

Syracuse makes real lava in parking lot for kicks (and science) - lisper
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/syracuse-makes-real-lava-in-parking-lot-for-kicks-and-science/

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willwhitney
Reminds me of a project my brother and I did a few years ago for Maker Faire.
We took the 3'x4' Fresnel lens out of an old rear projection TV and melted
pennies and locks with it - video:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoMjBkKOkPc>

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dbaupp
(Your website <http://www.brotherswhitney.com/> seems to be broken; lots of
PHP "warning" and "deprecated" messages.)

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willwhitney
Yeah, I noticed that myself when I looked up the video again. The site hasn't
been touched in a few years, and I'll have to go fix a couple of things for
history's sake.

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deno
If you don’t plan to maintain it, then it’s probably best to just archive the
site by taking a static copy. Or sandbox the PHP process and give it read only
access to the database and the file system before some random attacker messes
it up with ads and whatnot.

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willwhitney
Yeah, static is probably the way to go. Know of any good tools to snapshot it?

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dbaupp
Depending on how complicated the site is, "wget --mirror" might be enough.
Also searching for "wordpress freeze site" found this plugin:
[https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/static-html-output-
plug...](https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/static-html-output-plugin/)

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willwhitney
sweet, thanks!

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james4k
I love how bubbly it is, I guess in reaction to what looks like ice below it?
So, rising water vapor? I'd bet that makes for some interesting rock patterns.

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lisper
Yep. Natural lava doesn't bubble like that, it flows like molasses (and, of
course, melts or burns anything that gets in the way).

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jpxxx
Just to add a little bit of color, the water and gasses trapped in the lava do
come out as it cools and form pockets and foamy holes, but definitely nothing
as dramatic as shown in the tape.

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dfc
I love that we average the least amount of sunny days for a city in the lower
48, 100+ inches of snow and lava in the parking lots:)

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ta12121
I have always had a fantasy that we could make roads from laying down lava
that wouldn't have to be resurfaced every 5 years.

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pronoiac
I haven't looked at cooled lava up close, but I thought it was abrasive and
sharp and really had for tires.

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ta12121
Well, you'd have to work out the details.

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jemka
Circa January 22, 2011. Slow news day, apparently.

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ZoFreX
There's nothing wrong with submitting something old to Hacker News if it's
still interesting!

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jemka
I didn't say there was. The ars article is dated today, hence my comment.

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ZoFreX
Oh sorry, missed that.

