Science and engineering with MS Office's Excel

I'm not a big Excel user, and haven't used numerical methods to find roots of an equation in about 20 years, but I do like it when people use software or hardware in ways they weren't necessarily intended. For example,

• The new O'Reilly book about doing science and engineering calculations using Excel
  
• It reminds me that people used to implement neural nets as spreadsheets (scroll down to section 3 to see an example).
  
• Another unintended use, is using the Apple Powerbook's accelerometer as a user interface.
  
• Or, something that sounds like an April Fool's joke, but isn't: Tossing a used spacesuit out of the International Space Station, and listening for it on a VHF receiver on earth.