Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)(pmichaud.com) |
Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)(pmichaud.com) |
High fructose corn syrup is sugar, and is very similar to table sugar (sucrose). It's about 42% fructose and 58% glucose, while table sugar (sucrose) is a disaccharide, of fructose and glucose bonded together in a 1:1 ratio, so table sugar ends up having slightly more fructose and slightly less glucose.
If it's '90's Pyromania Day, then look for the old videos of charcoal BBQ's being fired up with LOX.
Are you Jason Bourne?
(Also, it doesn't really get any more mid-90's than a tip of the hat toward Dave Barry...)
- pouring liquid oxygen onto an outdoor charcoal grill (appears to be George Gobel of Purdue: https://youtu.be/UjPxDOEdsX8)
- a hotel shampoo bottle filled with liquid nitrogen, inserted into a full 5-gallon water bottle
Couldn't find the last one, but kids these days are doing it all wrong: https://youtu.be/PqRMAntoO8k
That made me laugh out loud. This research paper could make for a pretty good intro to scientific writing example for any of your 101s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-propellant_rocket#%22Can...
When I opened up the door I could see a small volcano had formed in the middle of my Pop-Tart and smoke was pouring out of the middle. Embarrassed me slammed the door shut and ran back to my seat and watched in horror as the whole lunch room started talking excitedly. Also the dread I felt when the teachers asked who did it and in unison everyone turned and pointed at me.
I didn't get in trouble, but I didn't microwave Pop-Tarts again. All these years later it is a great story about young stupid me!
Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31951308 - July 2022 (51 comments)
Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17745313 - Aug 2018 (32 comments)
A friend and I used the "www.example.com/~username" webspace that came w/ our dialup accounts to make our own "site" with "experiments" inspired by this one around the same time. (Nothing involving fire, sadly.) We borrowed heavily from the tone. We even tried to make use of gratuitous initialisms, too.
At this point, the researchers also realized that the heat could inadvertently melt the adhesive cellophane and cause the flaming SPTs to suddenly eject from the toaster. Unfortunately, this did not occur.
-Adam Savage
Did your house not burn down?
[0] https://smartlabel.kelloggs.com/Product/Index/00038000222511
Its interesting that there were photos, that was quite unusual for the time. Notice that they are in .gif format. Digital cameras were quite rare back then, and the resolution on the photos looks quite fine so I'm thinking these are probably film-photos that were developed and then scanned on a scanner.
It wasn't used regularly on the internet until into the 2000s, but the word "meme" was coined by Dawkins in 1976, as a direct analog to biological "genes"
Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow Torches was one of the first websites I looked at when I got connected to the Internet back in late ‘94. It makes me very happy to know that the site is still there and people are still finding it for the first time.
Edit: forgot the footnote!!
Unrealistic? Perhaps. But I set you this challenge: make a pastry of the correct shape and size with fruity filling of viscosity and reactivity such that, when ignited, it produces a steady flame and/or propels itself into the air.
4 kcal/g: Carbs and protein
7: Ethanol
9: Fats and lipids
11: Gasoline
13: LNG
34: H2 *
* Hydrogen storage and distribution infrastructure is an exercise for the reader.
Rather spicy reaction ensues.
If under a certain size, the rules are basically "as long as it isn't hazardous" which is vague but more or less requires common sense.
It's also not that hard to comply with RC aircraft regulations.
Plus, drones are everywhere, it's not exactly a dead hobby. Most of the people who were interested in other kinds of RC aircraft are more attracted to the much easier to handle quadcopter types.
<https://web.archive.org/web/20090219024648/http://www.me-mon...>
It's pretty fun! Maybe don't build missiles with it and attempt to kill your neighbor with it though, seems like the least fun possible use for it.
Isn't this one of those substances that is hypergolic with everything around them, including air, water, and test engineers?
[1] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...
But my god man, think of the specific impulse! ;)
It's also opportunistic exploitation of supplies which would be likely to pass through an imports blockade, as has been the case in Gaza.
Both sugar and fertiliser are basic-needs goods, with obvious nonmilitary applications. The fact that they can be combined (with other dual-purpose and low-cost materials, such as steel piping) to create ballistic weapons with ranges (and accuracies) of tens of kilometres is useful to Hamas and of course highly problematic for Israel.
What the source I'd linked noted was that though the rockets are individually highly inaccurate, en mass they become effective area denial weapons (effectively aerial mines), and a highly-asymmetric cost advantage over Israel's Iron Dome ballistic missile defence systems. A Qassam rocket costs less than $1,000, whilst a single shot by Iron Dome is on the order of $100,000, for a 100:1 cost advantage to the attacker. Even given Israel's vastly greater economic capacity over Hamas, that stings.