Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

https://www.pmichaud.com/toast/

by Keegs • 2 years ago

164 78 2 years ago

pmichaud.com

Keegs• 2 years ago

A post that predates CSS.

robin_reala2• 2 years ago

By a full 2 years and 4 months.

curiouser2• 2 years ago

Wow the HTML is so nice. I was surprised at first bc there are no </p> tags but apparently it's valid! https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/p#...

WaitWaitWha• 2 years ago

I vaguely recall some movie where a jammed toaster with two pop-tarts, under the kitchen cabinets with other flammable items was used to create an accidental fire.

h2odragon• 2 years ago

Overlooked alternative energy resource

EA-31673• 2 years ago

I read that 1993 Dave Barry article when it came out, as a teen, and it made me fall in lifelong love with Dave Barry's work. It's such a blast from the past to see the references to it here.

phendrenad2• 2 years ago

Freakily, I was just thinking about this yesterday. Probably remembered it after watching Oppenheimer.

robin_reala2• 2 years ago

Ah, the old pop-tart solid rocket booster. Sugar is a good propellant (though you’ll need an oxidiser if you’re going far up).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-propellant_rocket#%22Can...

EA-31673• 2 years ago

I know sugar is hypergolic with Potassium Bromate, but I wonder if it's hypergolic with RFNA? That would be amazing... if stupidly dangerous.

TeMPOraL• 2 years ago

RFNA

Isn't this one of those substances that is hypergolic with everything around them, including air, water, and test engineers?

hyperific2• 2 years ago

In Andy Weir's The Martian one of the characters uses a mixture of sugar and liquid oxygen as an IED. Loads of energy in sugar. Glycerin is also quite energy dense. I used to do chemistry demos for high school chem classes and the potassium permanganate and glycerin demo was always a spectacle.

fullspectrumdev• 2 years ago

A similar lab demo I recall also is the gummy bear dropped into a test tube of molten potassium chlorate.

Rather spicy reaction ensues.

colechristensen4• 2 years ago

For a lot of propulsion kinds of reactions you can mix a good oxidizer (liquid oxygen, high percentage hydrogen peroxide, fuming nitric acid) with any organic solid. Hotdogs, sugar, fat, or just anything really made mostly of carbon.

1letterunixname2• 2 years ago

Are small, retail model rockets allowed to be launched from large public spaces in the US still? Or do they require a license, realtime transponder, and a bunch of bureaucratic red tape like RC aircraft that is effectively a dead hobby with a Hobson's choice between privacy invasion and cost, over-criminalization, and non-participation.

irrational• 2 years ago

You mean like Estes rockets? I've taken my kids to the local elementary school grass field and launched them many times. We've never had an issue.

colechristensen4• 2 years ago

https://www.apogeerockets.com/Peak-of-Flight/Newsletter516

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.

dredmorbius2• 2 years ago

Sugar is a prime component of Hamas's Qassam rocket fuel, with potassium nitrate as oxidizer.

<https://web.archive.org/web/20090219024648/http://www.me-mon...>

mrguyorama2• 2 years ago

This is just "rocket candy" right? My friend made this stuff a whole bunch when we were teens. Once during a summer break from college, we lit up a watermelon sized chunk of the stuff, producing a house sized plume of white smoke and a mild explosion.

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.

bregma• 2 years ago

We teach our Scouts how Doritos make excellent firestarters. Of course, you only need one or two to star a fire, yet a large family-size sack is required for a typical Scouts meeting.

dabluecaboose• 2 years ago

Cheez-its also work very well, and are easy to store in an altoids tin

pimlottc• 2 years ago

Yeah, but it makes the mints taste terrible

danavar• 2 years ago

Fritos too!

hprotagonist• 2 years ago

pork rinds are also excellent.

fortran77• 2 years ago

In girl scouts, they used tampons! See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNYJr20dBPw for example

bemusedthrow752• 2 years ago

Oh man. I remember this from '94. What a trip down memory lane.

EvanAnderson• 2 years ago

Totally! Fun times.

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.

bemusedthrow752• 2 years ago

This is the bit that always made me laugh:

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.

bell-cot• 2 years ago

Meh. I've seen taller flames from a lone page of crumpled newsprint.

If it's '90's Pyromania Day, then look for the old videos of charcoal BBQ's being fired up with LOX.

jszymborski3• 2 years ago

Meh. I've seen taller flames from a lone page of crumpled newsprint.

Are you Jason Bourne?

https://youtu.be/4yEFqDqTFPc

effingwewt• 2 years ago

Those were magazines, newspaper (especially the stock used back in the day) is far more flammable.

jszymborski3• 2 years ago

From the mind that brought us pmwiki!

ck2• 2 years ago

Since everything is no longer sugar but government subsidized high-fructose-corn-syrup does this even work anymore?

UniverseHacker• 2 years ago

Yes- they have about the same energy content and will burn about the same.

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.

ortusdux2• 2 years ago

I think that demonstrations like this are great ways to teach kids healthy eating habits. My middle school health class included a joint day with a science teacher that left a lasting impression. Seeing the amount of energy contained in a single gummy bear put things into perspective!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkRCIPSsjM

nullify88• 2 years ago

One that left an impression with me was leaving a tooth in a cup of Coke and watching the tooth decay over multiple days.

ortusdux2• 2 years ago

We did a race between coke and gatorade. Gatorade won hands down.

dang• 2 years ago

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)

pugworthy• 2 years ago

Scale this up and it would make a great Burning Man art piece for deep playa

zahma• 2 years 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.”

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.

nlunbeck• 2 years ago

Yes, I was also pretty moved by *Figure 6: Toaster Disposal* -- I love when research papers go 200% on context

Kaibeezy• 2 years ago

Pre-2014 nitrocellulose ping pong balls… of fire!

plorg• 2 years ago

My college rock band had a silly tradition of burning a nitrocellulose pick as a sacrifice to the rock gods before a show. Ping Pong balls sound like even more fun!

baryphonic• 2 years ago

I miss this era of the Web. Thanks for the enjoyable walk down memory lane!

timekiller3• 2 years ago

I destroyed 2 toaster ovens with pop tarts when I was 5. I would turn on the toaster and forget about it watching cartoons. I can confirm they burn very well.

Levitating• 2 years ago

This happened twice? In the span of a year?!

Did your house not burn down?

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS• 2 years ago

No, the countertops were made from asbestos

timekiller3• 2 years ago

No, it didn’t burn down. A cabinet had to be replaced. I was left to my own vices a lot. I ended up learning a lot of proper firefighting protocols at a young age.

Nevermark• 2 years ago

One unfrosted Strawberry Pop-Tart has 190 (nutritional) calories [0], 4,184 joules, to burn.

[0] https://smartlabel.kelloggs.com/Product/Index/00038000222511

demondemidi• 2 years ago

I remember when this was the internet and it was fun and new and dorky and surfed with Mosaic.

1letterunixname2• 2 years ago

It's too bad we can't run on LNG or H2 because of the improved energy / mass densities.

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.

WillAdams• 2 years ago

We do, sort of, just not very efficiently --- we burn up to 10 calories of petro-chemical energy in our industrial farming practices to get 1 calorie of food energy.

bityard• 2 years ago

Pages like this used to _be_ the world-wide web. Or most of it, anyway. I don't mean the (lack of) page style, I mean the writing. The irreverency of the subject matter. People shared whatever they thought was interesting, without regard to upvotes, likes, number of subscribers, and so on. I miss that a bit.

(Also, it doesn't really get any more mid-90's than a tip of the hat toward Dave Barry...)

aceazzameen• 2 years ago

One could argue that social media has taken its place. Although, the format makes it bite size and within a sea of algorithmic trash.

jrockway• 2 years ago

In 1994 we were seeing this all for the first time. Everyone had intrusive thoughts like "how big can I make a pop tart fire", but very few had the ability to make digital photographs and upload it to the Internet for all to see. Today, everyone has the ability to upload it to the Internet for all to see, so someone probably already had your intrusive thought and already made $10,000 off of it.

colechristensen4• 2 years ago

The old Internet had far far less, er "social validation" feedback. And if it did it was more like a person reaching out to write you a letter.

NotYourLawyer• 2 years ago

Seriously, what a blast from the past. Huge nostalgia.

willy_k• 2 years ago

JKCalhoun• 2 years ago

Yeah, what else is this recalling:

- 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

actionfromafar• 2 years ago

Thermal lance salami:

https://youtu.be/3QgrpbSrGEA?si=XD2T5vQpkdxhCM1E

shever73• 2 years ago

Every time this pops up on HN, I’m reminded of the XKCD comic “Ten thousand”[0]

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!!

[0] https://xkcd.com/1053/

green-salt• 2 years ago

I always smile whenever I read about SPT pyrotechnics.

hifikuno• 2 years ago

This reminds me of the one time I microwaved a Pop-Tart at school. I was grade 4 and young me thought that a Pop-Tart on 30 seconds taste great, a Pop-Tart on 3 minutes would taste amazing!

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!

zharknado• 2 years ago

I was kinda hoping the Pop-Tarts themselves would be blowtorches.

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.

cooper_ganglia• 2 years ago

"Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down!"

-Adam Savage

Prcmaker• 2 years ago

Reminds of the thermal lance made of bacon, a compressed bacon slug, a coaxial feed of oxygen, all ignited with oxy-acetylene . The lance is one of the favourite tools I've ever gotten to use, it's simplicity is amazing, and capability surprising.

nicolas_t• 2 years ago

From my accidental experimentation in the 90s (our toaster would occasionally not pop the toast out) , I can confirm that the frosted strawberry pop tart also create a nice flame. Given the higher amount of sugar and calories, I guess they'd have more fuel to burn.

codeulike• 2 years ago

I remember this from 1994, reading it in the uni computer lab. These was a meme at the time, before the word meme came about.

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.

mrguyorama2• 2 years ago

These was a meme at the time, before the word meme came about

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 (1994)

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