Like MacGy-ay-ay-ay-ver.

Scenario: you need to boil some water to incapacitate a guard (a hot cup of tea puts him right to sleep. Also, he’s very trusting when it comes to strangers offering him tea), and you’ve got sandpaper, two soda cans, a razor, a tuft of fiberglass insulation, a tack and a bottle of Heet at your disposal. Also, the internet to watch this metacafe video.

I had seen this before and in various design complexities, but I really like the compactness and ease of this one. I decided to scrounge up some Heet ($2.10 at a local gas station), a couple of cans, sandpaper and a razor blade (both on hand), and pull a little piece of insulation off of some that happened to be sitting in our basement.

It got surprisingly hot - I tried setting an oven rack over it with a kettle (to knock out that tea-loving guard), and it started to melt one of the bars of the rack. I expected it to be hot, but not hot enough to melt parts of an oven rack. Who knew?

Success: certainly.