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IshKebab 4 hours ago

This is pretty much just rambling about how amazing aluminium foil is because it's so thin and that might enable all sorts of wonderful imaginary applications. Very HN. It's aluminium foil.

post-it 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's the neat part though, isn't it? It's a product that's so good that there's no everyday alternatives to it. I was researching cat litter options recently and cat owners do a lot of thinking and talking about litter, because there's a variety of different materials, none of which are solidly better than all others in all situations. But aluminium foil is so good that we don't even think about it, because it's by far the best product for every application that we use it for.

nyeah 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What's really thin is the oxide layer on the surface

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anodizing

When exposed to air at room temperature, or any other gas containing oxygen, pure aluminium self-passivates by forming a surface layer of amorphous aluminium oxide 2 to 3 nm thick,[4] which provides very effective protection against corrosion. Aluminium alloys typically form a thicker oxide layer, 5–15 nm thick, but tend to be more susceptible to corrosion.

wolfi1 2 hours ago | parent [-]

it usually is not only aluminium oxide but a mixture of aluminium oxide and aluminium hydroxide if it is normal (read: moist) air

Forgeties79 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You sound like someone who hasn't explored the upper limits of what aluminum foil can solve!

whynotmaybe 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Has a kid, my mom used to pack my lunch in aluminium foil and everyday was a challenge of trying to make the perfect aluminium ball and throw it in the trashcan[1] on the first try!

1. Recycling was a vague concept in the 80s & 90s

bluGill 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Your local recycler probably doesn't want al foil even today when recycling is a big thing.

IshKebab 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Read this guy's ramblings and give me one cool application that he has found. Lots of "maybe it could do this!" and "it can do <completely useless thing>!"

roughly an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The trick to being a good hacker is acquiring a sufficient supply of useless information, such that when that information is suddenly not useless, you have it at hand.

Which is to say, it's your job to figure out what the cool applications are.

Forgeties79 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Aluminum foil makes a great, cheap light bounce for photography on the fly. Your photos will instantly look better either reflecting to the back of their head 180 from shot, or as a fill for their face.