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An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

atlasobscura.com

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Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#71

Post by tmm »

prawn wrote: post #32
DoubleMalt wrote: post #26

Reminds of this (sadly discontinued) project: http://www.photongrill.com/

There's also this parabolic solar camp stove I spotted on the REI site a few months ago. Seems like an absolute gimmick, but the few reviews are all very positive: https://www.rei.com/product/100561/gosun-sport-solar-camp-st...

I saw one of these work at the Annapolis Boat Show a few years ago. Given that it was an October afternoon in Maryland, the angle of the sun was not ideal (and there were a lot of vendor tents in the way). It still made a hot hotdog in about 15 minutes. I'm sure it could do much better in the summer with a clear view of the sun.

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#72

Post by agumonkey »

sswaner wrote: post #21
mmjaa wrote: post #5

I'm definitely going to buy one of these bowls just for this highly useful feature...

If you don't live close to an IKEA store: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T5YMQIG/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_IY...

Thanks, not a trigger buy thing at that radius / price. Rare as second hand things, so far people liked the product it seems. Or died since.

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#73

Post by Eric_WVGG »

pulse7 wrote: post #67

This is great if you need fire and you don't have matches...

this immediately reminded me of a trick to make a fire with a chocolate bare and a soda can. You can use the (fine grit) chocolate to polish the bowl under the can to a mirror finish, add sun and voila

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#74

Post by dekhn »

ythn wrote: post #68
pulse7 wrote: post #67

This is great if you need fire and you don't have matches...

I think it would actually be quite difficult to start a fire with this. Speaking as a former boy scout who had to build a fire with a magnifying glass for wilderness survival merit badge - it's really easy get smoke, it's quite difficult to get a flame. The article claims that he "set a piece of newspaper on fire" using the bowl, but after watching the video I just saw some smoldering paper - no flames. I'm betting t…

I can set a piece of cardboard on fire with visible flames in a few seconds. I carry a small fresnel lens, https://www.amazon.com/3-Pack-Credit-Card-Pocket-Fresnel/dp/...

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#75

Post by zhte415 »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #53
SurrealSoul wrote: post #52

Curious how clickbaiting works now. Taking the articles title "This Ikea Bowl has been setting things on fire", the "This" is an interesting word choice that is a great reminder of the "You won't believe THIS simple trick to..." that started the whole craze. I'd be curious to see some A/B testing on semi-baiting titles vs something more descriptive like the original source 'Ikea investigates after 'bowl sets Swede's…

I thought the title meant Ikea was disrupting the bowl industry.

IKEA disrupting the bowl industry.

The global, quite conservative, retailer of everyday products has been disrupting the bowl industry for several decades.

For years since disrupt was far from being the buzzword de jure, and was more associated with Klingon Battlecruisers.

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#76

Post by [deleted] »

dacohenii wrote: post #66
camiller wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that mythbusters had an episode disproving the Archimedes heat ray

They tried and failed three times (episodes 16, 46, and 157). Here's an interesting write-up about the team of MIT students that worked with them on the second try: http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/experiments/deathray/10_Mythbus...

[deleted]

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#77

Post by djmips »

camiller wrote: post #55
NicoJuicy wrote: post #22

"Archimedes heat bowl" would be a better name, Wikipedia: "The device, sometimes called the "Archimedes heat ray", was used to focus sunlight onto approaching ships, causing them to catch fire. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

I believe that mythbusters had an episode disproving the Archimedes heat ray

Yeah, like Mythbusters is definitive science. I'll half ass this with my high school level of education and TV budget and deadline and fail and declare it definitively busted!

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#78

Post by jaclaz »

DoubleMalt wrote: post #26

Reminds of this (sadly discontinued) project: http://www.photongrill.com/

Once, ispired by this (skip to 32:30), I quickly made a small solar parabolic mirror: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh4n6QzX9S0

and it worked nicely (to set to fire some wood).

Admittedly the sunshine in Southern Italy where I tested that (or Andalusia, Southern Spain, as in the TV program above) is probably much different from the one in Sweden, but on a good day it is most probably strong enough even in North Europe.

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#79

Post by burkaman »

elliottcarlson wrote: post #65
SurrealSoul wrote: post #52

Curious how clickbaiting works now. Taking the articles title "This Ikea Bowl has been setting things on fire", the "This" is an interesting word choice that is a great reminder of the "You won't believe THIS simple trick to..." that started the whole craze. I'd be curious to see some A/B testing on semi-baiting titles vs something more descriptive like the original source 'Ikea investigates after 'bowl sets Swede's…

Where is the line between clickbait and attention grabbing headline. In the case of "You won't believe THIS simple trick to..." I'd definitely call it clickbait - but in this instance, the title reflects exactly what the article is about, and while the modified title on HN does a far better representation of the contents, I personally don't see the harm in how Atlas Obscura worded the title. Or maybe I am just really…

This is a very minor example, but compare the title to just "Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire". The word "this" naturally prompts the response "which one?", just like something saying "look at this" in real life. Again it's very minor, but the extra word adds nothing except a slight suggestion that this particular example is especially interesting and you should click to see it.

Compare "Florida Man Escapes Prison" to "This Florida Man Escaped Prison". You'd scroll past the first, but you might not scroll past the second, because it seems like there must be something particularly interesting about this florida man, so you might as well take a second to click and see the picture.

Re: An Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire

#80

Post by aj7 »

The focal length of a spherical mirror is R/2. The focus is not perfectly sharp, but gets sharper if the mirror shape approaches a parabola. Finally, for a symmetrical bowl, the effect is greatest at high noon, since off-axis rays are not focused to as intense a spot as rays parallel to the bowl axis.
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