a violin, microwaves, and successful products

Today I learned that if I play my fiddle for longer than about ten minutes, I can smell Illinois on it. That's not a huge shock because that's the last place I was well enough to spend much time playing it, but ick. (I think it'll air out.)

Then I learned that people who think microwave ovens are bad for you frequently claim that they were invented by Nazis. They were invented during WWII, so it's certainly not inconceivable that Nazis invented them, and then we stole the technology and said a guy at Raytheon invented them, but it sounds kind of farfetched. I mean, if we're ok saying that the Germans had better rockets than we did, why would we worry about something like a microwave oven, which, when first available to consumers in the early 1950s cost $1300, a sum that in today's money, using this handy chart (pdf), converts to around $8500? Imagine the demand.

Here's all the other stuff I learned:

1. Snopes addressed water 'rearranged' by microwaves.
2. People put placentas in shampoo, and other people buy it.
3. Foreskin face cream reportedly smells bad.
4. "If everyone exposed to a product likes it, the product will not succeed." Apparently, somebody has to love it.