-If you're out for a spin in your convertible and it starts raining can you stay dry by simply driving faster?
Isn't this pretty much the "walk/run" in the rain myth all over again on "supersized." Seems like an odd myth to test because no matter how fast you drive you're still going to get wet because the rain is constantly falling and, well, it has to land somewhere. The only way I could see "not getting wet" (or getting less wet) would be to drive "faster than the rain" which presumes the rainfall is a constant -like the speed of light or the speed of sound- which it isn't and it's a constant thing.
Further, if it WERE possible it'd likely be at a speed faster than what is reasonable -or safe- to drive on a public road -not to mention on a WET road. And, well, wouldn't it just plain make more sense to put the top up?
As for the popcorn thing, naturaly the answer is yes.
Popcorn pops becuase water and oils trapped inside the kernel liquify and expand as the kernel heats up they blow open the kernel and then instant solidify when no longer under pressure.
Popcorn can pop in any heat. The earliest "popcorn poppers" were nothing more than wire baskets that were shaken over a fire, earlier than that popcorn was popped by placing it in a clay bowl filled with sand (the sand being the heat-transfer medium) and putting it over a fire! Popular popocrn poppers int he seventies and eighties simply used hot air! For good, quality, popcorn popping it is most common today to use fats and oils as they're resistant to high heat and transfer the heat into the kernel effectively.
So a LASER isn't going to have much trouble as it's just going to do what oil does -heat up the stuff inside the kernel. Explosives may do it but it's likely they'll rupture the kernel before heating it up. That's where unpopped kernels comefrom. Either their integrity is harmed enough that steam can easily escape (thus no pressure inside the kernel to liquify the substances inside) or the kernel's integrity was ruptured enough to simply allow all of the water inside to evaporate.