(My car is as hot as an oven...) Taken Literally

I'm one who was brought up on Science and who has a number of years of study in that area (culminating in a research Masters). So its unsurprising that I take literally the motto of the Royal Society of "Nullius in verba".

Think for yourself and verify

Sadly in modern society Education has failed and the Division Engines of Social Media have made it easier for Zombies of Moronity (article on them here) to just foam at the mouth with whatever emotional response they may have to something they like or don't like. Its important to consider the "Pied Piper" principle here in leading fools with what they like or what happens to be consistent with their world view.

This is however the basic recipe for "how a fool and their money are easily parted", and the antithesis of how all the technology in our daily lives (you know, like how you're reading this post) operates and was created.

So when I saw on FarceBook the following post I thought "that doesn't seem right" ...

Particularly the words "proof " and the description of "parked in the shade" by Mildura Cafe ...

Being who I am rather than bleat about "that's bullshit" or "ouh it does feel like an oven in my car" (which are all meaningless), I thought I'd set up my own "experiment" to see if  I can replicate it myself.

Method

So taking their description as instructions I decided that I doubted it would work so rather than waste time I went straight for "do it in full sunlight"

I altered the experiment a little by not using an open baking tray (as per the picture above) but in a glass lidded casserole dish. My logic was two fold:

• I didn't want my car to be smelling like steak for weeks
• evaporation will actually cool the steak so the sealed casserole dish would be better at keeping in the heat of the oven (which is why we use them)

Here is the meat in my casserole dish

with a little dash of oil in the bottom so it didn't stick.

So I parked my car in full sunlight on a fukken hot day (we're in the middle of a heat wave at the moment) and left it there for an hour before I put the meat in at 11am (as per their method). I didn't think to photograph it till after I'd put the meat in there, but here it is and you can see its "full sunlight" not shade

When I placed the dish on the passenger seat I thought I'd measured the temperature, so I closed the door (to keep in the heat) and dashed back for my thermometer ...

already warming up ...

At 1:30 I thought I'd just check my cooking, so I went out and had a quick peek in the oven. It was warm (hot enough to have killed anyone in the car by then), but not hot enough denature the proteins (which is what cooking does quick primer here).

a puddle of liquid has started to appear in the dish, but its not cooking and is still red to the sight... so I thought I'd sit it on the (metal) dash of the Pajero for an hour or so to just give it that bit more solar energy

Shot through the windscreen. The car is facing North, and so as this is the southern hemisphere you can infer the time from the shadow angles to be around 13:45pm in this shot.

An hour later I knew the passenger seat would be getting better sun (you can see it in the earlier picture already) so I moved it quickly back to there (getting full sun through the window).

I then went back to my other jobs and prepared the tipod in the kitchen to make the "fresh out of the oven" video which is below.

This clarifies what the steak looked like and the texture and condition. As you can see the steak was essentially slow cooked to a rare stage. Indeed I finished it off by thin slicing it and then quick frying it in the pan just to sear the meat. I served it with dinner with greens (rather like a Snark) crushed peanuts and a glass of Shiraz ... who says research is not its own reward ;-)

Discusison

Now its important to note that the original intention of the Farcebook post was to remind people that you should not leave children or animals in the car in summer. I accept there was some theatrics in this post to add some whimsey. However what drew me to do this experiment was the amount of conflict generated in the comments (make sure you read that Division Engine post above) and the emotional and evidence-less squeals of both the Yah and the Nay respondents.

Fucking no-one even thought to try it. Born to be sheep. Worse, that although my first reply to a caller of bullshit was "why not try it yourself". Later when I posted my finding and photographs, even with the above evidence was told it was bullshit. Nice to be called a liar by morons, it somehow validates me. Let me quote from Epictetus (philosopher of the month for me it seems) how I see this:

• If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone."
• It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting 

So I implore you (probably not needed for anyone who reads my blog much) to not take things at face value, to seek evidence if you feel its wrongor even if you feel its right but "maybe not".

Before you make judements.