Which way does the microwave plate spin?

I've been wondering this since childhood.   Why does the turntable sometimes spin clockwise and sometimes counterclockwise?   I finally decided to research the answer.   It's because of the AC synchronous motor that it uses.   It's an inexpensive type of motor that offers constant rotation speed.   Thing is, on this motor, if no special starting mechanism is provided, the direction is random (it depends on where it last stopped and on the phase of the AC current the moment it gets restarted).   Mystery solved!

1 earpiece = 1, 2 earpieces = 4

This is just an empirical measurement, but I'm quite sure that when listening to some music using only one earpiece the perceived volume is 1/4 than when using 2 -- not half.

I think this makes some sense, as the second channel adds one dimension to the sound, turning something mono-dimensional into bi-dimensional (the sound may come from anywhere on the plane where we stand).