Insects Are Exempt From Microwave Radiation

[roadman65]

I found by accident when I stuck something in the microwave at work. I failed to check the bottom for cleanliness and carelessly stuck my food item inside and started the oven.

When completed I actually saw ants crawling around the oven even after my food was heated. They were still alive with no effects of the radiation nor did their internal organs get damaged from internal heat created from the waves that heat your food.

Creepy if you ask me.

[kalvado]

I found by accident when I stuck something in the microwave at work. I failed to check the bottom for cleanliness and carelessly stuck my food item inside and started the oven.

When completed I actually saw ants crawling around the oven even after my food was heated. They were still alive with no effects of the radiation nor did their internal organs get damaged from internal heat created from the waves that heat your food.

Creepy if you ask me.

I bet this is due to the way the mode is distributed. 1/4" near walls isn't heating too much.

Take a piece of chocolate and put it in the same position for a quick run. I bet it will not melt, especially if there is a bigger chunk of food closer to center.

[Max Rockatansky]

It isn't as though the magnetrons on household microwave ovens are super powerful.  They tend be focused towards heating up a very specific and easily avoided area of effect.

Where does one obtain an exemption from radiation?  Is ionizing radiation harder to obtain an exemption for versus non-ionizing?

[hotdogPi]

How do you know from observation that the insect was specifically exempt from radiation and not, e.g. something that prevents all damage (from any source, not just radiation) that would be dealt to it?

[Scott5114]

How do you know from observation that the insect was specifically exempt from radiation and not, e.g. something that prevents all damage (from any source, not just radiation) that would be dealt to it?

Nothing in the 5e Monster Manual is immune to radiant damage. Meaning that the ant would have to be a spellcaster. How powerful of one depends on how long roadman65 had the microwave running for. If it was a minute or less, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise (6) would do the trick (always fun to be able to draw energy from the Upper Planes), but if it was longer than that you'd be looking at things like Invulnerability (9!). The ant would therefore have to be an 11th level sorcerer or wizard to protect against cook times up to one minute, or a 17th level(!) wizard for cook times higher than that.

...I really need to find a D&D group in Vegas. 

[WillWeaverRVA]

I read the thread title and was like, "wait, so everyone has to get microwave radiation except insects?"

I think the right word is "immune".

[kphoger]

I have a childhood memory of my dad putting a cricket in the microwave oven for fun.  Believe me, it was not exempt.

[Rothman]

Poor cricket.  They eat pests.

[kphoger]

Yes, some pests eat pests.

[Rothman]

Yes, some pests eat pests.

And you get the worse pests if you kill the beneficial bugs.

[kalvado]

I have a childhood memory of my dad putting a cricket in the microwave oven for fun.  Believe me, it was not exempt.

There was a story of a very well meaning lady (not a smart one though) who decided to dry a cat after a bath in a microwave. 

[Rothman]

I have a childhood memory of my dad putting a cricket in the microwave oven for fun.  Believe me, it was not exempt.

There was a story of a very well meaning lady (not a smart one though) who decided to dry a cat after a bath in a microwave.

It was found that cats were not exempt.

[triplemultiplex]

And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

[Max Rockatansky]

I have a childhood memory of my dad putting a cricket in the microwave oven for fun.  Believe me, it was not exempt.

There was a story of a very well meaning lady (not a smart one though) who decided to dry a cat after a bath in a microwave.

It was found that cats were not exempt.

Maniac Mansion taught me that hamsters aren't exempt from microwaves. 

[kphoger]

There was a story of a very well meaning lady (not a smart one though) who decided to dry a cat after a bath in a microwave. 

I learned my lesson once by trying to dry out a pair of gloves in the microwave at work.  (I was the guy pushing shopping carts at Target, and I used the snack area's kitchen microwave.)

[mgk920]

Several years ago I caught a hilarious clip on YT of what happens when you put a standard chicken egg into a microwave oven and hit 'high'.  The door did not survive it.   

Also, isn't the oven's transmitting antenna on its inside top?

Mike

[kphoger]

Yes, some pests eat pests.

And you get the worse pests if you kill the beneficial bugs.

Depends on your definition of "worse pests".  The insect keeping me awake in the middle of the night with its incessant chirping is, in that moment at least, the worst pest.  Ten hours later, my opinion might be different.

[kalvado]

Yes, some pests eat pests.

And you get the worse pests if you kill the beneficial bugs.

Depends on your definition of "worse pests".  The insect keeping me awake in the middle of the night with its incessant chirping is, in that moment at least, the worst pest.  Ten hours later, my opinion might be different.

Two cops in a car on patrol.
-Joe, can you check if our flashers work?
-It does... no longer. Now it does again. Stopped. Works again...

[kphoger]

These insects' exemption should be rescinded.  What kind of government is this!

[Rothman]

Yes, some pests eat pests.

And you get the worse pests if you kill the beneficial bugs.

Depends on your definition of "worse pests".  The insect keeping me awake in the middle of the night with its incessant chirping is, in that moment at least, the worst pest.  Ten hours later, my opinion might be different.

Take it outside.

[wanderer2575]

Nothing in the 5e Monster Manual is immune to radiant damage. Meaning that the ant would have to be a spellcaster. How powerful of one depends on how long roadman65 had the microwave running for. If it was a minute or less, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise (6) would do the trick (always fun to be able to draw energy from the Upper Planes), but if it was longer than that you'd be looking at things like Invulnerability (9!). The ant would therefore have to be an 11th level sorcerer or wizard to protect against cook times up to one minute, or a 17th level(!) wizard for cook times higher than that.

...I really need to find a D&D group in Vegas. 

This is going totally off-topic but I can't help myself.  Your post reminds me of a September 1980 installment of the great Cecil Adams' The Straight Dope column, in which he took up a reader's inquiry about Dungeons & Dragons.  A few excerpts:

D&D was invented in 1974 by one Gary Gygax, whose father was a violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  (This strikes me as significant, somehow.) ...

By means of guile and threats of violence, it happens I have managed to get my hands on a couple of the sacred rule books, and let me tell you, buddy, this game is weird ...

To play D&D you need at least two acolytes, who play under the guidance of a vaguely Mansonesque personage called the Dungeon Master (DM).  By means of various murky protocols involving the use of charts and dice, each player establishes the persona of the "character" he or she will manipulate in the game, who typically ends up (if male) being an antisocial cutthroat of some sort, or (if female) possessed of large, grapefruit-like breasts.  I deduce the latter from studying the illustrations in the book.  Apart from predictable characteristics like strength and intelligence, players also have to determine such baffling minutiae as their likelihood of contracting communicable diseases or becoming infested by parasites.  I am at a loss to comprehend the significance of such things, but that is what the rule book says.

The preliminaries having been dealt with, the players are led through an imaginary dungeon devised by the DM in search of treasure or something similar.  On the way, they will encounter various obstacles and evil creatures, which they will have to defeat or evade.

The concept seems simple enough.  It's the application that throws me.  There are two main problems:  (1) There are one billion rules, and (2) the game requires nonstop mathematical finagling that would constipate Einstein.  The rule book is laden with such mystifying pronouncements as the following:  "An ancient spell-using red dragon of huge size with 88 hits points has a BXPV of 1300, XP/HP total of 1408, SAXPB of 2800 (armor class plus special defense plus high intelligence plus saving throw bonus due to h.p./die), and an EAXPA of 2550 (major breath weapon plus spell use plus attack damage of 3-30/bite) -- totaling 7758 h.p."  Here we have a game that combines the charm of a Pentagon briefing with the excitement of double-entry bookkeeping.  The lure of this sort of thing is beyond my comprehension ...

[kkt]

Forwarded to my DnD-playing child

There's DnD groups all over the place, Scott.  Try a comics store?

If you haven't seen this before, you might enjoy this comic:
https://xkcd.com/393

[Scott5114]

September 1980

Well, there's your problem. That would have been only a few years after the game came out, and boy, were the rules screwy back then. I can barely understand them myself. Also, you died a lot more.

The current rules set, 5th edition, is much more streamlined, so I can actually hold them in my head. Which means it's actually kind of fun to work out how you could use them to make something like, say, an ant that's exempt from microwave radiation. If I was using the original rules set from 1980 there would be way more math involved than what I did, which was just basically just cross-referencing something in the back of the book with a table from the front of the book.

There's DnD groups all over the place, Scott.  Try a comics store?

Oh, I know for a fact there's groups here. The main reason I haven't seriously gone looking for one yet is that while games are all over, finding a group that you actually gel with isn't easy. Some people prefer a game that's very technical and want to optimize their characters so that the party does the absolute highest amount of damage on every possible turn. Meanwhile, I have more fun deciding what my characters are bad at, since the flaws make them more interesting. The sort of game I like plays fast and loose with the rules and is more focused on getting to know the characters and telling a fun, silly story about them. Basically, I want a game to look like the front half of the Alanland thread. I'm sure there's one out there, but you have to sort of weed through the groups available to find one you like, and that can take a serious time investment.

As an aside, there is also a particular type of player that, for reasons that escape me, has to haggle with every single shopkeeper they interact with to get the absolute best price on everything. I've run into two of these. This makes no sense to me, because it's not like every character doesn't end up rich by the end of a campaign anyway. And it's boring as hell to sit through the haggling if you're not the player doing it. (I've already decided if I ever have to DM for one of those players, I'm going to whip out a prewritten script for a playthrough of Grocery Game from The Price Is Right, but translated into D&D prices. If this fake money matters so much to you, let's see you price a package of Little Debbie snack cakes with it, fucker.)

I'm still in the same group that I was in when I was in Oklahoma, since we play online, but one player is now enrolled in school and has homework all the time and the other two are constantly working, so it's basically inactive until one of the two changes.

[Takumi]

My wife and I recently bought a DnD starter kit since we're looking to learn to play. Were not really sure where/how to get started either.

[Rothman]

My wife and I recently bought a DnD starter kit since we're looking to learn to play. Were not really sure where/how to get started either.

You're going to need another player or two.