I wonder if anyone casued a fire accidentaly by doing that.

Like "I was only to make my ordinary minty-salty-potato-snacks and WHAM- the house burnt down!"

It's a cool video, if we ignore the music and the spelling, but what I find interesting is the differences in the salt.

Reduced sodium salt?
Iodised salt?

Here in Portugal nobody would think about it, we have salt, just that, pure salt from the Atlantic ocean, and that shows that things we take for granted may not be exactly that in other places around the world.

Didnt work for me....ah well better stock up on the match's.

Originally posted by Now_Then
Nice one! -

I wanna see if that potato will put enough charge in a mobile phone for 1 call , I think possibly more like 5 potato's over a couple of hours might do the trick.

I'm defiantly remembering the fire one though... Good job I'm no arsonist!! I can imagine CSI missing that cremated potato in the burnt out house

you CAN charge a mobile phone as long as you have the charger that doesn't plug into the wall and looks more like a USB plug in...i don't know the name but that is what it looks like...all you need for that is an onion and Gatorade!
1.Take the Gatorade and measure 2 cups out into a bowl.
2.punch a hole halfway through the onion on both sides with a screwdriver
3.let the onion soak in the gatorade until it soaks up at least 1 cup
4.plug your phone right into the onion after removing it from the bowl, this will provide enough charge to last about 30 minutes or longer depending on how well your onion soaked up gatorade and how long you "charged"' it.
i don't know the whys of how this works, i soppose it's electrolytes. But this would definately come in handy in a SIT-X scenario.
ENJOY!

Just tried this with my daughters...nothing though.

Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? We used everything that was suggested.

Can anyone recommend any other good sites that show stuff like this? Would be a great way of keeping my girls interested in science. They would look forward top an experiment or two at the weekends.

CX.

Take an empty Coca-Cola can laying around in your favorite war-zone scenario (cans are available worldwide), polish the lens-formed aluminum bottom with some tooth-paste you also found laying around anywhere, use your thumb and the paste until the concave bottom shines and it reflect things around you. Clean with toilet paper.

Take the same toilet paper sheets, and burn a hole in it using the sunlight reflecting and concentrating in a tiny point, off the shiny half-moon shaped bottom of the Cola can.
The paper will start to burn, light a campfire with it, and maintain that during the lonely nights.

In Alaska, you could fill the Cola can-bottom with water, wait till it freezes, and you'll have a lens which will function as a fine burning glass in sunlight.


For the real geeks:
Demolish a DVD writer disk housing, find the blue laser inside, connect it to a battery and use that to burn papers. Will operate for a very long time. Years.

For the more simple mind orientated persons:
Any reading glasses in spectacles found on dead bodies, or borrowed from living ones in a disaster area, will function perfectly as burning glasses in sunlight.
Don't try this in the dark...


Another easy to find article: throw-away electric lighters.
Must be billions laying around worldwide by now. Full perhaps, but certainly empty.
Don't mind if they have no gas in them anymore, demolish them and take out the piezo-electric lighter part, and use it to make small but powerful sparks, which you use to light fire into small bundles of dried moss.
Moss can be found in any forest.
The piezo-electric part will last many years.
Don't mind the electric shocks you first will receive, you'll find ways to insulate this useful thingy.

[edit on 14/12/08 by LaBTop]

Originally posted by SvenTheBerserK
Iv been camping a few times with mates and as always we remember the beer...but nothing to light a fire with lol.
Next time im going to be the hero of the camping trip......or at least warm

So you'll remember to take all these items along with you on your camping trip but cant remember to take a match or a lighter lol.

In the real world of survival what are the odds of having all of these items and a dry piece of cotton. Why not plan ahead and just buy a .99 cent BIC lighter.

Loved the vid.

Hate the application-in-real-life-I-am-a-wanna-be-cause-it-didn't-work-part though.

ok whoa this is the sickest thing ever

im soooo doing that in front of everyone tomorow, no one will have any clue what im doing until it lights on fire lol its going to be great


but seriously though

like the one person said

can you use paper clips instead of wire?

what kind of wire specifically? copper wire? like speaker wire or what?

any toothpaste work better then the rest?


the potato he used seemed soft... do you cook it first?

is there a best ratio that anyone is aware of as far as toothpaste to salt to potato go


lol i really want to do this tomorrow but dont want to look like a complete fool with a toothpaste salt filled mr potato head with wires for limbs if nothing happens

so if anyone could like get specific and talk us simple minded non scientifically inclined scientist wanna-bes through the process step by step, id REALLY appreciate it


this is definetly one of the coolest non-serious-conspiracy related threads ever on ats

thank you soo much