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What Is It? game 163



It is once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Do you know what it is?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

For more clues, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: The very first answer was the correct one. Berhard said it was a nutcracker, and he's right. Among many funny answers, the winner is The Professor, who claimed that due to budget cuts, this is the new Times Square New Year Ball Drop! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop.

Had to be some kind of gravity indicator. as soon as the balls starts to "float" in the cage there may be some severe changes in gravity..

If I Only Had Some ... Braaains! XXL
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It's a tester of some kind. I know they use similar devices for testing fencing masks, motorcycle helmet, and steel toe shoes. Not sure what this one was used for.

Surprise me with a men's medium shirt.
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This was made for scientists to easily carry around models of planets for display/presentation purposes. Since little pluto kept falling out, they voted it out of the catagory of "planets"."Pocket planet" was the first trendy name chosen for it but was changed later in fear of retaliation for the real reason for the name change.
protect your nuts 2 xl
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Not sure what its called, but I think you flip it upside down from how its pictured and the ball spins and rolls up and down. It's supposed to demonstrate gravity, centrifugal force, and friction. Or you could just crack nuts with it.
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Scientists eager to disprove the "big bang theory" started a quest to develop the "Giant pinball machine theory" instead and went about it by developing a smaller scale model that used bowling ball sized planets. What you don't see in the picture is the giant spring plunger God would have pulled out on to "launch" the planets into space. You know what happened to pluto.
protect your nuts 2 xl
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Since bowling balls only grow on trees in western Australia, they can be difficult to pick up since there are no fingerholes, ( all the fingerhole worms died out in the last ice age)this tool would be attached to a combine and used to pick them up for harvest.This also screened out the small,(think pluto)undesirable bowling balls. Little known fact, they quit the practice of "shaking" the trees with a mechanical shaker due to workman's comp claims.
protect your nuts, 2 xl
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Ancient Chinese torture device. You move the ball up. Then, put something sensitive under the ball, drop the ball and wait for gravity to do its work. :P

I want to believe alien version - Medium - Black
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It's a ball resting on a wooden base constrained by two curved wires embedded in it the base. It has no purpose except to excite the curiosity of people who don't have a life.
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If it is a bowling ball rack, it's a really bad design. You'd have to lean way over to get the ball, and if you stacked some balls and wanted the bottom one, you'd have to do a lot of work to get it.

It doesn't seem like much of a puzzle either, since at the end of the metal loops there's ought to be enough flex to just force the thing out (assuming that it doesn't slide out freely).

It would be a really messy nutcracker.

I don't know what it is, though.
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Place it in a container with (dry) food. If the ball reaches the bottom, it is almost empty. You could place a switch on the platform for a bell or light.
If the ball floats you can see if a container is full of water or empty. A blind person could feel if a container is full without getting wet.
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This was developed by NASA to show astronauts the effects of gravity and certifugal forces by putting this on the end of their finger and twirling around that if they did indeed orbit earth that they would not fall to the floor going around the earth's north pole or rising to the ceiling going around the south pole
protect your nuts 2 xl
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It's a display, like for a science center/museum used to show that gravity is constant between different massed objects. This would usually be accompanied by smaller or larger similar displays.

Hydrogen Bondage, M
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A piece of obscure and ancient Olympic equipment. It's biathletic Pommel Horse Bowling Lane. This was banned as a sport in 1917 after Jarl Norssson severed all his limbs when attempting what was known as the "Iron Spare".

Hard hat turtle, 2XL, green
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Minimalist menu holder: just push the menu down and it is gently gripped between the ball and the wire frame. Hey, pop the dessert/drinks menu on the other side at no extra cost! If this is right I may just change my name to Mr Smug; in fact, I'll change it now! (When proved wrong I may have to consider Mr Mug as a more apposite soubriquet).

Ball appears to be marbled plastic with a wooden base, about 3 inches across and it appears to be placed on a faux leather bench seat not uncommon in diners.
Schroedinger's cat, black L
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This was a tool to adjust the harmonic rotary flangeometer on the prometheus drive GM had developed (but which has since mysteriously disappeared).
protect your nuts 2 xl
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Bad day detector: fix the wooden base to your dashboard. Whilst driving check that the ball is resting on the square of wood: if it is resting in the U-shaped metal frame then you should be forewarned that the remainder your day might not go to plan. This is also true if the ball is neither on the square nor in the metal frame and cannot be seen at all.

Schroedinger's cat, black L
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It is what most doctors use for their female patients to use before their mammogram. The impact of the ball mimics the impact of a mammography on a breast. Normally sent home a week prior to the mammogram.

How else may I ignore... ladies, med, pls
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It's a simple edge crush tool for checking cans.

You'd hold the marble sphere at a set height depending on the weight of the can, slide a can part way under it and drop it. The slotted screw in the front of the base may raise and lower a metal bar to simulate being dropped on an edge. The sphere's weight would be calibrated that when dropped from a certain height, it would mimic the force of the can itself being dropped onto the ground/edge. In this way, can designers could determine the optimal can for a variety of uses in a more or less controlled environment.

Support Cloning in dark grey 2XL
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Newton's cradle Mk 1 was a failure due to the design process being constantly interrupted having to let the cat in/out.

Schroedinger's cat, black L
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My apologies for going blue with this but....
This was Linda Lovelace's oral exercise device. She would pick up the ball and set it back down 50 times a day, just to keep her talents honed.

i rpn heart, xl, navy
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