better.
Even so, in my household, the microwave is called the tea cupboard, sine that's where I usually find forgotten tea.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 05 2020, @02:44PM (6 children)
Reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story about the U.S. and Soviet space programs both trying to solve the problem of designing a good writing tool to use in space--since there's no gravity, normal ballpoint pens don't work. So the U.S. spends a couple years and $X million designing a space pen to work in zero-g.
The Soviets just start sending up pencils.
---
So the tea isn't heated evenly...don't people usually stir their tea anyway? Shouldn't that evenly distribute the heat after the fact?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:28PM (2 children)
That story is funny, but also apocryphal... and also a good example of those "stupid government stories" which shows that narrow minded-ness of critics of the government.
Specifically, pencils are (1) flammable, and (2) leave dust and shards floating when being used. Both of those are very bad in a closed microgravity environment.
It's like the story of the $5000 wrench (which is guaranteed to not spark when struck against metal... would you want to use a regular $5 wrench when working next to large containers of jet fuel?).
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 05 2020, @05:53PM (1 child)
You say this, but you know that the Apollo 1 tragedy was partly due to the fact that they launched manned rockets with 100% oxygen atmosphere inside, right?
Just because people are critical of the government doesn't mean the government doesn't also do stupid things sometimes.
If the fuel is inside the containers, and properly insulated? Sure, why not?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:11PM
Not just pure O2, but it was over-pressure as well. 16psi at the time of the fire.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @06:10PM (1 child)
Sure the Soviets saved a penny in the short term. In the long term, the quashing of ingenuity and curiosity cost them a buck.
Where would you rather work? In the place that wants you to make do with a pencil?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:29AM
And what do they do with pencil shavings and graphite/clay dust from sharpening floating around in the air?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 07 2020, @02:31PM
Why stir it? Just dunk the teabag a few times and all the water is pumped in every direction!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.