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83 of 91 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Be a hero to your kid / Do things on the cheap, November 10, 2006
This review is from: Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things: How to Turn a Penny into a Radio, Make a Flood Alarm with an Aspirin, Change Milk into Plastic, Extract Water and ... a TV with Your Ring, and Other Amazing Feats (Paperback)
This book isn't / doesn't include 1500 uses for vinegar or how toothpaste gets rid of pimples.
Nope, this book and it's sequel (Sneakier Uses ... ) is chock full of simple gadgets and science experiments you can build in your home using coins, magnets, leaves, etc. Any boy and a lot of girls would love to spend time with a parent, uncle/aunt or godparent putting this Spy Stuff/Survival Equipment/Home Security Systems together.
Included are sneaky sources of power (a battery using coins or fruit); how to scavenge wire (to connect your sneaky battery to something); how to use Mother Nature to help you survive in the wilderness; build radios, amplifiers and wireless microphones (baby monitor?); lights, alarms, telescope. There is also a "Green Lantern" magic ring to control the objects you make.
So let's see: Build useful stuff for the home, office, outdoors; spend time with your kids; teach them some science, creativity, frugality, recycling, how to protect themselves, how to survive. That makes this quite a full package.
When I let one youngster read the table of contents it elicited a series of "ooo's" from him. But you can judge for yourself by using the "Search Inside" feature above.
Just the entry on making your own form-fitting ice pack to place on your strains and sprains makes it worth the price!
As for some previous comments, they are cynical and have no soul and no imagination. They knock the book as nothing more than common sense. I'd like to have seen one make a radio from a toilet paper roll and a penny with no directions, just common sense. I've got a fairly broad science background and it wouldn't occur to me, particularly not in a pinch of, say, no electricity due to approaching hurricane and I want to hear the warning broadcast. Using a plastic bag and plants to get drinking water is common sense? As for web sites, who is going to think: "Gee, I need to fix the chip in this picture frame. I've got some milk. Maybe I can log on and find a web site that will tell me how to make a maleable plastic compound out of milk." Common sense just isn't all that common, anyway.
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49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A little silly, but fun, November 18, 2006
This review is from: Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things: How to Turn a Penny into a Radio, Make a Flood Alarm with an Aspirin, Change Milk into Plastic, Extract Water and ... a TV with Your Ring, and Other Amazing Feats (Paperback)
This book is a sort of training manual for MacGyver wannabes. It's a collection of low-tech, cheap little projects that one can do in order to simulate "real" technology. You could certainly use some of these in an emergency, which is what the author suggests, but that's not really the point of the book in my view.
The real use would be for kids-- or, even better, kids and parents-- who want to mess around with some every day items in ways they haven't previously, have some fun, and enjoy some "Wow! Look at that!" moments. Had the author designed the book explicitly for that purpose, many of the negative reviews here wouldn't have been written.
So, the book is both pretty silly and enjoyable, but it's not any sort of survival manual. A word of advice: Avoid the sequel; the author used all of his good ideas in this volume.
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242 of 283 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Compeletely useless, June 9, 2005
This review is from: Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things: How to Turn a Penny into a Radio, Make a Flood Alarm with an Aspirin, Change Milk into Plastic, Extract Water and ... a TV with Your Ring, and Other Amazing Feats (Paperback)
With maybe the exception of 5 year olds, this "book" is completely useless. I've had it for 20 minutes and its going in the garbage. Nothing inside this "book" isn't plain ol' common sense. Some of the highlights of this book are:
Using Ordinary Objects as Sneaky Weapons - You can throw coins at an assailant to "stun and throw him or her off balance." Yeah right, that'll work!
Sneaky Wire Sources Are Everywhere - Big surprise, you can use tin foil and speaker wire as spare wire.
Make a Portable Light - Tape a flashlight light bulb to a battery. Wow, that's amazing!
And the most amazing part of the "book":
Capture Break ins On Film - Great project if you don't mind having a large eye sore built next to your door, and the burglar is too dumb to take the disposable camera with him after his picture has been taken.
This is my first time writing a review for anything, but I felt I had for this "book" because its so ridiculous. Even the couple useful things like turning milk into plastic can be found on the web. Obviously the author made up most of this stuff off the top of his head, or found a couple useful things on the web and published it as a "book".
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