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Self-Heating Coffee Cans Recalled
Old Man Kensey writes "Apparently those nifty Wolfgang Puck self-heating latte cans, introduced with such fanfare last year, have proven to be buggy -- cans have been reported failing to heat adequately or, more disturbingly, exploding and melting through the packaging. A recall has been announced -- here's hoping the flaws can be 'patched' soon."
Haven't self-heating cans been used in Japan for years now?
Yup, and a quick look at this wikipedia article shows that they've been around everywhere for over 100 years
Why not just use the same design as there?
The design is pretty old & pretty standard - the problem is almost certainly poor quality control (Brandsource trying to be cheap). Presumably they spent too much money buying the rights to Wolfgang's name to spend money on the production process.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Also, check out this guy's dissection of a used can.
Sorry to reply to myself, but Make Blog has a much better dissection
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Yes, and they also have canned drinks machines that are heated, so the can comes out hot - and thus the contents are as well.
Which was very handy on a cold day in Nikko station. Hot coffee and a hand warmer in one!
--
silas
I was looking at some packs of civilian MRE's (for camping). You can apparently get them either with or without heating packs. The heating packs appear to take a small quantity of water and produce some sort of chemical exothermic reaction (wouldn't be surprised if they also use Calcium Oxide). Anyway the US military's been using them for many, many years.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Mostly yes, although it depends on how it was implemented. Transparent editing (where you can't tell, or can't tell what was changed) would obviously be open to abuse.
If it was implemented so that rather than chaning the comment, you could add to it, that would be a different matter (imho) - that would let you do things like:
"Updated at $time: Found a much better explanation - see $someURL"
or
"Updated at $time: Oops, missed out a 'not' in that sentence!"
or even
"Updated at $time: Forget everything I wrote above, I'm a complete tool. Here's what I *should* have said..."
That way while you could still probably play games with the mods by changing the meaning of a post after it's been modded up
a) the original is still viewable (and combined with some sort of history view, you could tell exactly what was modded up)
b) who cares about karma anyway? It's meaningless for everything other than the automatic comment score modifier and petty bragging rights, as far as I can tell.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Could be because of the sceptics of sucralose.
Nah, who am I kidding, just look at the wikipedia article for aspartame...
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
I just added some material to the Wikipedia article on self-heating cans.
In 1941 a ''New York Times'' food column reported:
Yesterday, we had our first cup of coffee, our first baked beans and our first spaghetti out of the amazing self-heating cans now being introduced by a department store in Manhattan... There's a fifteen-minute wait while the canned food, enclosed in an outer tin, heats without benefit of gas, electricity, or flame of any sort. This trick is accomplished by a chemical inside the first container, and the action is started when four holes are punched in the bottom. The whole mysterious apparatus is turned upside down for the stipulated number of minutes, then righted, and presto! there is your steaming coffee, or food, all ready to serve.
Holt, Jane (1941) "News of Food: War Emphasizes Benefit of Prune Vitamins--Hammering Opens Oysters," ''The New York Times,'' March 26, 1941, p. 19
In 1947, the same column reported "Food in Self-Heating Cans Reappears" (their having been reserved for the military during the war). Referring to the cans as "Hotcans," the columnist noted that "Chocolate is made with milk and is delicious (65 to 72 cents). Four hamburgers in tomato sauce with mushrooms are small but good, and the sauce is ample (89 to 98 cents). Coffee tastes something like the instantly brewed type, leaving something to be desired (49 cents)." (49 cents in 1947 is approximately equivalent to $4.64 in 2005).
Nickerson, Jane (1947), "News of Food: Food in Self-Heating Cans Reappears Here; Recommended for Motorists and Campers," ''The New York Times,'' November 26, 1947, p. 28
I have to wonder why the technology never took off. Of course, the Wikipedia article links to a 2001 article touting the "world's first" self-heating coffee, and it does say that the calcium oxide reaction is "nowhere near as straightforward as chemistry text books suggest and that the thermal design was critical to the efficient operation of the device."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Actually, having used a Thermos brand Dewar flask for years, I can say they're fairly hard to break. The outer casing of mine is made from what would appear to be 16ga steel. It's survived rolling out of my car to the ground more times than I care to admit. Keeps coffee hot for about 12 hours, as long as people close it tightly.
You'd much rather have splenda than aspartame. To me, that's like saying you'd rather have skin cancer than lung cancer ;-)
I avoid artificial sweeteners, all of them. I am not fanatic about it, I can drink an artificially sweetened soft drink if there are no others and I feel like one.
Check out some of the links returned by googling for sucralose. One of them (possibly more), like this one contain user testimonials (if asked for email just enter webmaster@mercola.com). Interesting stuff. Dr. Mercola has a page on it (link on the same page).
That stuff just isn't good for you.
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.