- Tip 1: Fall into Water, No Lifeguard Needed
- Tip 2: Power a Furnace with a Bucket of Lava
- Tip 3: Use a Cactus as a Garbage Disposal
- Tip 4: Clean Up Your World with Water
- Tip 5: Build Your Castles (Houses) in the Sky
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Tip 3: Use a Cactus as a Garbage Disposal
You’re walking across the desert, minding your own business, and suddenly you’re losing health. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch! What is that? Ouch. Ow! What the heck? If you’re not stepping in lava, you’ve probably walked into a cactus (see Figure 6). Yes, these green pointy jerks of the desert are pretty annoying. But did you know they can actually be useful?
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Figure 6 Cactus: Pest of the desert or useful tool?
Take another annoying Minecraft scenario: You’ve killed about 800 zombies, leaving you with about 800 pieces of rotten flesh. Sure, you can use some of it for training wolves, but do you really need all 800 pieces? And what about all the string from cobwebs you’ve hacked up in dungeons—who needs so much string? Are you a hoarder? No!
You could just drop these things off a hill, into the water, or into lava, but you’d have to find just the right place so you wouldn’t accidentally walk over the item and pick it up again—who has all that time?
Now, with the amazing cactus, your days of drudgery are over! If you drop an item into a cactus, it disappears. Poof! Gone, just as if it went into a garbage disposal.
Cactuses is found in the desert, naturally. Hack up one block of cactus and take it back to your house. You’ll need some sand, too, because cactuses can only be placed on top of a block of sand. Put the block of sand where you’re not likely to keep running into it, and then place the cactus on top of it (see Figure 7). Now anything you toss onto the cactus (by holding the item and pressing Q) will disappear. So long, rotten flesh! Adios, used-up wooden sword! Sayonara, diamonds!
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Figure 7 Garbage disposal in place.
Wait…did I just—? Yep, a cactus will even make diamonds disappear, disproving the old adage “diamonds are forever.”