On Microwave Ovens and US Currency

<rant>

Why are Microwave Ovens and US Currency not ADA compliant?

Close your eyes. Put some food in the Microwave. Now, set the timer or select a preset option to reheat, cook, or warm the food. Keep your eyes closed.

Can't do it, can you?

All the buttons feel the same - just flat indistinct plastic surface that you have no idea what your touching without looking.

And yet, Drive Up ATM Machines have Braille on them!! WTF?!? Walk up, I can understand. But Drive-Up ATMs? Sigh.

Now, close your eyes again and open your wallet. Count out exactly how much money you have in bills without looking.

Impossible, isn't it? They are all the same size. There is nothing tactile on them that allows you to feel what denomination they are - unlike almost every other currency in the world!!

So the U.S. Government and Microwave Oven Manufacturers are non-ADA compliant?

I just don't get it.

Seems to me, if they can put braille on ATM machines, they can put it on Microwave buttons - I have yet to see any.

Also seems to me, that if every U.S. bill was a different size, it would make the most popular method of counterfeiting (bleaching lower denomination bills and re-printing them as higher denomination) impossible.

I dunno. I guess this just makes too much sense.

</rant>

Chinese Culture - #15: For whom the bell tolls

View Chinese Culture - #1 for an explanation of this series.

Chinese Superstition: Never give a clock as a gift

The Chinese like clocks. Heck, they invented them. But they should never be given as a gift - least of all on a person's birthday. That would be very bad.

To receive a clock as a gift is to be told your time on earth is numbered. Its like an omen of impending death. Shutter. Ugh. Creepy.

Just don't do it.

Watches seem to be OK. But just to be safe, avoid the whole timepiece thing altogether.