Hasta La Ideas

pMy first experience with “production methods” cost me 25 cents and came as a child. In the days before the third rail, you could clamber down to your local subway or railroad tracks and place a quarter on them. After the uptown 5-train or 2:10 to Brewster came and went, you’d have a flat, shiny disk. (And while turning money into mere metal was pointless, it was still more positive than frying ants with a magnifying glass.)/p

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p[image credit: A HREF=”http://www.omegadude.com/uploaded_images/Flattened%20Quarter-777053.JPG” OmegaDude/A]/p

pAnother cool thing you can do with a quarter–that requires a drill and a Dremel, no trains–is turn it into a ring, as seen in A HREF=”http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Ring-from-a-Silver-Coin” this cool WikiHow by Matthew B. Vigor/A:/p

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pPretty neat, a silver ring for 25 cents, right? Well, not exactly–turns out you need to use a quarter made in 1964 or earlier, when they still used silver. (The alloys in a more contemporary quarter will oxidize on your finger, leaving a sort of chemical tan line.) Coin dealers sell them for about $3, which is still a steal when we’re talking jewelry prices./p

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pAnyways the most disturbing thing I learned during this little discovery…is that an instructional also exists for A HREF=”http://www.ehow.com/how_2205005_kill-ants-magnifying-glass.html” how to fry ants with a magnifying glass/A. Leave those poor things alone!/p

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p[image credit: A HREF=”http://www.spokesmanreview.com/stories/2005/aug/4/0804ants_08-04-2005_OQ55ISR.jpg” Spokesman Review/A]br /
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