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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

As I was known to drink a lot of Diet Dr. Pepper and had people who timed my code production in 'cans per hour' :-) I thought it would be fun to convert an old 47" Fresnel lens that came from an old big screen TV into an aluminum can melter.

The project consisted of a frame on an alt/az base to hold the lens, arms from teh frame to position it's focal point on can that had been crushed vertically and then slid down a rack on a couple of steel rails. And the whole thing held over a bucket of water to catch the melting aluminum and make aluminum "drops".

Unfortunately, the aluminum oxidizes way faster than it melts and so my contraption basically turned cans into a crushed can with a black dusty hole in the middle!

It wasn't until I saw the King of Random video on making a smelter out of a bucket that I actually had something that could melt aluminum in a reasonable way (at the cost of a few gallons of propane)

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Please tell me your Dr Pepper consumption could not be measured "cans per hour".

Right? Sounds like a recipe for diabetes.

Well to be fair it was Diet (so not the load on the spleen that a sugar load would be) but alas, I could easily consume several cans per hour. One engineer at NetApp joked they knew how long the meeting I was attending was going to be by the number of cans I brought with me.

Not a regimen I recommend but as vices go it was relatively benign. A couple of years ago I stopped all consumption, and then when started dieting added a '1 per mile walked' incentive program for myself. Very effective at insuring I got all the walking in I needed to in order to hit my goals.

I thought it wasn't just the sugar but the carbonated water negatively impacts digestion.

Do you ever get weird stomach aches?

No I did not, and my doctor felt I was rather healthy.

Funny story though, I was rather heavy and a regular blood donor. One of the things they do here when you donate (or used to) was test your cholesterol level and report it back to you in the mail. Mine was always in the "good" range. So I got a call one day from the hospital where I normally donate (it is a research hospital) asking if I would be interested in taking part in a study and I agreed. When I went in for the interview it turns out they were looking for fat people with low cholesterol. They paid me $50 to participate which consisted of a blood test and a notebook. They asked me to write down everything I ate for a week, then came back, got another blood test and another notebook. They looked at what I wrote in the first notebook, asked me to add a couple of things which were different vegetables as I recall. Then sent me on my way for another week. End of the week turn in my second notebook and collect my $50.

The first question from the grad student who collected my first notebook was, "Did you really drink this much soda this week?", answer yes. Second time I turned in my notebook he looked at me and said "You drink this much EVERY week?" and I said "Yup, pretty much."

He was surprised I could sleep at night with that much caffeine but it wasn't a problem for me.

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