4 ms·

Meanwhile every time I put a new kind of bread / bagel / muffin in my toaster, it comes out unsatisfyingly burnt or underdone as is the particular setting of th

Meanwhile every time I put a new kind of bread / bagel / muffin in my toaster, it comes out unsatisfyingly burnt or underdone as is the particular setting of the day. See, the objects I insert into the toaster almost _never_ resemble the model bread that the EE designed for. If the toaster had a shade selector, a built in camera and was factory color calibrated, then no matter what I stuck in the toaster it would come out that color (or hit some global MAX_TOASTING_TIME) . Good software engineers design robustly without increasing the problem domain (much).

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> "If the toaster had a shade selector, a built in camera and was factory color calibrated, then no matter what I stuck in the toaster it would come out that color (or hit some global MAX_TOASTING_TIME) ." ...which would fail on dark breads like pumpernickel or be confused by marbled or cinnamon swirl breads.
- jvanderbot 7y ago
  seems to me radiated heat should indicate internal done-ness. Maybe a heat feedback somehow.
  - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
    I think that's only true if the thickness and heat transfer rate of all things inserted into the toaster is uniform, which may not be the case.
    - jvanderbot 7y ago
      things should absorb heat until they reach equilibrium, regardless, no?
      - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
        How do you determine whether the object being toasted has reached equilibrium from radiated heat measurements which are from the surface of the object?
- maerF0x0 7y ago
  +1 Well done. (Pun intended) Edit: I think this points out the challenges of "Just make me a simple X" that business and product folks always initiate with, hoping to get the cheapest solution. Then they wonder why it fails in every way except the ones they explicitly said during design/coding and why there is a long tail of updates that often exceed the MVP...
ethbro 7y ago
This is a solved problem. Simply hook your control logic to measures of radiant heat, rather than time. http://automaticbeyondbelief.org/ http://automaticbeyondbelief.org/ Thankfully, I inherited my grandmother's 1960s Sunbeam toaster [1], which still makes perfect toast to this day. It's nice to have things from before we unlearned how to make them. [1] This one, specifically: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sunbeam-Vista-Radiant-Temperature-Control-Toaster-Vintage-1960s-MCM-VGC-/233420652560 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sunbeam-Vista-Radiant-Temperature-C...
- krapht 7y ago
  In this case, it was unlearned for a very good reason. The hexavalent chromium plating on those toasters is a genotoxic carcinogen. The metal body gets dangerously hot during toasting. The internal metal wires are not safe and will electrocute children who poke metal inside. The mechanical temperature control and automatic toast ejection were complicated and extremely expensive, making it unaffordable for most. * Twee nostalgia for technology of yester-year annoys me; I feel the same way about people who preach about the technical superiority of safety razors and vinyl records.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Well, I don't care about such things because I'm not in California...
    - krapht 7y ago
      Even if none of these things matter to you, how about the fact that the mechanical control would not be easily adapted to handle variable width bread without much more expense? Who wants a toaster that can't handle thick cut bread or bagels in the 21st century? And it's not just California. You couldn't get UL approval for such a toaster today, so it would not be sold anywhere. These old toasters cost the equivalent of $235 in today's dollars. (~$23 in 1949) Of course if you buy a $200 toaster today, it would be a marvel of technology. Nobody buys $200 toasters though, you can get a crappy one for $15 and that's what people buy, so any comparisons between today and yesterday are unfair. Compare like price with like price.
ncmncm 7y ago
Haha, smoked him out. Off with his head! A four-bit microcontroller, or physical integrator, can evaluate radiative doneness much more reliably than a camera.
Merrill 7y ago
What is needed is a detector for the flavor agents given off by the Maillard reaction. If I don't know the proper time in the microwave to heat a dish, I just let it run until it starts to smell right. The same strategy should work for toast.

ThrowawayR2 7y ago

> "If the toaster had a shade selector, a built in camera and was factory color calibrated, then no matter what I stuck in the toaster it would come out that color (or hit some global MAX_TOASTING_TIME) ." ...which would fail on dark breads like pumpernickel or be confused by marbled or cinnamon swirl breads.

jvanderbot 7y ago
seems to me radiated heat should indicate internal done-ness. Maybe a heat feedback somehow.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  I think that's only true if the thickness and heat transfer rate of all things inserted into the toaster is uniform, which may not be the case.
  - jvanderbot 7y ago
    things should absorb heat until they reach equilibrium, regardless, no?
    - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
      How do you determine whether the object being toasted has reached equilibrium from radiated heat measurements which are from the surface of the object?
maerF0x0 7y ago
+1 Well done. (Pun intended) Edit: I think this points out the challenges of "Just make me a simple X" that business and product folks always initiate with, hoping to get the cheapest solution. Then they wonder why it fails in every way except the ones they explicitly said during design/coding and why there is a long tail of updates that often exceed the MVP...

ethbro 7y ago

This is a solved problem. Simply hook your control logic to measures of radiant heat, rather than time. http://automaticbeyondbelief.org/ http://automaticbeyondbelief.org/ Thankfully, I inherited my grandmother's 1960s Sunbeam toaster [1], which still makes perfect toast to this day. It's nice to have things from before we unlearned how to make them. [1] This one, specifically: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sunbeam-Vista-Radiant-Temperature-Control-Toaster-Vintage-1960s-MCM-VGC-/233420652560 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sunbeam-Vista-Radiant-Temperature-C...

krapht 7y ago
In this case, it was unlearned for a very good reason. The hexavalent chromium plating on those toasters is a genotoxic carcinogen. The metal body gets dangerously hot during toasting. The internal metal wires are not safe and will electrocute children who poke metal inside. The mechanical temperature control and automatic toast ejection were complicated and extremely expensive, making it unaffordable for most. * Twee nostalgia for technology of yester-year annoys me; I feel the same way about people who preach about the technical superiority of safety razors and vinyl records.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Well, I don't care about such things because I'm not in California...
  - krapht 7y ago
    Even if none of these things matter to you, how about the fact that the mechanical control would not be easily adapted to handle variable width bread without much more expense? Who wants a toaster that can't handle thick cut bread or bagels in the 21st century? And it's not just California. You couldn't get UL approval for such a toaster today, so it would not be sold anywhere. These old toasters cost the equivalent of $235 in today's dollars. (~$23 in 1949) Of course if you buy a $200 toaster today, it would be a marvel of technology. Nobody buys $200 toasters though, you can get a crappy one for $15 and that's what people buy, so any comparisons between today and yesterday are unfair. Compare like price with like price.

ncmncm 7y ago

Haha, smoked him out. Off with his head! A four-bit microcontroller, or physical integrator, can evaluate radiative doneness much more reliably than a camera.

Merrill 7y ago

What is needed is a detector for the flavor agents given off by the Maillard reaction. If I don't know the proper time in the microwave to heat a dish, I just let it run until it starts to smell right. The same strategy should work for toast.