Difference between revisions of "2049: Unfulfilling Toys"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search
(Sealed Stomp Rocket)
(Added a short blurb about magnet Rubik's cubes.)
Line 33: Line 33:
  
 
This one actually exists and some people are even quite good at it. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5P-fdrlBg8 for example.
 
This one actually exists and some people are even quite good at it. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5P-fdrlBg8 for example.
 +
 +
====falling-apart Rubik's cube====
 +
This also exists, is rather functional, and is the only way to make fun Rubik's cube shapes such as 1x5x5.
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==

Revision as of 15:50, 21 September 2018

Unfulfilling Toys
We were going to do a falling-apart Rubik's cube that was just 27 independent blocks stuck together with magnets, but then we realized it was actually really cool and even kind of worked, so we cut that one.
Title text: We were going to do a falling-apart Rubik's cube that was just 27 independent blocks stuck together with magnets, but then we realized it was actually really cool and even kind of worked, so we cut that one.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a Stretch Armstrong made out of hard plastic. Please edit the explanation below and only mention here why it isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic lists and illustrates a number of classic toys that are missing a key piece of that makes them work or that makes them unique. As such, they are not much fun.

Rigid Slap Bracelet

Slap Bracelets are flexible bars that when you hit them on your arm they twist and become a bracelet. A rigid one would not twist and would be deeply frustrating

Sealed Stomp Rocket

A stomp rocket has a rubber pouch full of air, connected via a hose to a cylinder containing a tightly-fitting rocket on a stick. By stomping on the pouch, the air is forced into the cylinder launching the rocket into the air. By sealing the air channel, the rocket would stay in the cylinder and the person would just be bounced into the air by the pouch -- acting like the world's smallest bouncy house -- or the pouch will burst rending the toy even more useless.

Pump-only Supersoaker

A supersoaker is a water gun that works by first pumping air into the gun, which introduces air pressure next to the water, then releasing the water using the gun's trigger -- the extra pressure from the pumped air makes the water go much further than a regular water gun. In this version, the water cannot be released, so the fun part of the water gun -- getting to spray your friends -- isn't there.

Glass Glow Stick

In a classic glow-stick, made of flexible plastic, one much first bend it enough that something inside (which might be glass or some other hard crack-able substance) cracks, which allows chemicals to mix and begin glowing within the plastic tube. If the entire tube were made of actual glass, however, if would simply crack in half or pieces and would just make a mess.

Wingless Sky Dancer

In the traditional toy, a doll with folded-up wings sits on top of a hand-held device with a wrapped string or other mechanism that lets it spin the doll very fast. As the doll spins, centripetal force causes the wings to unfold and provide lift, and the doll rises up in the air and flies, spinning, sometimes going quite high. Without the wings, the doll will spin but otherwise remain flightless.

No-strings-attached Yo-yo

In a traditional yo-yo, one attaches a string to their finger and the other end of the string is loosely attached to the yo-yo, such that it will hold the yo-yo but the yo-yo can still spin. In this case, the string is included but not attached to the yo-yo, so the yo-yo, when it reaches the end of the string, will keep going instead of coming back to the person or spinning at the end of the string.

This one actually exists and some people are even quite good at it. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5P-fdrlBg8 for example.

falling-apart Rubik's cube

This also exists, is rather functional, and is the only way to make fun Rubik's cube shapes such as 1x5x5.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.


comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

The no string attached yo-yo exists and works rather well for those who know how to yo-yo 108.162.229.214 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Blinking heck, my Lord. I thought you meant one of those yo-yos with a loop at the end, but I've now seen people yo-ing into the air with detached strings and catching them again by whipping the spinning beast. 162.158.155.158 16:55, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Pondy contributed a video for: "This also exists, is rather functional, and is the only way to make fun Rubik's cube shapes such as 1x5x5. See this video for a good example of this."

But this doesn't appear to be a good example at all. Those cubes are most definitely attached and you can see the presenter has to use quite a bit of force at some points to rotate. Can someone find a better example if it exists? -boB (talk) 16:51, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

The cubes are only attached magnetically. It takes a lot of force to break a lot of magnetic connections at once. Some of the cubes they actually take apart and you can see it’s just magnets. The video might be longer than ideal, but it does demonstrate the concept. 172.68.141.94 11:17, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
It is theoretically possible to build a cube with arbitrary dimensions without using magnets, though the mechanism required for certain shapes is much more complicated than a standard cube. Probably not Douglas Hofstadter (talk) 04:40, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Isn't a wingless sky dancer just an upside down beyblade? 172.69.55.166 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I sometimes find myself smacking my wrist with a comb. I think it's stimming. There might be a market for rigid objects designed for the purpose.

Broken toys

Toys often don't have a long lifetime, in particular children tend to act not much carefully and sometimes they even destroy them deliberately as a part of their playing. Parents know what I'm talking about. It can be annoying how fast kids are able to destruct things. So literally Randall just sells toys in a state in which they always end up anyway. Worth for the explanation? --Dgbrt (talk) 13:59, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure I still have working toys somewhere that have survived my childhood. :) I think Randall just aims to deprive of the satisfaction of playing with them for children, thus the comic name "Unfulfilling Toys". -Asdf (talk) 14:47, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
"toys ... have survived my childhood" emphases exactly that what I'm saying. Most of them didn't survive... And try to remember your own annoyance about all those broken ones, there's probably not much in your memory, you just threw them away. But your parents were annoyed about all that waste. --Dgbrt (talk) 18:33, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
"Broken" != "Unfulfilling". Over this weekend, my son and I blitzed his dump, sorry, room. There were a large number of broken toys (especially those "Hero Mashers" action figures - lifetime measured in hours...) that I was not allowed to get rid of because he still plays with them. He has some perfectly intact items that are much more unfulfilling - racetracks where the track pieces don't quite match up leading to stuck cars (when new out of the box) being the one most guaranteed to create the disappointed face. 172.68.65.6 14:01, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Wanna nerd-snipe the next commenters? 162.158.78.130 20:41, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Glass glow-sticks? Isn't that the principle behind Mike Thompson's blood lamp. His design, in my opinion, is less fun than the design suggested in the current explanation. 162.158.75.22 23:41, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you might be able to pull this off if you market it as a prank gifts, for people to buy for their friends as a joke. Solomon (talk) 05:37, 6 December 2023 (UTC)