oczarnecki — LessWrong

Final Babble Challenge (for now): 100 ways to light a candle

Answer by oczarneckiDec 01, 202040

Thanks a lot for setting these up! I'm really looking forward to the new upcoming practice challenges.

It took me 72 minutes. The 101 isn't for swag, I just miscounted somewhere and decided to leave it, since the last one is a lot more practical than many.

use a lighter
use a match
attach it to a piece of wire, the wire to a kite. Fly the kite into a thunderstorm
make a deal with the Devil
pretend to make a deal with him, and light the candle if he appears in a burst of flames
short-circuit a car battery, light it of the sparks
place a cash bounty on the task
borrow fire from someone who smokes
put some paper in a toaster
hypnotize a smoker into thinking it's a cigarette
go to California, and wait for a forest to catch fire
same with Australia
wait until the Sun gets the job done
use a magnifying glass
or your glasses
or a condom filled with water
light it off another candle
do the whole survival thing with a bow and a stick
light it of a stove/oven
if that's not hot enough, warm up some oil for a long time, and pour in some water
replace the knot with an LED
ask a pyrokinetic
become a pyrokinetic
Flamethrower!
shoot something until it gets really hot
go to a war zone and look for a fire
go somewhere were it's really cold, and there are fires in the street
wait 30 days, then you'll definitely find a fire source
do a training in pyrotechnics. After the training you should know how it's done!
go to a restaurant where they have open flames (like a real pizza oven)
go to a local barbecue spot and wait
go to a steel mill
go to a steel factory
go to an active volcano that features lava
go to the Darvaza Gas Crater
go to a local maker's lab and try it with a laser cutter
go to a local university's chemistry lab and try a Bunsen burner
or to a school
or to a construction site where they have cutters or where they weld stuff
take one of those dehydrated chemical compounds and hydrate it
buy a ridiculous amount of laser pointers
attach a heavy boulder to your car, and heat it up by dragging over asphalt
let your car's engine heat up
open up your cars engine while it's running
if you have an electric car, find a way to short out the battery
else use your phone
saw to some hard wood vigorously
coax your charger into giving off sparks
do some very intense exercise, and use your body heat
do someone a favour, then ask them to do it for you
coerce someone
become a celebrity, then ask one of your fans to do it
catch an electric eel and find a way to redirect its power
sequence the eels genome, do some synthetic biology, modify your genome and shoot sparks at the candle
use AlphaFold to find some enzymes that make things really hot, and synthesize them (or do the thing above)
read, learn, practice, share. Light the light of science within you
buy one of those explosive Samsung devices
infiltrate a terrorist cell and steal their explosives
go to a circus show where they breathe fire
open five tabs in Firefox on an old Microsoft Surface, and put the candle next to it
make the candle look like a cigarette and give it to a smoker
build a transformer out of two coils, and let one of them get really hot
build an AGI with the only goal of setting everything on fire (try that one last)
put it in the box with candles in a church
make an advent wreath around it, then sell it
break into your neighbour's house, steal all their candles, put your candle in some obvious yet inconspicuous place, and cut their power in the evening
put it into an elementary school's supplies cupboard and wait for St Martin's day
sneak it into a space probe that's headed for a star
find a way to catalyze the combustion so it occurs at room temperature
Light it with the fire of love!
Once that fails, drill into some tough concrete
Put it into a public place, with a sign saying "Don't light this candle"
climb on top of an electrified train, and use those sparks
enter the world for which the candle is a metaphor, and tweak it so that a burning candle is now a metaphor for it
wait for the Olympics and use their flame
or don't, and just use their mirror contraption
attach it to your head, do something awful and wait for God to smite you down
wish really hard for the candle to be on fire
if someone works for you, or you head some chain of command, order one of your subordinates to do it
otherwise use social engineering to the same effect
sneak some malicious code into an oil pipeline management system, ignite the candle off the resulting explosion.
start a riot, and hope that someone sets something on fire
make someone really angry and hope they are a pyrokinetic
make someone really, really angry and hope they will try to set you or one of your possessions of fire (for higher chance of success, try an arsonist)
use social engineering to start a war in your area (If you can't come to the war zone, make the war zone come to you!)
join the military and place yourself in a position where you command a lot of fire power
get fired from somewhere (I'm sorry)
go a concert with the appropriate visual effects (eg. Dragonforce)
use your local crematorium
drill a really deep hole
put the candle onto a space vessel of your choice, hack the computers to redirect it into the sun
hide it under a rocket before a launch
look for a house with a chimney with smoke coming out of it and break in
go to your closest trash incineration facility
pulverize it, mix it with gasoline, and go for a small road trip
break an arsonist out of prison, and follow them around for long enough
pretend you're a terrorist, and wait for the hellfire missle
pretend you're birthday is going to be soon, and make sure people know you like candles on your cake
do the spaceship hacking thing again, but this time just make something crash somewhere near you
use a flair gun
uhm… bang some rocks together

Babble challenge: 50 ways to escape a locked room

Answer by oczarneckiOct 08, 202040

Didn't get to 50, will try to filter even less next time.

1. email the police

2. wifi-call a friend

3. smash the protective glass panel of my cell phone and get thin shards to pick the lock (subgoal: learn how to pick locks)

4. read up on dark arts and manipulation techniques to trick your captor into letting you go

5. smash the door with your bare hands, Kill Bill style

6. give online English lessons/freelance until you have enough ransom money

7. seduce your captor

8. make a lot of noise and call for help

9. find friends/ lovers/ a purpose online and escape into the realm of the virtual

10. social engineer the military of the country your in to stage a rescue

11. use your cell phone to smash in the window, if there is one, and climb out

12. escape into death

13. try to "hack" the network your on to find out things about your captor, find embarrassing details of their personal life and extort them

14. use parts of your phone/ belt/ buttons to scratch away the paint and plaster, and then proceed to attack week points in the walls and the door frame

15. start singing in a really annoying way (Quirrell style) so that the captor will try to let you go or kill you. In the latter case, use the shards of your phone's screen as a weapon (Breaking Bad now?) and learn how to use it by reading up on martial arts

16. pay/social engineer/bribe a construction company to demolish the building you're in

17. make a fake Airbnb posting to draw attention to your location

18. write to journalists to create public pressure to release you

19. start a cult with the premise that your release will bring about the revelation

20. make a reddit post where your release is framed as a challenge or as something that would annoy somebody (this is probably the most effective way)

21. get a job, make a lot of money and hire mercenaries

22. study up on explosives, hijack a US military drone and fire a hellfire missile into the sweet spot where the structural integrity of the building you're in is compromised, but you are spared

23. if the type of lock allows, make a small loop out of your hair and try to get it around the door handle on the other side. You have time, after all

24. bribe someone to pass you a lock pick or a saw blade (for wooden doors) under the door

25. (warning gross): use your clothes to rub the door joints clear of lubricating oil, then iterate spitting, waiting, and rubbing, to weaken them through corrosion

26. if the door is merely slammed shut, use strips/threads from your clothes/ your phone's screen to get it to retract (like opening a door with a credit cart, in principle)

27. Short out the circuit of the room's light. When someone comes to investigate, use your aforementioned weapon

28. Use your phones battery as an explosive charge by shorting the circuit out and damage the lock

29. Make a rope out of your clothes, use the door handle and some more rope to create a tackle block and see if you loosen some component of the door

30. Pull at the handle really, really hard, at different angles. It may be a weak spot

That's all I got in an hour.

Taking Social Initiative

oczarnecki5y20

Great post! Thanks to this, I'm now going to force myself to host a movie night, and slowly try to turn this initiative thing into a habit.

LESSWRONG
is fundraising!
LW

LESSWRONG
is fundraising!
LW

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments