Continuous Functions

The one-touch faucet is a marvel -- a long faucet arm grants fine-tuned control and you can simultaneously adjust water flow and temperature across the continuum of the amplitude/temperature state space.

Unless you have our faucet -- which, as you can see in the below photos, goes from unbearably hot on the left (perhaps -1 degree off vertical) to the kind of tepid that feels like it leaves your dishes teeming with bacteria on the right (+.5 degrees off vertical?). I put in the scrub brush to help center the frame of reference.

Somewhere in between those two settings is the comfortably hot point. So, one learns the technique of getting the handle close to right, then tapping it until it gets to a temperature that's acceptable.