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Have you ever noticed that washing machines are about the right size to pass through for the average person?
Everyone knows that socks travel from one dimension to another with relative ease by the simple expedient of intergalactic and interuniversal portals known as washing machines. Since the
dawn of civilisation man has usually had some sort of washing machine-like structure associated with his domestic arrangements. If you squint at the pictographic represntations of everyday items in Egyptian carvings you can just make out the 'humble' washing machine standing in the corner of a usually deserted room.
Socks have been coming and going for years using the things, which only work when they are full of what appears to be water, (watch the shimmering surface of the portal in Stargate, and you'll see what I mean). We've long assumed that you have to add soap and dirty clothes to the 'water' to get the clothes clean. This was a masterstroke of deception by the socks, leading us to use the turbulence of the portal to agitate the mixture and so remove dirt from clothing items, whilst allowing lazy socks to slip away in a load of washing rather than climbing up the side of the machine and turning it on for themselves. The clever socks have been protecting this secret from humanity for thousands of years, but now the game is up. Instead of spending gazillions of taxpayers' dollars on spacecraft you just need a washing mahine and a large, swarthy fellow with the toy from a packet of cornflakes surgically implanted under the skin of his forehead, and of course MacGyver, and you're off to explore other universes.
Next time your washing machine is running just dive into it quickly and who knows where you'll end up?
Sock Cryptography
http://www.halfbake...Sock_20Cryptography
[egnor, Apr 29 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]
socks
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/socks
[egnor, Apr 29 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Washing machine cow [sock] catcher
http://www.halfbake...ine_20cow_20catcher
[egnor, Apr 29 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]
The Bureau of Missing Socks
http://www.funbureau.com/
At last, professional help. [DrBob, Apr 29 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004]
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Annotation:
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Oh blast I was about to egnorize you unmercifully with a rough estimate of the energy required to warp spacetime, and then I detected your stealthy Aussie tongue firmly implanted in your cheek. You and Rods Tiger--is this a sock fetish? |
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There should be a category for
"ideas derived from the apocryphal
notion that socks disappear in the
washer". |
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And pal, my 'stealthy Aussie tongue' is staying in _my_ cheek, just for your edification. And don't you go winkin' at no large man with a flattop haircut and drivin' no Mercedes-Benz when you be sittin' at no traffic lights neither, y'hear?
BTW, Rods Tiger lived in Oz for a number of years as a boy. Maybe that's where he developed his interest in socks? |
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egnor, congratulations !! |
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egnor
egnoring
egnorize
egnorized
egnorization
egnorism
egnorly
egnorish
egnorishment
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egnor's Law (of conservation of energy),
1. No energy is free
2. No impractical invention may take advantage of 'free' energy without a plausible explanation of the method of conveyance of said energy to the invention unless you are prepared to allow the spread of hideous anarchy during the suspension of disbelief necessary to maintain the fiction of operation of the aforementioned impractical invention. |
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brb....have to go put that load of whites in the washer now....... |
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Your brilliant thoery is sound, and I was about to vote for it with great pleasure, save for one minor flaw: socks disappear in the dryer, not the washer.* Back to the drawing board, my friend. |
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My sock disappeared from the sink. So, back to the draining board, then. |
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I actually have a drawing board, how about you? BTW, you're going to have to show me the proof of which you are so proud. The socks may just be calling out the names of other socks at roll call to confuse you, a la The Great Escape. |
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Angel, you wash your clothes in the sink? You poor thing, at least you're not living in your car... are you? |
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The proof is simple actually. When the dryer was on the blink, and we had to dry our socks on the line, we never lost a one. When our dryer was repaired, poof! Socks began to disappear again. The culprit, by deduction, had to be the dryer. |
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[UnaB]: No, I don't (although a tumble-dryer could be used as a potato-peeling machine); I put the laundry into the dryer on top of the cat. The cat, alarmed, ran off (with a sock) and jumped into the sink. I rescued the cat and, after reassuring her, returned to the sink for my sock. The sock had disappeared. From this experience I learned never to leave the dryer door open. I learned nothing about socks. |
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My sock drawer was full of plectrums (<pedant>plectra</pedant>) this morning. |
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"Oh my god, it's full of socks!" |
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I'd like to vote for the above for the 'Funniest thing I've read today' award... |
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i'm sick of this factless psuedo science, everyone knows that the other sock was pinched in the night by the roof goblins... |
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Never wash them and they'll walk away on their own! |
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As a persecuted member of the 'roof goblins' minority, I really must protest solomungus' accusation against myself and all other roof-dwelling little folk. |
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Any evidence to the contrary, we roof goblins are not responsible for the loss or theft of your missing socks. We respectfully suggest that you look instead at the criminal records of those larcenous little cellar- and crawl-space trolls, who are far more likely culprits in this (or any other) kind of theft. We're not just talking socks here: we're talking videotapes, vacuum cleaner attachments, tuxedo cummerbunds, apple pies, you name it. |
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We roof goblins are a peaceful people. (That dreadful assault that Santa Claus suffered on your neighbor's rooftop was a regrettable, but isolated, incident.) Please do not discriminate against us simply because our huge litters of scuttling offspring disrupt the symmetrical beauty of your planned communities. |
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The Roof Goblin Anti-Defamation League |
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Sadly, UB, I can't vote for this idea. Although world governments deny it, it is clear to any sensible person that washing machines are some form of sock portal. But, by claiming that these portals are inter-galactic or trans-dimensional, you have lapsed into a fantasy world for which you have no supporting evidence.
No, no. The truth is far more hum-drum and straight forward.
All washing machines contain a small black hole as a central component (proof: have you ever noticed how much heavier your washing is after 20 minutes in the machine?). This black hole is the entrance to a perfectly normal space-time wormhole and socks, with their in-born homing sense, are able to navigate through these worm holes back to the factory from whence they came. There they are cleaned, repaired and re-packaged ready to be sold once more to a gullible public who never think to ask where this endless supply of socks comes from. |
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Doctor, doctor, doctor Bob, this is for your own good. |
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Guards, I need you to detain this normally mild-mannered economist here in the sick bay of Enterprise until we can establish why he was caught stealing socks from the other members of the crew. Don't let him out of your sight nor, particularly, anywhere near a washing machine. |
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Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a launderer! |
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[angel] //...I put the laundry
into the dryer on top of the
cat. The cat...// |
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Why was your dryer on top of
the cat to begin with? I'm off
to report you to the Society to
Prevent Cruelty to Cats, Socks
and Cats Named Socks. |
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Sock disaperance is actualy a key part of conservation of energy. You see every time a mad scientist builds a perpetual motion device and pumps new energy ino the universe old energy must be sucked out to replace it. This energy is suplied in the form of socks which are the energy currency of our universe. |
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Imagine the embarasment of some poor scientist in another uiverse who has tried to build a perpetual motion device but when he unvield it it turned out to be an infinate sock device instead. |
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Ren And Stimpy in: Black Hole
Their space ship is sucked into a black hole. They wander around on a strange planet therein which has a mutating effect on them, discover the universe's repository for missing left socks, and miss the bus back to Jersey City. |
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Many nights have I been kept awake by the sounds of the sock orgy emanating from my dresser. |
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I'd like to be a sock in *her* drawer... |
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Socks as sentient beings have evolved way past reproduction by sexual means, thus the absence of genitalia ( at least on any of my socks). We must look elsewhere for an explanation of their behaviour.
It is a common error to assume that a pair of socks is identical, they may appear so but actually possess chirality to a great degree. Instinctively I would agree with Dr Bob that a black hole in the machine is the mechanism for the severance of previously stable sock combinations from our world.
Is it possible that socks came here from a universe in which anti matter can coexist with matter? And that the enormous forces exerted by the black hole polarises a pair of socks so that one becomes entirely anti matter, the anti-sock, while one acquires the matter we are familiar with, the pro-sock? The tremendous repulsion that would occur between such a pair of socks could conceivably transport the anti-sock into another universe.
The answer is probably not......... |
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You won't believe the answer when I reveal it to you... |
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Just one anti-sock (would that be the left, or the right?) and you should be able to zoom around in outer space for years. Has anyone here got any idea how a sock generator works?... |
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No? Ok, here goes nothing. |
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Before the advent of knitting mills the generation of socks was the sole premise of grandmothers. They used "knitting needles", which are actually interdimensional electrodes. Clicking the tips of these electrodes together in the presence of the necessary catalyst (a grandmother) produces matter if done one way and anti-matter if done another. You could probably try it yourself, but if you're not a grandmother you will only get "dumb" pro-socks, which won't fit anyone anyway because they'll be all lumpy and misshapen. This is because of the uneven electromagnetic fields around non-grandmother type humans. I know of this because my first wife tried to knit me a pair of socks and they were absolutely unwearable. |
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Around the time of the Industrial Revolution there was a series of profound social changes, including but not limited to, the breakdown of the nuclear family. Grandmothers went off to "live on their own" or "went into a home, where they can be cared for more effectively". |
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Don't let either of these hollow pretences fool you, folks. Grandmothers went off to work in knitting mills (See, there was a point to this, after all) to run the new sock-knitting machines. |
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This is just part of the plan for socks to dominate not only the universes parallel to this one, but this universe as well. This universe is ideal for the socks' requirement for cheap labour, due to the large numbers of grandmothers in this universe, particularly on this planet. |
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You will note the recent rise of China as a major supplier of knitted goods to the world. This "coincides" with the Westernisation of Chinese society. Chinese in particular, and Asians in general, have begun in the last 50 years or so wearing Western clothes, including socks. Clever ploy by the socks once again, as any person wearing socks will be subliminally influenced to move Grandma into her own place, or into a home. |
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If you are reading this annotation then you are in danger and I, and Bixbyte, are probably both... |
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So, what do we do for cheap intergalactic travel? Step inside a waching machine and turn it on? |
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*Gurgle* "Ack, Cheer in my throat" |
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Anyway, it's a funny idea. So, for, I guess. |
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Washing machine companies know about this inter-dimensional effect, but try to keep it under wraps. Why else would they put in mechanisms that prevent you from opening the door while the washing machine is activated? |
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Perhaps this "sock effect" is like Schroedinger's Cat-if it's observed, the interdimensional traveling capacity is destroyed. |
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<builds web-cam into washing machien> Keep your socks! <bwciwm> |
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Photographic devices will not work in washing machines. Have you ever seen a camera where the manual or packaging stipulates the possibility of use in a washing machine? NO. The government won't tell you this, because they don't want anyone to start experimenting and accidentally uncover their involvement in the cover-up. |
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[UnaBubba], keep this up and they'll send over the roof goblins. I'm sure of it. |
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Well I have a cat named socks that
dissapeared after a whiloe. I have
no idea where he went. |
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And the roof goblins aren't doing
it. Because the roof goblins come
into my room and bite my toes.
roof goblins are mean. |
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Roof Goblins: Men, dressed in black and heavily armed. Known as 'roof goblins' because they descend onto rooftops from silent helicopters. One or more occupants of the house usually mysteriously disappear after an occurrence of 'roof goblins'. |
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You fool. Washing machines are for time travel, not space
travel. |
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Aren't they the same thing? Using a washing machine you can get there instantaneously, I believe. |
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Actually, you're right. When my washing machine broke, it would only teleport through space, not time. |
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Damn! Washing machine won't work, after yesterday's electrical storm. The house is filling up with socks! |
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I get the impression that it's not just the washing machine or the sock at work in this space warping phenomenon, it’s a combination of both. My guess is for this to work you’d need a person sized sock to climb into as your space ship and a proportionality sized washing machine filled with enormous underpants, socks and any thing else commonly found in the jocks and socks wash. All the other socks must be odd ones, the sock you will be in will be one half of the only pair in the wash, giving you a 50/ 50 chance of time/ space travel in any particular wash. |
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Socks don't naturally occur in pairs. It's purely coincidental, if you should a pair of similar socks "in the wild", that they are together. Socks are loners, territorial and vicious, much like leopards or male polar bears. |
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Yet, people continue to put their feet into them. This suits the socks just fine, as they use us as a means of transport and a source of food*. * Have you ever noticed that the skin of your foot is often soft and white when you take your socks off? The sock is actually eating the skin cells. If you leave the same socks on for 3-4 weeks you will see the skin of your feet totally flayed from the flesh. |
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You appear to have completely misjudged them. That's not unusual, just sad. |
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We EvilPickles have been the evil genuises' henchmen for quite some time now and socks are our worst enemy.Their allies cats named socks are also especially fearsome. |
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[phoenix] //[angel] //...I put the laundry into the dryer on top of the cat. The cat...// |
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Why was your dryer on top of the cat to begin with? I'm off to report you to the Society to Prevent Cruelty to Cats, Socks and Cats Named Socks. //
Honestly the funniest thing I've read in years. |
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This is freakin' hilarious! |
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