The great Cecil Adams, in his Straight Dope column, once offered an aside on an entirely different topic, saying (paraphrase) "I know this the same way I know the toilet paper goes over the roll towards you. Don't ask me how I know. I just know."
Strange. I'm currently writing an article about whether and how you can feel at home somewhere by paying attention to which direction you intuitively reach for the toilet paper in the bathroom. I'm researching toilet paper and toilet paper holders, and then your post pops up in my feed. Sometimes I'm not quite sure if it's all coincidence or some form of destiny. Anyway, thank you. I no longer have any doubts.
I have to say that the patent you're mentioning is a patent to improve toilet paper. Here's a separate earlier patent with a better illustration than makes an even better point and is likely the original patent: patents.google.com/patent/US45…
Intended is not the same as correct. This is just an appeal to authority. I have NEVER heard a single reason why this is the correct way to do this. What benefit is there?
This entry was edited (Friday, September 12, 2025, 10:15 AM)
I never had any doubt. When I was a child my parents had a toilet roll holder which would automatically grip the roll so you could easily tear it off with one hand.
The gripping mechanism only worked the right way around, so I've always been used to the right way being the only way.
I m sorry, but it's a patent drawing, and needs to clearly show function. Drawing it with the paper out the back would have been harder to comprehend. But go ahead and hang it how you want. I assume you don't have cats, or don't mind periodic piles of TP under the dispenser...
Have they cleverly avoided the issue by placing the axis vertically, or have they just opened another rift in society by unrolling from the right 😱 when "everyone" knows that it MUST be unrolled from the left?
Which is why you should always put it on with the paper to the wall! The last thing you want is to have some patent troll come into your bathroom and sue you for infringement! Right ?!?
There are two ways to orient the toilet paper: "over" (left image), "under" (right image).
Each has it's pros and cons. For some reason, it's always easier to tear off the pape...
People are shocked to discover they need to fact-check ChatGPT and I'm having the uncomfortable realization that they never fact-checked their uncle's Facebook posts, their friend's medical advice, or literally anything Google's top result told them, and suddenly the last decade makes sense...
in the early 2000s, my mom was sending me nonsense emails and I was replying with snopes links. In the 2010s, that basically changed to her posting nonsense on Facebook.
it´s like people believe what they see in advertisting and take that as information....
also your post reminded me of people who were annoyed when they had to wash hands because of covid. and I was really shocked that this seemed something new to them.
What also worries me is that Chatbots give different answers when you ask the same question in different languages. Even the sources GPT mentioned were different.
a person very close to me doesn't trust Wikipedia because "anybody can write there" (in spite of it being one of the few big multi-party curated media), but will happily take as truth any random conspiracy theory someone relays on social media, even if it doesn't make any sense at all once you apply a drop of logic to it...
I still think about the story a colleague (younger than me, so no boomer!) shared on Facebook about a six year old girl supposedly a survivor of Sandy Hook, running the Boston Marathon who was killed in the bombing at the Marathon. Like, you don't even need to fact check that, dude. How could a six year old be running a marathon you have to be 18 to enter? And finishing with adults? And running a marathon at all when she's SIX?! Just use your brain for like ten seconds! Gah!
had a "Do Xr interaction toolkit have an XRPokeInteractive class?" question two hours ago. There is no such thing, but ChatGPT dreamed it up on the spot! I was looking for the XRPokeFilter class, but the eagerness to invent stuff on the fly unnerves me. I'll review every line of code it provides.
ChatGPT is nothing more than the game of "someone said something wrong on the internet", but as-a-service. Sometimes it finds some legit information, sometimes it takes stuff out of context or screws information from a pdf because columns are difficult. Then it repeatedly claims it's right. Sane humans won't win against this firehose.
My manager at work — a liberal, marketing executive — remarked to me about “the litter box in that high school for the girl who identified as a cat.” I searched it in front of her. It took ten seconds. This happens all the time in my office with multiple people. Shit’s bad.
All the #AI haters out there, note what this post says: that humans who fail to use their intellect and uncritically rely on *any* #technology to think for them are hallucinating themselves, doesn't matter if it's #ChatGPT or a #Google search or the conspiracy theory your uncle posted on #Facebook.
If you or someone you know have ever started a sentence "On TikTok..." then the robots have already taken over your/their brain and I couldn't care less what you think about AI! @pheonix
And its not like its made any information any more accessible. If something wasn't already readily available by Web search (even if you had to know where to look) then it's not going to be available to ChatGPT (or any other LLM, for that matter).
It doesn't even list sources (like Wikipedia, or most good bloggers) so there's no way to know where it's getting the information when it gives you something wild.
And the time 'saved' by not doing one's own reading is probably not going to be helpful, especially if it's spent having to undo the problems that relying too much on ChatGPT caused.
(With that being said, there's also a lot of fantastic sources on all sorts of subjects that have either vanished from the Web, been deliberately removed - either by creators or through copyright strikes and the like - or have vanished behind paywalls. And that seems to have been happening more and more. Not sure why, maybe it's just me noticing it, but - on some topics it's definitely gotten more difficult to fact check unless you've got a good base of (saved or off-line) resources already.)
one time in a sociology class (about 20 years ago), someone brought in a printout of a website that claimed that there had been a successful male pregnancy by transplanting a uterus. It had a bunch of fake citations and everything. Even the teacher concluded it was probably real, there were only a couple of us pointing out that anyone could make a web page that said anything.
Once when pointing out to a Facebook friend that a political post they shared contained false info, they replied that it didn't matter because it made Trump look bad.
Attached: 3 images
Arguing facts with someone and then they just happen to mention they use chatgpt as their source of their (proven wrong) claim (it gave them results from 2023 and we're discussing 2024) and ugh, this is what we gotta deal with the…
![Mre. Dartigen [maker mode]](photo/contact/80/805324?ts=1790735017)
GeePawHill
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •The great Cecil Adams, in his Straight Dope column, once offered an aside on an entirely different topic, saying (paraphrase) "I know this the same way I know the toilet paper goes over the roll towards you. Don't ask me how I know. I just know."
Words to live by.
Su_G
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Toni M.
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •It does not indicate on which side the wall is, is it?
😂
Toni M.
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •But definitely a milestone in the history of civilization.
🤣
Zekovski ☀️
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Syralist
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Abu Daniyal
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Sepia Fan
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Sebastian
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Wrapping or tolier paper roll
patents.google.comraptor
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •asTra
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •distincte&clare
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Markus Werle
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Sir Toootenstein
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •xs4me2
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Sérgio Machado
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Lupino
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •John "John Davies" Davies ☑️
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Anja
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Johan Diederik
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Madness832
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •C.S.Strowbridge
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •�
in reply to C.S.Strowbridge • • •berlin_radler
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Ulrich Best
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Ellen S.
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Checkmate.
Nae King! Nae quin! Nae Laird!
in reply to Ellen S. • •Leeloo
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •I never had any doubt. When I was a child my parents had a toilet roll holder which would automatically grip the roll so you could easily tear it off with one hand.
The gripping mechanism only worked the right way around, so I've always been used to the right way being the only way.
Nae King! Nae quin! Nae Laird!
Unknown parent • •I hope the paper they're using has got better!
SteveTarter
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •But go ahead and hang it how you want. I assume you don't have cats, or don't mind periodic piles of TP under the dispenser...
Drey
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •ℒӱḏɩę 💾☮∞🎶♲☀🔋
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Matt
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Jugger1511
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Lupino
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •�
Unknown parent • • •this is how argumentation works :D
edit: when i try hard, only argument against wall side might be bad wall color, so that it could crock. then the paper would paint your ass.
Nic3 🇪🇺
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Thomas Guyot-Sionnest
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •I hear some people voluntarily reverse it to see who will mansplain them the fine art of replacing a toilet paper roll, or just sneakily reverse it 😂
Also whoever wrote this patent doesn't have cats!
Boab
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •blaue_Fledermaus
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •�
Unknown parent • • •Erwan 🚄
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Gareth Kitchener
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Sjaak K. 🇳🇱🇪🇺🍋
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •🐌’s Pace
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Being validated feels so good!
Voracious Reader
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Now you've got me yelling at this Mastodon post: 😡
mastodon.social/@paulrickards/…
paulrickards (@paulrickards@mastodon.social)
MastodonVoracious Reader
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •What about the toilet paper emoji?
🧻
Have they cleverly avoided the issue by placing the axis vertically, or have they just opened another rift in society by unrolling from the right 😱 when "everyone" knows that it MUST be unrolled from the left?
E-TARD The LifeCaster
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Melroy van den Berg
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Bill Reese
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Admiral Memo
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Chuck
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Frank
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Georg Bloemen
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •severino
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Jonas
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Ethan Black
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Toilet paper dilemma
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