Gee's Blog World: EggWatchers uses the power of YouTube to help you time the perfect hard-boiled egg

Sunday, August 1, 2010

EggWatchers uses the power of YouTube to help you time the perfect hard-boiled egg

One evening, a while back, I put a bunch of eggs to boil and went back into my room. Over an hour later, when smoke started seeping in from under the door, I remembered with a start that I completely forgot about the eggs. Bursting out of my room into the smoke-filled apartment, I made my way to the stove and shut it off. Of course, not only were the eggs ruined, but the whole place reeked of smoke for days later, even after I've ventilated the heck out of it.

Had I used EggWatchers at the time, this would not have happened! Admittedly, there are lots of other egg timers around, but this is one of the nicest versions I've seen.

You start off by specifying whether your egg is medium or large, straight from the fridge or room temperature, and whether you'd like it "squidgy" (their word, not mine) or firm. As you walk through the wizard, your little egg avatar animates accordingly. In the screenshot you can see a medium-sized egg, straight from the fridge (that's why it's wearing a beanie), that I want "firm" (hence the "tough-guy" look).

Once you feed all of these variables into EggWatchers, its advanced algorithm computes the recommended duration for cooking your egg. It then uses YouTube to find a video which is exactly as long as it would take for your egg to be ready.

You then go drop your egg in the boiling water, come back to the computer, hit start the timer and watch a completely random YouTube video. When the video is done, that's exactly the right time for you to go enjoy your perfectly-boiled egg. Ahh, the Internet is a magical place!

[via MakeUseOf]