Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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PowerLeech Fork

Knife it into any piece of living matter to power your phone/laptop.
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Who has never, in childhood, made a "potato battery"? The experiment also works with lemons, or other things which contain juices suitable for service as an electrolyte. What is required is simply a pair of electrodes, of certain dissimilar metals. Why not commercialize this into the Power Leech (tm) Portable Charge Extractor? The device would be shaped like a stiletto dagger, with two prongs constructed from the requisite matterials (copper and zinc work, if my memory has not rotted.) The device would have many uses. People increasingly carry power-hungry portable electronics; the general decay of society should cause there to be no shortage of electrolyte containers, such as dead rats and other creatures, on the streets; pull out your PowerLeech fork, and give that cell phone a few hours of extra talk time that you need so much. In darker times, the body of your dead comrade on a nightmarish battlefield will power your radio for that extra minute necessary to summon reinforcements. Use your imagination.
dsm, Jun 16 2002


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Annotation:







       Grandson: Oh no! My cell phone has run out of power!   

       Granddaughter: I have an idea! Let's stick it in Grandpa!   

       Just kidding. There should be plenty of dead birds around. If this actually worked, that would kick ass (and would be quite useful, as well).
polartomato, Jun 16 2002
  

       "Potato batteries" and the like derive their energy from the decomposition of the electrodes, not the electrolyte. The potato (or lemon or Grandpa) is incidental; it's the fork that's actually the battery (and needs replacement). So unfortunately this doesn't work, otherwise we could extract vast amounts of energy from (for example) seawater.
egnor, Jun 16 2002
  

       Hi, [egnor]; where ya been?
angel, Jun 17 2002
  


 

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