Genie, Re: " There was a news report on TV recently about how microwaving can raise the liquid's temperature well beyond 212 degrees, such that sticking a spoon into the cup can cause the liquid to explode, burning someone severely." If the liquid is water based (i.e. coffee or tea) it is impossible to heat an open cup or container to well over 212 degrees. At 212 (100 degrees C) the water boils, by which is meant it passes from a liquid to a gas. The only way to super heat water (over 212) is under pressure, i.e. in a closed container, such as a pressure cooker or a boiler. The liquid boils off steam until the pressure of the steam overides the ability of the water to turn to gas. At that point, the heat is retained by the water, until the pressure becomes so high that the boiler blows! Oops.

Now, as to why McD's coffee is so damn hot. THEY claim it's because using extremely hot water extracts more flavor from the ground coffee. Although this is true, I have my doubts that this is why they do it. A friend of mine who used to manage a McD's told me it was explained to him that the coffee was 180+ so that when you walked out of the restaurant in the dead of winter, put the cup into the snow on the roof of your car to unlock the door, and then finally got it into your car to drink, it would still be hot. Who knows? But for that matter, who DOESN"T know the stuff is too damn hot?

Finally (sorry about the length of this post) I like the idea of the "reasonable person" criteria in the UK. Unfortunately, the US standard is that if a misuse of the product could be reasonably forseen, then you have to engineer against the MISUSE by an idiot. Case in point, if a set of book shelves can be forseen to be pulled into the center of the room and used as a ladder to change a lightbulb, thus causing injury when the idiot comes crashing down, then you have to include something in the design to keep the idiot from misusing it. Thus the engineering concept "idiotproofing", or in the new politically correct version, "consumer proofing". Gotta love it.

Blues