Just apropos of nothing a thought popped into my head from the last few biking trips involving overnighters in YHA hostels.

At breakfast the ‘conveyor belt’ style toasters seem to have a setting where once through results in mildly warmed normal bread yet twice through results in incineration. In itself this is mildly irritating, but it is actually sinister.

It is sinister because if your slice is on its second cycle (and about to turn into a rectangular pile of black soot), someone else’s slice is next to it and just achieving a surface temperature increase of 1-2 degrees Celsius.

Has anyone else noticed this? Are there any other paranormal forces that are at work in seemingly simple processes?