observations NGC

[lucian]

Some times it's the smallest things that can  send us off looking for answers. This one has had me perplexed for some time now.

 Why does a bar of soap no longer act like soap when it gets little?   I got's to know.

I am sure there are many more out there , please share.

[Phang]

I want to know that too

some soaps are consistent to the core, one of them is Pears Soap

[Moto]

So is Kirk's Coco Castile.

[Lannis]

The soap thing is real but it's got to be surface-area related, the surface area goes down with some log function of the volume of the bar, so there's just less area to react with the water and make soapsuds.   Otherwise you'd have to assume that the soap isn't homogenous all the way through, and that would be expensive to manufacture  .... ?

Why can you not buy a chocolate orange at Christmas any more, the kind you could whack against the table and it would separate into sections?   They used to be in every Dollar General and supermarket and Kmart at Christmas time by the thousands and sold out every year ... and now no one sells them any more.   They still sell them in the UK but not in the US?   What's up with that?

Lannis

[yogidozer]

makes it easier for parents to wash kids mouth out with it

[oldbike54]

makes it easier for parents to wash kids mouth out with it

 Ralphie approves this post 

 Dusty

[lucian]

Why can you not buy a chocolate orange at Christmas any more, the kind you could whack against the table and it would separate into sections?   They used to be in every Dollar General and supermarket and Kmart at Christmas time by the thousands and sold out every year ... and now no one sells them any more.   They still sell them in the UK but not in the US?   What's up with that?

I'm pretty sure that it is due to climate change. There are much fewer regions in the world where you can grow chocolate oranges. That and the Anita Bryant vs. chocolate orange growers law suit filed years ago. 

[Idontwantapickle]

The soap thing is real but it's got to be surface-area related, the surface area goes down with some log function of the volume of the bar, so there's just less area to react with the water and make soapsuds.   Otherwise you'd have to assume that the soap isn't homogenous all the way through, and that would be expensive to manufacture  .... ?

Why can you not buy a chocolate orange at Christmas any more, the kind you could whack against the table and it would separate into sections?   They used to be in every Dollar General and supermarket and Kmart at Christmas time by the thousands and sold out every year ... and now no one sells them any more.   They still sell them in the UK but not in the US?   What's up with that?

Lannis

Lannis,

You’re too slow, that’s all. Remember that in the world we now live “Christmas” started long ago. They are sold out. I got the very last one in the store last week.
Crazy? Agreed.
Hunter

[hidn45]

I'll play - why, when you can only get money out in $10 increments, does the ATM make you enter the amount down to the penny?

[cloudbase]

I'll play - why, when you can only get money out in $10 increments, does the ATM make you enter the amount down to the penny?

Mine doesn't.

[slopokes]

What’s an atm? I make my money the old fashioned way—— I print it

[Moto]

The soap thing is real but it's got to be surface-area related, the surface area goes down with some log function of the volume of the bar, so there's just less area to react with the water and make soapsuds.   Otherwise you'd have to assume that the soap isn't homogenous all the way through, and that would be expensive to manufacture  .... ?

I'm not familiar with other brands of soap, but was thinking that the more processed ones have fillers or maybe moisturizers such that the actual active sudsy ingredient leaches out of the bar during use, leaving a more inert core at the end. But this was just idle speculation.

Moto

[SmithSwede]

I'm still wondering why ice is slippery.

And now I'm wondering how it is that a siphon works. 

[rodekyll]

We gots us left-handed baseball mitts, left handed scissors and left-handed drill bits.  I'm still waiting for someone to invent the left-handed pencil.   

[lucian]

We gots us left-handed baseball mitts, left handed scissors and left-handed drill bits.  I'm still waiting for someone to invent the left-handed pencil.   

Couldn't you just take a normal right handed pencil and carefully loosen the metal eraser coupling, then cut the pointed end square , re install the eraser,  sharpen the opposite end , fashioning a proper left hand model. 

[oldbike54]

Couldn't you just take a normal right handed pencil and carefully loosen the metal eraser coupling, then cut the pointed end square , re install the eraser,  sharpen the opposite end , fashioning a proper left hand model. 

 I think that gives you an Ozzie pencil , a left handed pencil is created by running the sharpener in reverse . Hmm , maybe that is bassackwards 

 Dusty

[rodekyll]

Couldn't you just take a normal right handed pencil and carefully loosen the metal eraser coupling, then cut the pointed end square , re install the eraser,  sharpen the opposite end , fashioning a proper left hand model. 

That's the regular way of making a left-handed pencil, but what us lefties want to see is the end of digital discrimination.  We don't like being labeled "sinister" "gauche" and "that guy who smears pencil all over the paper" (recall that Righties are labeled as "dexterous, "righteous", and they NEVER get accused of smearing a written page) because the world has snubbed us as a citizen class.  Society does a better job of recognizing juvenile survivors of octogenarian Alzheimer's than they do of admitting to having a left-hander present in the room.  We want to be recognized as contributing members of society and we want the same functionality in our tools and utensils as everyone else.  Handedness, like political affiliation or career identity, is not a choice.  the goddess made us this way.  But so far the only industry concessions I've seen made to the 15% of the population that is left handed is Indy racing and the lug nuts on the left side of old Dodge Darts.  Even the lug nuts backfired (unlike the rest of the Dodge Dart, which was in my opinion not a loser) -- did you ever try to get the left side lug nuts off a Dodge Dart without knowing the trick? 

[n3303j]

I want to know that too

some soaps are consistent to the core, one of them is Pears Soap

It's the oldest brand in the world. Used to be wonderful until they changed the formula a few years back. Was all natural ingredients and dried in the sun (and only a buck a bar at Ocean State Job lot). Now it's got some synthetics and alcohol in the formula and smells a bit like medication.

[Guzzi Gal]

Why can you not buy a chocolate orange at Christmas any more, the kind you could whack against the table and it would separate into sections?   They used to be in every Dollar General and supermarket and Kmart at Christmas time by the thousands and sold out every year ... and now no one sells them any more.   They still sell them in the UK but not in the US?   What's up with that?

Lannis

We never considered them to be Christmas related, we always thought of them as a treat when visiting Cost-Plus. The Terry's Chocolate Oranges are available at Target too, I think. 

[lucian]

I did snap all five lug nuts off a Willy's  years ago until I figured out it wasn't a corrosion problem. Just a righty on the wrong side of the damn jeep.

[Moto]

That's the regular way of making a left-handed pencil, but what us lefties want to see is the end of digital discrimination.

I think our only chance is when the righties make something better for us without recognizing it. Some argue that tape measures are really left-handed, since holding the reel (spool?) in your right hand as intended leaves the left free to mark the measurement with a pencil. Other cases are similarly subtle. I have a set of Italian Air Force espresso cups (with the eagle emblem, remember them?) that let you see the eagle if you hold the cup in your right hand. No doubt righties thought that was optimal for them, but when I use my espresso spoon in my left hand I have reason to disagree.

The Etruscans, I believe, wrote from right to left, being righties and thinking that would be best. This would have allowed the left-handed Etruscans (if any were allowed to write that way) avoid smearing the parchment. It took the Romans to analyze the situation and reverse it for the benefit of righties.

Righties are often completely unaware that the most common tools and artifacts are all designed for them. Ever seen a left-handed camera?

[normzone]

My solution to the soap issue, from my account over at the Halfbakery.

(note - subtle encouragement for the most clever among you to join and contribute over there. When you read some of the ideas you may question my definition of clever)

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Graduated_20Bar_20Soap#1351296698

[rodekyll]

I think our only chance is when the righties make something better for us without recognizing it. Some argue that tape measures are really left-handed, since holding the reel (spool?) in your right hand as intended leaves the left free to mark the measurement with a pencil. Other cases are similarly subtle. I have a set of Italian Air Force espresso cups (with the eagle emblem, remember them?) that let you see the eagle if you hold the cup in your right hand. No doubt righties thought that was optimal for them, but when I use my espresso spoon in my left hand I have reason to disagree.

The Etruscans, I believe, wrote from right to left, being righties and thinking that would be best. This would have allowed the left-handed Etruscans (if any were allowed to write that way) avoid smearing the parchment. It took the Romans to analyze the situation and reverse it for the benefit of righties.

Righties are often completely unaware that the most common tools and artifacts are all designed for them. Ever seen a left-handed camera?

Back in the day, scribes were chosen in part for their handedness as much as their literacy.  The early Catholic church wouldn't let a lefty write or transcribe religious papers.  Even when I was a kid the church was determined to wipe out left-handedness.  Sister Mary Holywater used to tie my left thumb to my belt and whack on my right hand knuckles during penmanship class on account of the left hand is the devil's instrument.  it is that exact set of knuckles that now suffer from debilitating rheumatism.  Coincidence?  I think not.  I got sent to the Mother Superior's office once for arguing that lefties were naturally equipped to sit at the right hand of God.  Blasphemy, she said.  Whack, whack went the ruler.  It didn't solve the "problem", but throughout my life my hands hurt every time I see a nun.

[n3303j]

Before the days of the Internet the left hand always held the magazine........... .

[lucian]

My solution to the soap issue, from my account over at the Halfbakery.

(note - subtle encouragement for the most clever among you to join and contribute over there. When you read some of the ideas you may question my definition of clever)

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Graduated_20Bar_20Soap#1351296698

This is interesting , but what causes common bars to have a suddsless center? 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Back in the day, scribes were chosen in part for their handedness as much as their literacy.  The early Catholic church wouldn't let a lefty write or transcribe religious papers.  Even when I was a kid the church was determined to wipe out left-handedness.  Sister Mary Holywater used to tie my left thumb to my belt and whack on my right hand knuckles during penmanship class on account of the left hand is the devil's instrument.  it is that exact set of knuckles that now suffer from debilitating rheumatism.  Coincidence?  I think not.  I got sent to the Mother Superior's office once for arguing that lefties were naturally equipped to sit at the right hand of God.  Blasphemy, she said.  Whack, whack went the ruler.  It didn't solve the "problem", but throughout my life my hands hurt every time I see a nun.

  That's some good stuff right there, David.
And Norman? Uhh.. you have some original thinking that I haven't thought of. Yet. Or maybe never.   

[Lannis]

This is interesting , but what causes common bars to have a suddsless center?

I only use one kind of soap.  Once the bar is too thin to lather up good, I get out a new bar, "glue" the old one to it in the shower and let it dry till the next shower, and it's all one piece, lathering up like a good 'un.

That's the procedure I wrote up to get my invitation to the Moto Guzzi club.

Lannis

[Chuck in Indiana]

I only use one kind of soap.  Once the bar is too thin to lather up good, I get out a new bar, "glue" the old one to it in the shower and let it dry till the next shower, and it's all one piece, lathering up like a good 'un.

That's the procedure I wrote up to get my invitation to the Moto Guzzi club.

Lannis

That's what I was taught to do when I was a kid on the farm. I'm rich, now.. (comparatively) and throw it away. 
(Probably Dorcia sticks it on hers.)

[Tom]

I use Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap.  Liquid soap.  The label's fun to read when you don't have other things to do.

[normzone]

That's some good stuff right there, David.

And Norman? Uhh.. you have some original thinking that I haven't thought of. Yet. Or maybe never.   

Speaking of which, go to 9:10 on this song and you'll hear the sound I want my turn signals to make.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyuHEVDmC-M

"That's what I was taught to do when I was a kid on the farm. I'm rich, now.. (comparatively) and throw it away.  "

I know that feeling ! My wife has to remind me I have (some) money and I don't need to darn my socks or recycle my popsicle sticks. We could write an entire thread about growing up without money.