[comp.misc] Perfory

landauer@morocco.Sun.COM (Doug Landauer) (12/05/89)

> >You know the perforations, or tractor feeds, from the sides of PC paper 
> >that get ripped off and needlessly thrown away ???

NPR ran a survey/contest on naming that stuff -- I believe that "perfory"
was the winner.

> A friend of mine just kept collecting hers, slowly rolling them into a little
> ball ...

What I used to do (before laserwriters were popular) is to roll the
stuff into a disk.  The fun part is that when the disk gets big enough
(about 6 inches in diameter), you poke out the center, hold the disk by
the edges, and then yank down on the poked-out center.   Then the stuff
streams out one strand at a time, each looking like a helix shooting
down out of the center of the disk.  (This worked best if you had long
printouts.) For small disks, you want to do this over your wastebasket
or fireplace (after this treatment, the stuff makes great tinder).  For
large disks, you want to find a convenient balcony (preferably directly
above a large, open dumpster) ...

	What, Sign this????

P.S. ... ever tried to microwave a lit cigarette?

jimmy@tybalt.caltech.edu (Jimmy Hu) (12/06/89)

I weave two strands of perfories into a super spring. What you do is take
two strands, then fold one over the other and then the other over the first
(try it, it's not too hard to figure out). Anyways, the result is a springy
thing. The problem with it is that when you pull on it, it also torques on
the ends, and it twists so much sometimes that you can't pull very far.
To get rid of this problem, put a "dummy" link into the middle, so that you
basically create two springs attached in the middle. Then the ends won't
twist, but the center will.

If you compress the spring, and then drop it or slide it sideways into an
obstacle, you'd be amazed at how springy a piece of paper can be.

dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) (12/07/89)

>> >You know the perforations, or tractor feeds, from the sides of PC paper 
>> >that get ripped off and needlessly thrown away ???

Doug Landauer writes:

>What I used to do (before laserwriters were popular) is to roll the
>stuff into a disk.  The fun part is that when the disk gets big enough
>(about 6 inches in diameter), you poke out the center, hold the disk by
>the edges, and then yank down on the poked-out center.   Then the stuff
>streams out one strand at a time, each looking like a helix shooting
>down out of the center of the disk.  (This worked best if you had long

So, I guess you never worked with paper tape, huh? Even better was
using metallized Mylar tape; even came in Christmassy red, gold, or
green! No breaks, strong material... the strand could be 1200 feet long!

And, besides permanently contaminating my microwave, just what
*does* happen if I try zapping a lit cigarette????

Dave      dbell@cup.portal.com

mike@iotek.UUCP (Mike Thompson) (12/07/89)

In article <128772@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> landauer@sun.UUCP (Doug Landauer) writes:
>P.S. ... ever tried to microwave a lit cigarette?
	No, what happens
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