16 Responses:

1. malokai says:

   16 years ago at 7:26 am

   uhm. how do I melt the ice in the artic without a fire to begin with?

   • jwz says:

     16 years ago at 7:32 am

     Pee.

     • malokai says:

       16 years ago at 7:39 am

       shouldn't you be conserving that as a source of body temperature liquid and drink it? Besides, the urea in the urine would block out a good deal of the lower part of the light spectrum.

     • adcott says:

       16 years ago at 8:13 am

       I guess in that case you could cut out the hard part and just pee all over yourself.

   • freiheit says:

     16 years ago at 8:53 am

     You find clear ice someplace and start carving. Possibly starting with a sledgehammer and hoping for a chip about the right size and shape.

     Use your own body heat for the small-scale smoothing melting, of course.

2. earle says:

   16 years ago at 7:43 am

   Ah, but in the arctic where do you find wood?

3. icebluenothing says:

   16 years ago at 7:44 am

   More importantly -- how am I gonna check my bookmarks?

4. kyronfive says:

   16 years ago at 9:49 am

   how exactly am i supposed to access this site when i'm trapped in the artic with no technology?

   • jwz says:

     16 years ago at 9:51 am

     THEREIN LIES THE JOKE MA'AM.

     • kyronfive says:

       16 years ago at 10:00 am

       i have to give you props for being the second person living in san francisco i've met who actually understands - and uses - sarcasm.

5. past_tense says:

   16 years ago at 11:31 am

   On a sunny bake-outside day last June I lit a cigarette using the sun and the reflector from a disassembled flashlight. They called me a geek. Now they can kneel before my winter ice-lighting skills. Bwahahaha!

   • baconmonkey says:

     16 years ago at 1:23 pm

     I really want to get ahold of one of those 3' fresnel lenses used on some older bigscreen TVs. forget the small potato method of focusing 28 square inches of sunlight from a 6" lens, with 1296 quare inches, that's a spot with 46 times as much energy.

     Screw frying ants with a flashlight, I'm gonna be on a tall building frying people.

     • past_tense says:

       16 years ago at 3:27 pm

       Like this?

     • jwz says:

       16 years ago at 3:56 pm

       The former "SGI Antics and Mayhem" page (wayback machine) had a fun story about a 3'x2.5' fresnel lense that Edmund Scientifics used to actually advertise as being "able to melt concrete in seconds." Sadly, they only seem to sell relatively small ones now.

6. deadprogrammer says:

   16 years ago at 11:59 am

   I wonder if this can be done with a jellyfish.

   • thesliver says:

     16 years ago at 5:39 pm

     If it can, then you need to add it here.