mini-moan; interface definition

I've decided to start a new series to cover topics that just aren't complex enough to warrant a full post. A lot of effort goes into producing a post and that sometimes means I forget topics before I commit them to the internetz electric gripz.

So to christen this new series I am going to discuss the terrible interface on my microwave, which like any lonely single man's microwave gets plenty of use.

My microwave has one of those flashy little electronic knobs on the front that you use to set the cooking time, only you can't just turn it, first you have to press a button to put the microwave into cooking mode (what other modes can a microwave have? I haven't worked out what the default mode is because the manual couldn't make less sense if it were written in Lithuanian). So assuming you've done that each half turn of the knob adds 10seconds of cooking, so it takes 3 full turns to do a single minute of cooking. You can imagine how annoying it is to do 5 minutes. But to be slightly less annoying their is a button that when pressed increments the cooking time in 30 seconds steps, but once you get to 2:30 it goes up in 1 minute increments, so you can't do 3 minutes, you have to do 3:30. So if you want 6 minutes you need to use the knob and turn it 18 times. But once you get to 5minutes the knob also goes up in 30 second increments for some reason, perhaps someone realised having to turn the knob so much was too time consuming for a device that's meant to make cooking faster. Plus you can't press the button to get to 2:30 and turn the knob 1.5 times to add another 30 seconds, no that would be too simple. It's one of the other with my microwave, never back down, no compromises.

Who came up with this arbitrary system? My mums microwave has a button for 10 seconds, another for 1minute and a 3rd for 10minutes, so you can do 33:40 seconds with 10 button presses, with my microwave you can't even do 33:40, and if you could you'd be their until Judgement Day turning the little knob that gets a lot more action than mine :(.

Wow, that mini-moan turned into more of a full blown moan. But I'm committed to the series now, I've added a new tag and everything, new tags don't just add themselves.