The most interesting use that I ever heard was my friend’s ex-boyfriend’s use… He didn’t want to commit sin by touching himself, so he used a toilet paper tube to masturbate – she never answered me when I asked about calluses.
If that’s a picture of your penis, I have to tell you, a paper cut may be the least of your worries…
on a lighter note, wrap a toilet tube in duck tape, leave a slot, and fill it with kibble, and it’s a totally fun and destructible food toy for your dog!
I used to make model rockets out of them…
They would fly up about 50 feet and then go nuts (and the firecracker payload rarely ignited).
Wait, we’re still talking about toilet paper tubes here, right?
Is there a Godwin corollary regarding masturbation? This thread is done before it started. Aint that always the way. Now I just feel vaguely ashamed of myself.
if you squash one it makes a good audiocassette sleeve
That reminds me of a use that I have actually implemented: cord storage
Then just back away from the tube.
Cut a 1 inch by 1 inch hole toward one end of the tube. Wrap aluminum foil around it and poke the foil down in the hole to make a little basket. Poke holes in the bottom of the basket with a straight pin or paper clip. Instant weed pipe. Put your hand over one end and suck on the other. Disassembles into household garbage when the fuzz show up.
Place two tubes side by side, then balance a yardstick across them. If you rotate the tubes inward in opposite directions, the yardstick will stay balanced. Now try rotating the tubes the other way. The yardstick will slowly travel to one side until it falls off the tubes. Why does the direction of rotation make such a big difference?
Why does it?
I wasn’t sure, but I played with three cylindrical markers at my desk, and I got the answer in a few seconds.
BoingBoing comments don’t seem to have spoiler tags, so I’ll put my answer in the next comment so you can try to work out the answer yourself first if you like.
The general answer is that it’s the difference between negative feedback and positive feedback. The specific answer is that it’s because of weight distribution.
Unless the yardstick (or top marker, in my case) is perfectly symmetrically balanced on the two rolls, one side will be hanging slightly further out than the other. This side will be pressing down with more force on the roller. Therefore, that roller will have a greater effect when it rolls.
If you roll inward, whichever roller is dominant will push the stick slightly towards the other roller. This will have the effect of increasing the weight of the stick on the other roller. This will cause that roller to become dominant. This will cause the stick to roll back slightly the other way. This is negative feedback, and will keep the system in balance.
In contrast, if you roll outward, which ever roller is dominant will pull the stick towards it, which will increase it’s dominance, and the pulling effect will strengthen. This is positive feedback.
Looks like my boss has been doing it all wrong.
Just thinking about the question I assumed that the setup would be perfectly balanced and couldn´t think of a reason why one side should become dominant. I didn´t think of the fact that such a setup would be virtually impossible to achieve in reality. Goes to show that some problems should be put to a practical test rather than mulled over in theory. Thanks!
In actuality the initial setup-up could be perfectly balanced - or at least add perfectly balanced as humans could make it - but any teensy butterfly-effect-style difference between them that could lead to a tiny bit more friction on one would become magnified once you started rolling outwards. That’s why positive-feedback systems are so unstable.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
