Unknown Editor

February 2003

Useless Information

Here at Microwaves101.com, we strive to supply our visitors with useful information, so they will come back again and again and make some sponsors happy. This is surely a different idea from 99% of the world wide web, where useless information rules. No wonder the economy is in the crapper, the internet was supposed to be a good thing.

I'm not talking about trivia here, I am glad that my Snapple bottle just informed me that the Hawaiian alphabet has only twelve letters, I might need to know that, as a Lifeline on "Who Want's to be a Millionaire" someday. I am talking about data that has absolutely no useful purpose to the reader, but the informer thinks it's a Big Deal and is proud to provide it to you.

An example of totally useless information is as follows. Consumer Reports studied the economics of aluminum foil recently. One new product by Reynolds is the new "Release" brand of foil, on which a non-stick coating is applied, which does an effective job of making sure your Grandmother's chocolate chip cookies don't have an unwanted "battery" taste when you bite into one and get some aluminum stuck between your teeth. This sounds like a good thing, thanks for sharing this with me, you are thinking... but the study doesn't stop there.

They go on to compare the price of foil, with and without the non-stick coating. It seems that old-school foil costs about five cents per square foot, while the new non-stick variety costs seven cents. Reynolds has to make some money for their stock-holders, this makes sense. But leave it to Consumer Reports to compare the price of the new foil against the old foil with one modification, with the "consumer" spraying on a little bit of vegetable spray such as "Pam" instead. Presumably this works just as well as Release foil, if anyone cares, but of course now you need to keep two things handy in your kitchen cabinet to make that tasty snack. Next they tried to measure the additional cost of the Pam spray per square foot, and came up with one cent, but this would depend on the person doing the spraying, so the accuracy of the entire analysis is called into question.

The conclusion that they reached is that for "smart consumers" the most economical method of providing non-stick aluminum foil would be to buy the uncoated variety, then coat it yourself. This begs the question: how much money are we talking about here, for a little convenience?

Having not bought a roll of aluminum foil in over three years myself (the last time was in preparation for a drunken camping trip with Da Boyz where I don't recall that anyone prepared any chocolate-chip cookies to enjoy with the beer and cigars), I had to ask around the Microwaves101 office for data. The local cookie expert estimates that she purchases one roll of foil per year, sized at 75 square feet. So this revolutionary bit of consumer knowledge could be applied in her case to save a whopping $0.75 per year, if she is cheap with the Pam. Surely there are more important decisions that consumers can make that will reap a larger reward. I suggest the staff of Consumer Reports "stick" to reviewing appliances, and while we're at it, I couldn't give a rat's ass what the best buy is for an SUV, I hate them all and those who drive them.

Speaking of useless info, if you want to know even more about the uses and abuses of aluminum, check out www.cockeyed.com. These people obviously have way too much time on their hands, but they sure do know how to waste aluminum foil.

Thanks for reading this hugely useful piece of information!

UE

If you want to know how the Masters of the Microwave Universe can help you sell microwave products, drop us a line at marketing@microwaves101.com. If you want to help us with content for fame and fortune, drop an email and your favorite equation to techwriter@microwaves101.com. And remember to visit us first whenever you need microwave solutions!

Check out the Unknown Editor Archives for previous diatribes.