Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Electric Papermatic Scrappertron

Scrap Paper Maker
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There’s nothing I enjoy quite so much as that little box of scrap paper on top of the card catalog at the library. Not only are those bits of paper convenient for the copying of Dewy-decimal numbers (using the accompanying “shorty” pencil), but the reverse sides offer tantalizing glimpses of the old library-related forms and memos from which they were cut.

I would like to have a similar stack of scrap paper at home, but I don’t have time to slice my obsolete paper into pieces. I propose a machine:

The machine looks and acts like a paper shredder, but it has fewer blades. It cuts the paper in half lengthwise, and crosscuts it three times resulting in eight scraps. A system of ramps, rollers and trays collates and stacks the scraps at the bottom.

The user simply drops in used-on-one-side, no-longer-needed sheets of paper, then idly reaches for the scrap-stack whenever a scribbling, jotting or doodling need arises.

As an added bonus, one can flip over a scrap and let the nostalgia flood in upon viewing for the first time in many years one eighth of a long-forgotten document.

AO, Apr 17 2003

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       Don't forget an ancillary web site that lets you find out who has the other 7 pieces.
phoenix, Apr 17 2003
  

       As a child I learned to read Chinese by unrolling firecrackers. Go ahead. Say something in Chinese...
pluterday, Apr 17 2003
  

       My children used to draw on scrap paper from work (obviously, this was in those long-gone times when I had a job). Looking now at their old artwork I get tantalising glimpses of old projects, failed bid documents, manuals for obsolete products, meaningless emails...
hippo, Apr 17 2003
  

       Librarians don't already use something similar to this. They use paper cutters like everybody else. Each librarian cuts a little differently - hence the fun fact that none of the paper is exactly the same size. When you end up with stacks and stacks of unaligned edges on a shelf in a back room, it's art.   

       Croissant anyway, because the only other *easy* way to get the stuff is to steal it from the library.
migennes, Apr 17 2003
  

       Huannin Pluterday. Ni Jintian Zenme Yang?
AJCrowley, Apr 17 2003
  

       Ala Hippo, my father would bring home old blueprints, and little appartment complexes would become huge castles... ah childhood. I agree with frogfreak, just unplugg it before you start messing with it. What a sad/pathetic way too lose a hand "that, oh, i was tryin to make paper like they had at the library, you know... the little slips...::sniff
Lizz612, Apr 17 2003
  

       Ni hao didi AJ. Ni cong nar lai?
pluterday, Apr 18 2003
  

       Churn churn churn...   

       I approve, I aprove. There should be a period before you start using the paper, so that so only get paper from a while ago.
dbmag9, Jan 05 2006
  

       [pluterday], Ga gao.   

       [dbmag9], so it would be kind of like tequila. There would be new paper, "Reposado" paper, aged for six months, and my favorite, "Anejo" paper, which is a year old.
normzone, Jan 05 2006
  
      
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