What Is It? game 337

Our friend Rob of the What Is It? Blog has been traveling, but he's back for a limited time, with more mystery items!

What is this thing in the picture? Your guess can win you a free T-shirt of your choice from the NeatoShop! Here's how to play:

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, but you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. You have until tomorrow afternoon to enter.

You might know what it is, but if you want to win a t-shirt, you'll have to use your imagination, because we are going to select two winners who give us the funniest incorrect guesses. If you guess right, then good for ya - but you don't win anything, okay? So, it's up to you, creative people: you have twice the chance of winning that T-shirt.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize. We highly suggest you take a look at the NeatoShop's new selection of Funny T-shirts and Science T-Shirts.

Ready? Go for it! (Don't forget to visit the What Is It? Blog for more clues!)

Update: This item is, indeed, a Morris scissor bench plane, or plow plane. You can see the patent application at the What Is It? blog. Several of you knew that, but as we said, we are giving away T-shirts from the NeatoShop for the funniest answers.

A t-shirt goes to canyourepeatthequestion for this gem:

Although incorrectly displayed laying on its side, it is still easily recognizable as a scissor lift for squirrels performing bird feeder "Maintenance". What appears to be a curved wooden handle is in fact the lateral stabilizer, stylized to resemble a squirrel's tail in the style of famed rodent lift designer Sir UpseeDaisy J Nutter. At auction, I would expect this piece to fetch at least three or four hundred acorns.

and to Berhard for his pun:

It is one of the classic "phrase causes":
If you worked with this pane-tool and placed on a chair and you forget about it... and you later sit down on exactly this chair, you instantly become aware that this tool is the reason for the phrase "pane in the ass"...

Thanks to everyone for playing along! We’ll do it again next week, for a limited run as long as Rob has items to identify at the What Is It? blog.

Love games and puzzles? Visit NeatoPuzzles for more!

Comments (20)

Newest 5
Newest 5 Comments

It's the physical proof of the concept that parallel lines never touch. Math teachers would place a piece of chalk in each side of this contraption and then walk circles around the classroom until the two pieces of chalk had completely worn out. The negative part of this process, however, was the fact that as the professor's arms would tire, the lines that they drew would begin to slump, causing the lines to slowly cross over the lines from previous laps around the room. This failed proof caused an entire generation of failed geometry students, with the negative effects persisting until present day.
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It's called a "Cross", from the old farmhand game "Naughts and Crosses". Before paper was prevalent, and people could just play tick-tac-toe wherever they please, people would play the game using these crosses, and circular metal loops (also with a handle), hanging them on the wall.

Great Vocab Didn't Save the Thesaurus From Extincion, Black, Medium
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Do you need to shave your legs, ladies ? Both of them !? Quickly ? Well, do them both in half the time, (which equals one-fourth of the time! ), with Professor Smooth's double-blade, 1 handle, adjustable width, "Double-Stemmer Stubble-Trimmer" ! (is also "Amish-tested, Amish-approved" , just ask Gretchen!!!).

Love Cthulhu II
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first off, correction: Shimano is not a bicycle company. Bicycle components are among the many technologies they design and manufacture (once, my shop got a mis-shipment of a carbon fiber fishing reel rather than a high end derailleur)...

Second, this has been done before. It's not experimental. It's a marketing ploy. I've talked to my local sales rep and his boss about this campaign, and I think it's probably one of the stupidest things in recent marketing history. They'll be over priced, and they won't work well for anything but beaches and boardwalks. We already have beach cruisers for that...

How about focusing on the innovations being made in commuter and utility bikes?
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More photos of that bike and details about the Coasting system at Bike Gallery.

I'd have to agree with Silky; this is 95% marketing and 5% innovation. The Coasting gimmick is basically a 3-speed hub with a fancy gizmo that does the shifting for you. How much help should anyone need for 3 speeds? The problem with the concept is that a fancy bike will get people to ride for the short term, but it'll soon be hanging in the garage, unused. Getting people to ride bikes regularly in the real world will take more than a gimmick like Coasting.

The work part is what keeps most people from using bikes more; heck, I'd ride a bike to work 11 months of the year (and I live in the currently frozen North) if I didn't have to worry about other people smelling me all day in the office. The thing that would make bicycling really take off is adding an electric or gas motor to the bike to make the commute easier, and make terrain less of an issue. I'm considering the purchase of one such electric unit for myself; some start at about $200, and many are pretty darned simple to install.

If bike companies would start making turn-key bikes with electric or gas assist more mainstream and more affordable, you'd see them everywhere.
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I used to work at a shop that sold bikes with electric batteries. The only problem is they make the bike really heavy, and they're unreliable. We sold one on the merits that you could ride it on electric mode to work and then pedal it home, but the battery crapped out after very little time, and we had a very unhappy customer on our hands...

I know people have to be presentable for their jobs (well, I don't, but I'm a grease monkey), but I think the solution to that would be for companies to provide lockers and showers, rather than fix motors to bikes. I live in Atlanta, and Turner provides all their bicycle commuters with stipends and free gym memberships so they can stow their riding gear and shower before work.
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Silky is absolutely correct, if you want more people to ride bikes to work, it's up to "companies to provide lockers and showers". Otherwise, you'll end up with a bunch of individuals stinking up the cubicles all day.

Regards,
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