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Students Claim New Paper Folding Record
A group of 15 students along with their teacher are claiming a new paper folding record. The group claims to have folded (in the same direction) 13,000 feet of toilet paper in half 13 times, breaking the old 2002 record of 12 times. From the article: "[teacher] Tanton has been leading students from St. Mark's on attempts to break the record for five years. But after several failed attempts, Tanton asked the MIT origami club, OrigaMIT, to help him and his students get access to MIT's Infinite Corridor."
This great feat will ensure tenure for the good professor.
Trolling is a art,
Still no cure for cancer....
Something new for whiny Slashdotters with irrelevant lives to whine about and ask why it is relevant.
I, for one, congratulate them!
Ironically they won't be this productive again once they hit industry for at least 5 years.
The losers complain that the folded unit can't stand on its own.
But I don't see a requirement that it stand at all, merely that it is folded. Which it is.
2^13 is 8192 layers.
The really interesting thing is that it doesn't tear. There's stretching and compressing involved in folding things, and toilet paper isn't all that structurally sound. Their folding method seems to make it flow properly to keep the stresses from damaging it.
"However, their '13th fold' was debatable in that it could not stand on its own without considerable support," Ku said in an email Tuesday.
Shitty deal.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
A local high school (albeit a private boarding type of one) used connections they had with college students in a paper folding club to make use of the club's access to MIT buildings (in this case, a really long hallway). This has nothing to do with the college's academic programs but rather with its social programs.
Yeah, what kind of jackass would want to pursue knowledge just for the sake of knowledge? They should have some kind of institution where those wackos are all segregated so that they can do their useless research in peace and not be a nuisance to the rest of us conscientious workers.
This sig has been stolen. Return it to its original user for a reward.
Other than the fact that this attempt was made on a college campus, what does it have to do with a college degree? They're not college students.
Would have worked better for that if they'd used the TP with diploma-print on it.
My first thought was that you were excessively bitter or something, but then I remembered how I felt about it myself when I walked away from university without paying for the diploma I'd finished the requirements for, because having it and telling local employers I had it would have actively harmed my job prospects at the time. The local employers had already all been burned by the idiots who cheated their way through a comp.sci degree without ever actually touching a computer, you had a better chance getting hired for computer stuff in town if you were a homeless bum who dropped out of grade school than a graduate of CS from my university... Many years later I actually forked out the $25 for the paper because the they offered me the chance to come back and flunk cheaters out. It was worth it just for that, and they even paid me a little bit to do it.
What kind of knowledge was gained from this exercise? The proper method and means for wiping Godzilla's ass?
What constitutes a fold? more than a 90 degree change in direction? Any other special rules anyone can thing of?
We used to have them. They were called asylums for the insane. Then most of them got shut down. :(
The article doesn't where they got one continuous strip of TP 13,000 feet long. Did they use multiple rolls attached together? As far a standing on it's own, a small amount of glue every now and then should help with that.
A thousand page book on my self is about 3 inches thick. If the TP is half the thickness of book paper, their block should be about 12 inches talk, 18 inches long and as wide as the TP they used.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Call me when they accomplish the same feat with used toilet paper.
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(re: video)... you show that you're not affiliated with MIT in any way if you screw that up.
They're not college students.
But they all will be soon enough. Then they'll be paying $50k a year to fold toilet paper.
What kind of knowledge was gained from this exercise?
Well, for one, the high school students in question now have an excellent grasp of just how fast exponential increases really can get. You'd think that toilet paper is pretty thin, right? And folding it in half doesn't really make a noteworthy increase in thickness, it's still really thin - but do it again, and you've got 8 sheets thickness, then 16, then 32, 64, 128, and so on, until you've got 2^13 sheets thickness of toilet paper, just from folding it in half, and suddenly it's not so thin. For people who've been doing advanced math most of their lives, that's not much of a realization, but for kids who are just learning about things like that, it's an eye opener.
Seeing the teacher has been trying this for 5 years, I wonder if any of his previous students became students at MIT, hence the connection? Not that one is needed, but would be an interesting side story.
Who cares about people becoming educated? That doesn't affect my profit margin in the slightest.
of goatse posts per slashdot article?
Next week maybe...
Education == Statism
Good libertarians OPPOSE all forms of education, particularly education about economics.
How else are we supposed to welcome our new Japanese nuclear mutated overlord?
paper (with text on it) must be compressed, distorted, vaporized, no longer original etc,,, so we're not further inconvenienced by further conflicting views.
I am a toilet paper manufacturer and I approve of this.
This should be part of the regular math edication.
How many Smoots is that?
Education == Statism
Good libertarians OPPOSE all forms of education, particularly education about economics.
Your propaganda is stupid. Therefore you are uneducated. My conclusion is that you are a libertarian.
Please turn in your bust of Keynes and your autographed first editions of "Das Kapital" and Mao's Red Book.
Modders, please, don't push "Informative" when you mean "Insightful"
I bet they changed from 2-ply to single-ply. Makes all the difference when folding.
In the other news Sheryl Crow has also been breaking a record, reusing the same ply of toilet paper since 2007.
The musician was heard saying: "It has been tough at times, but you can achieve anything if you just put your mind to it. Also try not to pay too much attention to the color of the thing".
You can't handle the truth.
Medical News Update: Computer geeks are subject to brain scrambling via the Hall Effect.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Oh I'm sure paper folding skills will get them far in Business Management or Human Resources. Oh, *toilet* paper? Politics, then.
How appropriate is the name of OrigaMIT president, Jason Ku.
In Portuguese the word for asshole is "cu". In this context, his interest for toilet paper seems entirely natural.
Education == Statism
State-run, mandated education == Statism.
Teaching kids about folding and exponential progression is nice. Taking the kids to MIT is really cool. Breaking a folding record not involving proteins is kinda lame.
Why?
Thank you oposable thumbs. Now if they work on something like this just bigger and make it visible from the moon, aliens can see the signs of an advanced race inhabiting the earth.
You UNFOLD toilet paper.
Is that why the more economic classes you take the more likely you are to be a libertarian?
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/studying-economics-makes-you-more-likely-to-be-a-conservativelibertarian/
Wow, they must really have their shit together.
Anybody want a peanut?
It is the truth. Twilight will be the death of civilization.
I suppose none of the students were scrunchers ;-)
"If it's lost, it'll turn up. Things always do" "I love it when a plan comes together"
The Myth Busters did this. I forget how many times they folded a piece of paper, but they used a steam roller for the final fold.
You've got the causality reversed. Those smart and informed enough to see through capitalism know that what's taught in the typical economics class is as disconnected from the reality of human labor and natural resources being used to meet human wants and needs as an astrology class is from the reality of cosmology; while those naive enough to subscribe to the inherently contradictory theory of "libertarian capitalism" line up to become more deeply indoctrinated in the Holy Doctrine.
Call me when economists learn to subtract.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Selection bias. As a libertarian, it's obvious to me that the simple fact of becoming a libertarian means that you are likely to be interested enough in Economics to take classes.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Doesn't say much about the American education system that folding toilet paper is being passed off as some kind of high water mark of achievement.
Guess these kids find brain work boring.
That's like saying Christians never take a biology class because they are smart enough to see through the disconnected reality of evolution. Economics has inherently nothing to do with the environment and there is nothing to say that there can't be a capitalistic society that is environmentally friendly, as such things are based in social desire, behavior and structure and not in economics. Economics is very much a science with historical precedence and consistency.
How is the term "Libertarian capitalism" even remotely contradictory? Libertarianism implies a strong belief in individual liberties and freedoms, that we are all free to choose for ourselves. Capitalism allows the consumer the freedom to choose who and which they purchase goods from. Seem like very hand in hand beliefs to me.
Now, you may disagree with Libertarian ideology, but you don't even seem to have a grasp on the fundamentals of economics. You seem to insist that the more informed someone becomes about something the more wrong their opinions are. It would be one thing if there was a sudden jump that all economics majors were libertarians or that it had the highest percentage of libertarians but it's not. There's a direct relation between each incremental economic class a person takes and the more likely to have libertarian beliefs, beginning with 1 class.
Some internet users (albeit at least one of them an Anonymous Coward) hijacked a thread about paper folding to pass judgement on college degrees, college academic programs and similar topics. This has nothing to do with social programs
Useful what they teach kids these days.
I can't help but feel irritated by this video; what a waste of time, and, potentially brains, although I dont think anything of value was lost, the good professor looks like an idiot anyhow.
Their parents will be glad to have paid tuition for this.
if by altered mutants.gov? have you heard something? death? to everybody? it's tonight? tomorrow? in between? thank god there's word., so even further arrangements can be made to conserve the royals & chosen ones as it was written again & again, 'til debt do us part?
Ugh. GP comment is willfully ignorant, but lumping Keynesian economics with communism is just as willfully ignorant.
I was too busy drinking beer and banging co-eds.
I can't say the same for myself. I didn't subscribe to libertarian ideals until after I learned more about economics and historical precedent with foreign policy. Obviously there are still Democrats and Republicans who have interest in economics, or there wouldn't be such contrasting opinions on the subject matter. Unfortunately this study didn't survey the students before and after, but I would note that the more economic classes a student took the more likely they were to be libertarians, so I would suggest the relationship seems to suggest the classes have an influence in ideology as it is a build rather than just a jump at a certain point.
"Those smart and informed enough to see through capitalism..."
Evil capitalism paved the way for the peace and prosperity that enabled socialism to to happen without murder and mayhem. Granted, capitalism - like just about anything - can be used for evil, but when people go around yapping about "Big" this and "Big" that they should remember that all those "Bigs" - with the exception of "Big Government" - have made the world possible. Are "Big Rich People" like George Soros good or bad? How did they make all that money? Are they evil when they exert via the electorate their will over entire countries?
But let's not even go that far. You speak of indoctrination. Who isn't indoctrinated? Only those to whom absolute knowledge is accessible are not indoctrinated in some fashion. Regardless of the number of degrees we have, the extent to which we self-educate, the absolute breadth of our genius, we all believe something because we just don't know how it works. Now, I personally don't subscribe to any religion (I'm mostly an Absurdist), but no one can explain why the universe is, and that means that everyone - every last person on Earth - at some point takes something on faith. Or trust. Whatever. (There was a discussion here a couple days ago about the difference between the two, but I'm calling it semantics for this argument.)
Sit on your high horse and proclaim libertarians stupid; capitalism evil; God dead. But don't forget that the libertarian, capitalist, Jesus-freaks made possible the lazy, progressive, douchebags.
They didn't even talk about the tons of pizza and barrels of prune juice that lead to the bowel movement that made 13,000 feet of folded toilet paper necessary.
Can I be the first to say that? Is this what people are aspiring to these days? Toilet paper folding records??? Is there some complex math or interesting folding dynamics involved here? What's the hook? Or are they just a bunch of obsessive compulsive retards?
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
and your user name can be pronounced phonetically as "man goo" which is slang for male ejaculate. Funny how words work.
Everyone involved with this and the original toilet paper folding record should flunk/have their diplomas revoked/be fired - entirely serious.
I've folded my toiletroll at least 15 times on itself before going near especially potent shit before!
Since when are modern conservatives libertarian?
It would have been easier to accomplish using pennies and requiring the students to provide them. Pair the students up and require them to start with 1 penny and double the money back and forth X number of times. .01 * 2^13 = $81.92. Maybe to 2^10 ($10.24) is a little more realistic for high school students. At the end, pool the money and have a pizza party.
I'd be willing to bet that the goal of the exercise wasn't to teach the students anything. It was to get the teachers name into the record books. FTA: "After several failed attempts..."
Tanton has been trying to break that record for a while, and he needed help from MIT and his students to do it. Personally, I hope the MIT origami club decides to break this new record before it can be published. Tanton shouldn't be using public resources and student labor to break records.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Wow, folding toilet paper. This should be an olympic sport.
Good catch! Knowledgable alumni are very particular about calling it the 'corridor'. Being one, I'm curious: does anyone know which floor it was on? I can't tell from the pictures... (will have to ask when I attend 'MIThenge' this fall)
In my experience, the MO for libertarians is that they, without fail, think they are smarter than *everyone* else around them, *particularly* non-libertarians.
I had one that I was in a discussion with; he had never heard of high frequency trading, and I was explaining why I thought it was such a worthless money-extraction scheme. Even though this douchebag had never even heard of HFT before, he sat there and told me how I was wrong, and that it was a good thing, and that I just hated profit.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Just becuase he was a douchebag doesn't mean
you weren't wrong or
you didn't just hate profit.
You could have cleared that up for him (us), right? But perhaps you didn't.... ;^)
wow, what BS (pardon the pun)...
You could have gotten the diploma originally and not put it on your job application or resume. How bout that?
But you instead claim you went the self immolation route?
Then you went back and you paid $25 and they paid you a little bit to do it...
Yeah, do you think we should believe this? If it doesn't make sense, it's usually not true...
Who's the one that's excessively bitter here?
What kind of knowledge was gained from this exercise?
Well, for one, the high school students in question now have an excellent grasp of just how fast exponential increases really can get. You'd think that toilet paper is pretty thin, right? And folding it in half doesn't really make a noteworthy increase in thickness,
Now you have 2 sheets thickness
it's still really thin - but do it again, and you've got 8 sheets thickness
Now you should have 4 sheets thickness, not 8
, then 16, then 32, 64, 128, and so on, until you've got 2^13 sheets thickness of toilet paper, just from folding it in half, and suddenly it's not so thin. For people who've been doing advanced math most of their lives, that's not much of a realization, but for kids who are just learning about things like that, it's an eye opener.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
You could have gotten the diploma originally and not put it on your job application or resume. How bout that?
That would be a lie of omission. Some people have standards of moral conduct. You might have to deal with this sort of thing when dealing with borderline Aspberger's nerds.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I use 2-ply.