Back in 1995, a friend of mine and some of her friends at the University of Michigan had fun with "Random Destructive Acts via Focused Solar Radiation" using one of those lenses. - https://bclee.net/lens.html .

No images, much less video, to go along with the 1995 story, as you might expect from a time when most people had film cameras and dial-up.

It hit Slashdot 19 years ago, at https://slashdot.org/story/04/05/21/1936210/things-you-can-d... . Reading mention of someone I knew make the world seem a bit smaller.

Recalling this, and re-reading the account, brings bittersweet memories now as she passed some 10 years ago.