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Lunch With George!
January 23, 2003 - Malee's
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Agenda
- This adhesive strip really sucks!
- How to shit in the woods
- Show and Tell
- How to pick good Superbowl Pool numbers
- More stuff we can't figure out
This adhesive strip really sucks!
As soon as we sat down at Malee's, George pulled out a small dispenser of transparent tape and placed it on the table in front of me. I reached to pick it up, and it was stuck there! With some efffort, I plucked it off the table. The adhesive strip along the bottom of the tape was not tacky at all-- it was white and felt relatively smooth. How does it stick? It seems the surface of the strip is covered with very tiny suction cups! It can stick firmly to any smooth, relatively non-porous surface.
The application of this technology to a tape dispenser is more valuable than I might have imagined-- it makes removing tape from the dispenser with only one hand possible without loading down the dispenser with two pounds of lead!
George and I searched the internet quite a bit and found very little about the technology-- I only came across the tape dispensers themselves, and an Innovation Award given to Manco for their versatile one-handed office solutions.
An interesting connection: I went to Manco's homepage (they're now called Henkel Consumer Adhesives), and discovered that they are at the center of the latest Homeland Security Fiasco... they are the manufacturers of the original Duct Tape! A notice on their site reads:
Due to the heightened demand and accelerated sales of duct tape as a result of the Department of Homeland Security's recommendation to keep duct tape on-hand in preparing for a biological attack, Henkel Consumer Adhesives has increased duct tape production by 40%. In order to ensure that store supply levels are replenished, HCA is utilizing a rapid response inventory control system and working closely with retailers.
Check out their page with creative uses for duck tape. Their logo is cute, huh?
If you are interested in getting one for yourself, look here.
How to Shit in the Woods
George brought something else-- a book for the real outdoors person: How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art. Yes, it's a real book. and it really does tell you how to coexist with a wilderness devoid of flush toilets! From what the reviewers say, it looks like an indispensable guide for those heading away from civilization.
When I jumped to Amazon to read the reviews, I was told that people who bought this book also bought Up Shit Creek, How to Have Sex in the Woods, and Who Cut the Cheese: A Cultural History of the Fart.
Show and Tell
You may remember that George bought a scooter (it was a Rugged Razor) to get from his car down to his sailboat at Lake Pleasant.
Well, now he has an even better one (thanks to a birthday gift from Toni): A Xootr! This ultra-rugged scooter from Nova Cruz sports 180cm cast-aluminum wheels, which provide the least roll resistance of any wheel on a human-powered small-wheeled vehicle. It also supports your feet with a deck sonstructed from 9-layer laminated birch. For stopping, it is equipped with a hand brake!
George let me ride it! It is easy to balance and maneuvers intuitively. This is one cool scooter. The top-of-the-line human-powered model from Nova Cruz boasts a carbon fiber composite deck, and they claim it is the fastest kick scooter in the world!
| Digit | Occurrences | Frequency |
| 0 | 94 | 18% |
| 1 | 55 | 11% |
| 2 | 13 | 3% |
| 3 | 75 | 15% |
| 4 | 73 | 14% |
| 5 | 20 | 4% |
| 6 | 34 | 7% |
| 7 | 86 | 17% |
| 8 | 30 | 6% |
| 9 | 32 | 6% |
George bought a square, somewhat at random, but began to think about it more later. what are the most frequent (i.e., most likely) least-significant digits in a football game? when he mentioned it to me, I suggested that he go to the NFL sports pages on Yahoo!, where they would have the scores for all the games played during the regular season.
After collecting his data and performing in-depth analysis, George discovered that he had bought the absolutely worst box on the grid, containing the digits 2 and 2. It seems his square was worth about 9 cents (3% times 3% times the $100 payoff). He actually sold his square for that, only losing $0.91 total. He did better than most entrants! [My wife Teri actually held the winning digits for the end of the game.]
George pointed out that when we use an ordinary stapler, it pushes the staple through the paper, only to meet up with the bottom of the stapler on the other side which causes the ends to curl back toward the paper. But it isn't possible for the device which puts the big staples into boxes to have a component inside the box, so how do the staples curl?
George has a theory that part of the stapler penetrates the box right along the outside of the pointed ends of the staple itself, and causes them to curl as the staple is them pushed into the cardboard.
Does anyone know how these things work? Please send us mail!
More stuff we can't figure out
George was puzzled by something he came across while unpacking his new Xootr. It came in a fairly rugged corrugated pasteboard box, and the seams were held by large industrial-strength staples. You've seen them a hundred times-- the flat part is on the outside, while the ends of the staples which puncture the cardboard are curled up neatly inside against the material they are holding together.
Copyright © 2003, Paul Wren. All rights reserved.
Last modified 02/06/2003.
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