7 ms·
Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)
- jwilk 8y ago(1994)
- tarboreus 8y agoSorry, forgot about that convention.
- nickthemagicman 8y agoThat's science baby!
- draw_down 8y agoMan, take me back to when the internet meant squeezing ~a dozen paragraphs out of setting some food on fire. Those were really the days.
- draw_down 8y ago(</sarcasm>, tbc)
- mrbill 8y agoI used this as an example for my public speaking class in college in '94. I also passed out a Pop-Tart (in a baggie) to every person in the class. Wow, memories.
- sv123 8y agoThis is also a classic, grapes in the microwave: http://pmichaud.com/grape/ http://pmichaud.com/grape/
- EvanAnderson 8y agoIt fills me with happiness that this remains on the Internet.
- Shebanator 8y ago"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." QOTD!
- bgongfu 8y agoReminds me of the stinkymeat project [0] for some reason. Sweet memories from a more playful online experience, and probably part of the reason I turned vegan. [0] http://www.stinkymeat.net/stinkymeat/day1/ http://www.stinkymeat.net/stinkymeat/day1/
- dpeck 8y ago90s web was a weird weird place and this was a truly disgusting project in many ways. One of my earliest memories of something turning into a "meme", there were t-shirts being sold referencing it at one point.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago... what on Earth did I just read?
- noxToken 8y agoIf the site layouts and design weren't clue enough on how old this is, the high res photo links are 640x480 pixels!
- TeMPOraL 8y agoSurprisingly, in this context, it's a good thing. I'm not sure I would be able to stand those photos in >1 megapixel size.
- trentlott 8y agoI think an excellent use of someone's time would be to curate a website that corrals as such old/classic 'project' webpages and protoblogs. I would love to spend hours clicking around on the twenty-years-past internet of my youth. I particularly miss an old game called Vagabonds Quest; essentially just a perl chatroom with basic DnD classes/leveling built in for competition.
- cpeterso 8y agoIn the "Figure 5. Extinguising the SPT" photo, you can see in the toaster reflection that the experimenter appears to be barefoot! Not recommended when playing with fire. http://www.pmichaud.com/toast/toast-5a.gif http://www.pmichaud.com/toast/toast-5a.gif
- npongratz 8y agoLuckily the regulators were on the case. The researchers received a stern warning for their OSHA violation: http://www.pmichaud.com/toast/follow2.html http://www.pmichaud.com/toast/follow2.html
- KineticLensman 8y agoFrom Al von Ruff of the Dangerous Projects Team
- osrec 8y agoI love how well written, yet utterly inane this piece is! The toaster disposal picture really got me chuckling... Just the fact that they felt the need to evidence it lying by the side of a trash can. And how observant neighbours probably would have eventually connected the black smoke with the defunct appliance.
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoDid he repeat the experiment to see if it applies to all Pop-Tarts, or is it unique to the composition of the Strawberry variety?
- United857 8y agoShouldn't the heating element of the toaster shut off after the cycle regardless of the ability to eject? And/or have some thermal cutoff? Otherwise, seems like a major safety flaw, Pop Tart or not.
- paulmd 8y agoThe handle is a switch to the heating element. If the lever is jammed, the poptart won't eject and the toaster keeps running. Not good defensive engineering, but normally you don't jam the lever either.
- autarch 8y agoFun fact. The author of this was also one of the primary developers and architects behind Perl 6 for many years. He's a really great guy.
- tedmiston 8y agoHere's the original article by Dave Barry from 2013 mentioned in the linked article. https://www.davebarry.com/misccol/poptarts.htm https://www.davebarry.com/misccol/poptarts.htm
- sbierwagen 8y ago(1993)
- tedmiston 8y agoWhoops — thank you.
- bdcravens 8y ago> The response to my Strawberry Pop Tart article has been overwhelming. In October 1994 alone it's been accessed more than 2000 times. The web was a much different place in 1994 :-)
- ChristianGeek 8y agoI think almost everyone on the web in 1994 hit his page!
- wwweston 8y agoAnd yet, note the clean typography, responsive design, semantic markup, and fast page load times. ;)
- js2 8y agoTying together two recent HN submissions. This one, and the submission on Ali Wong wherein someone linked to Seinfeld explaining how he developed his Pop-Tart joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWxXyCfW5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWxXyCfW5s
- jerezzprime 8y ago"to waste this much time on something that stupid, that felt good to me"
- toomanybeersies 8y agoOn a related note, you can make a thermal lance [1] that can cut steel out of bacon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9dskxN10N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9dskxN10N0 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance