I read once of a person who would microwave their coffee for some unusual amount of time, like 48 seconds. I think it was a brain teaser: why would the person do this?

The answer was that they had timed the spinning of the carousel in the microwave, and knew that if they zapped it for 48 seconds, the mug would make some number of whole revolutions, and end up with the handle pointing towards them, making it easier for them to pick the mug up again.

This stuck with me, because it is exactly the sort of nerdly optimization that I would make. In fact, I’ve had discussions over this sort of thing in the kitchen at work. One time, a co-worker and I had an gleeful conversation about how precisely to manipulate the cup-at-a-time coffee machine to get the cup of coffee made in the shortest time possible, including adding sugar.

Then again, once I was standing in a work kitchen with a woman I knew only by sight as being from the accounting group. Making conversation, I told her the story of the precisely timed mug nuking, and she said, “That is a sad man”.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.