Black Disks in My Packing Peanuts...

No, I don't know what they're for, but I suspect they're not supposed to be there. If there's nothing in the packaging that says anything about them, I'd call the manufacturer and report it. Give them the lot number or whatever number's on the package so they can track it. They may even ask you to mail it to them (they should reimburse you) or send someone over to pick it up.

We deal with FBC (foreign body contamination) that way. Usually, we can trace the particular line and even the time that the package was produced. Then we inspect the machines. In cases of FBC, we sometimes find that a piece of the machinery has found its way into the package. Bad news for the production guys. Sometimes, we find that the package is fake (ergo, didn't come from us).

Usually we offer to replace the package for free. Some people, however, resort to blackmail and threaten to call the media if we don't pay up. Those kinds are dealt with by the law. Blackmail is blackmail, whatever the reason.

I should have been more clear. This packing material came to me in a package that had ordered. Inside, was just about the full range of packing peanuts: the ones shaped like the letter "S," the ones that dissolve in water, the round cup-shaped one, etc.. Within this veritable soup of packing peanuts, there were a number of these disks. Looked like and felt like they belonged there. Just wondering what their function is compared to the other shapes.

Ah! The light shineth upon me ! It was the word "peanuts" that threw me off course.

Packing peanuts...I know them as packing pests. Once you open the package they start climbing out and get into every hole around the place.

Just kidding, we call them packaging foam here in the factory. I haven't seen any like you described though. Might they have been part of your delivery (as in, it's coming apart)?

Check your documentation.

_{This equipment comes with small disks that are essential to its function. If you have thrown them away...too bad.}

Yep! We call them packing pests, as well. As soon as you open a box, the little bastards get everywhere!

Ahah! Popcorn! OK.

Did they have eyes and bounce up and down?

Nooooooooo! That would have been the folks coming for a visit!

Maybe they are just a Mugtrap ?

More packing

Mommph scommph chew, they are edible you know...chomph.

Hear that, Vermin? Did you know that some cats puke out furball disks? Lovely thought.

Isn't that a contradiction in terms? "Balls" and "discs?!"

Except, of course, not if the cat is two-dimensional - Fritz the Cat, Stimpy the Cat, Scratchy the Cat, and what was he name of the cat in Bloom County?

Bill the Cat.

Hey, maybe Del's got a Furball Press. Think about it. He's an engineer, right? Do engineers ever do anything simply?

That's the guy!!!

Now we know where the black ones come from!

There's your answer right there!

Dell's been eating the peanuts so they had to throw in something else to replace those he's eaten.

Maybe it's those "holes" that they create when fabricating gaskets for whatever-it- was they delivered to you.

By the sound of it I would think they are just packing. Many computer components are shipped in sheets of stiff black foam, and they cut out circles or other shapes in order to insert the parts in the foam for shipment. So what do you do with the little foam circles that you cut out? Thow them away?

In the electronics plant I worked in, instead of thowing them away we would toss them in with the packing peanuts. Just more packing material, and it puts the burden of thowing them away on the receiver of the shipment.

Yeh, so I have to spit out the back discs! ptooo........................... ting!

"Does anyone know what these disks are for?"

Packing! The shipper of your package was obviously recycling the packing peanuts of all kinds!

Waste not, want not.

I agree with what you say, but these have got the shipping guys scratching their heads. Why flat, black, and circular?!

Got a DVM? If it's one of those carbonized-foam anti-static thingies, it was probably punched out from some sheet of the stuff for some hell-if-I-know reason and thrown in with the rest of your peanut menagerie. If it conducts electricity (the stuff makes an interesting compressible variable resistor, btw, just in case you ever need a compressible variable resistor), it's just some disk of the stuff that somebody tossed out - for you to dispose of. Heck, maybe even some subversive from CR4 planted it in your bag just to generate a thread chock full of idle speculation and a side of paranoia.

Wanna play with something really weird? Get a small bowl, add two tablespoons of corn starch, and about two teaspoons of tap water, JUST till it becomes liquid. This is freaky! Slowly put your finger in it and move it around slowly. It feels like a liquid. Now quickly pull your finger out of it, and watch the bowl come off the table.

Next, smack your finger on the liquid with some force. It acts like a solid and won't let your finger penetrate.

Finally, pour some of the liquid into the palm of your hand, then vigorously rub it around with both your hands. As you roll it, it a remains a solid ball. Stop rubbing and it collapses back into a liquid.

You have just played with your first shear-thickening fluid. If you want to go further clamp a couple of electrodes on the edge of the bowl and submerge them into the goop. Hook your DVM up to it, and watch how the resistance changes as you mess with the stuff. An oscilloscope works even better.

I've messed with the stuff, and there's even a video of a couple of loonies walking on the stuff in a big tank - until one of them stands still and sinks into it (even more fun to watch him try to get back out, as the stuff stiffens up every time he moves).

Well, that's how "quicksand" works!

Quicksand doesn't work, we do. The black "thingamabobs" where introduced to keep the unpackers in a state of anticipation. Top make them read the instructions, which could explain the existence of these won-deres black discs. They could be carriers of data of some kind. Put them in the micro wave if need be. Ad some metal shavings and see what happens. There is a massage out there. I hope.

Go You Black Little Discs!!!

Already tried stuffing one in my CD rw drive... All I can get out of it is "Number 9, number 9, number 9..."

There are some stories about that sort of thing happening a few thousand years ago. Were corn-starch-based non-Newtonian fluids around in Biblical times?

Non-Newtonian fluid. NEXT!

That's got Del written all over it, but you have to use one of Shyam's dark-energy flashlights (they're easy to build: just take the batteries out) to see it.

Tell your shipping guys that you ordered samples of Dark Matter and to handle the disks very carefully.

You should've seen the reaction of our local FedEx driver when I announced that the weird-looking, black, five-gallon metal can she drove all the way across Austin to deliver contained "four pounds of uranium." Which it did, actually, but I didn't bother telling her that it was, in fact, depleted uranium, which is very tame even by uranium standards. (A geiger counter held to the outside of the can registered nothing unusual, but she didn't know that.)

That's great! I'll have to try it!

I save packing materials. I have a bowl of such things I bring out during parties laced with real pretzel sticks and things. I also scratch out the word 'not' on desiccant bags and toss in a few of those.

You've just become a nominee for "vermin of the year!" Congratulations!

There's nothing I like more than seeing an incorrigible anarchist warmly acclaimed!

Those little dessicant bags that always say "Do Not Eat?" Like, why isn't that warning printed on the soles of my shoes or on the toilet-bowl brush? Why just on those silica gel baglets? (enquiring minds want to know). Hey, how's about printing up a bunch that list Nutritional Facts, serving size, etc., and put those out in a candy bowl? Better yet, put them in those single-serving sweetener thingies you find in restaurants? Did you see Fight Club?

If you eat one, you dry up, like Boris Karloff in the Mummy, and are doomed to walk the earth severely chapped!

IT'S PLUTONIUM!

Why the "DO Not Eat" on the silica gel?

There is one supplier I occasionally use who sends sweets/chocolate bars mixed in with the packing materials - but only when my wife makes the call!!!

I can tell the difference.......

That silica gel is really interesting stuff. If it is dry - you can dry it by putting it in the oven when that's in use for a couple hours, then letting it cool. Take one of the little chunks of Silca gel, put it onto a flat surface and put a wee bit of water on it - and it will explode if really dry. Result of something like the rate at which it is trying to absorb the water, and discontinuities in internal moisture content, etc.

That's why they warn about eating the stuff. Eating your sneakers or whatever won't make you explode, enough of these under the right circumstances, who knows. Could be rough on your teeth as well.

Am I the only one who has actually eaten the silica gel??? It taste like a mouth full of coarse sand. Definately not something you want sprinkled over your potato chips... No, I did not explode.

Never ate the stuff, but we did feed Alka-Seltzer tablets to seagulls once.

What happened to the seltzered seagulls?

Material like that is frequently added to aid in preventing the peanuts from shifting in the package during "handling" by gorillas.

I really like "tell the shipping guys it's ""dark matter"" and handle it very carefully." Heh, heh!

So this is packing for the packing material? Nothing worse than damaged packing material. Has anyone tried smashing a box, tyre marks across it, tripple taped, address label attached a string tag due to no flat surfaces available . . . and handing THAT over to the outgoing shipper to see their faces: "I'd like to send these cookies to my grandson, ppppllleeease . . ."

ROFLMAO!!!

That'd be priceless!!!

They're miniature Frisbees. Throw a few at your co-workers. We shoot rubber bands at each other here at work.

All the time....

along with filling their desks with "popcorn: every time they go on vacation...

Ha! Good one! Some people here used to put small pebbles under the valve-cap of the car tire so the tire would slowly deflate during the day and you'd have a flat when it was time to go home. That and machine grease under the door handle of your car..

To name a few..

Dirty pool

I remember one ultimate prankster back in the days; the guys were so fed up of his pranks that they decided to get him for good: they "borrowed" his car keys on a warm, snowy winter day and spent most of the morning making a huge snowman which they placed in the driver's seat. They took a bunch of pics and as the day warmed up....well, you know what happened.... I don't think he ever pulled a prank on us again...

oh....and let's not forget about "confettis" in the intake of the car fan (you know...turn on the heat with the fan full blast and all the damned little things fly everywhere in the car...:)

The girls in the test lab were always hiding our tools - until we punked them. When we finally had enough of this nonsense we waited until the girls went to lunch, took their lab coats (with pens, lipstick, eye drops, chocolate, or whatever else was in the pockets) and soaked them down. Then we wadded the coats up into a ball popped it into the enviro chamber we had been chilling all morning (down to a sultry -160° F). When our conniving friends got back from lunch, we handed them their frozen ball of lab coats, nice and frosty-like. This put an end to their little forays into our area.

But isn't that the way girls let you know that they like you? Sounds to me like you guys lost out on some action.

Er..um..not those girls...

Why?

Say no more!!!

well, I just had hemmoroid surgery Monday, Thanks for the laughs, I feel much better now.

Glad I could help!

OK, I found the answer to the mystery discs in the packaging material...

This has got to be one of the most wasteful uses of material in the history of the industrial world!!! I do business with a company from which I purchase the occasional silver proof coin depicting endangered species (originally minted by the WWF). The coins are placed in a plastic capsule for protection. Inside, the edge of the coin is protected by a very thin foam ring. See picture.

Anyway, the process of making these rings leaves one with a large disc of black foam! So what to do with these discs? Their solution is to throw them in with the rest of the foam bits and use them as packing material.

I can only hope that other customers that receive these discs in there packages might say, "Hey! I can use this!"

So now ya know.

Do they have any calorific value, the discs that is? I.e. could one start the stove with them?

Well, they're a plastic foam, and from what I know, most plastics burn. Though, you might not want to be in an enclosed space with them when they do.

Time to go kick some Gambian ass.

Cool! How did you know the coin was from Gambia?!

Also, this really rates up there with that old cartoon joke where they turn a whole tree down to make one toothpick!

The delasis is the monetary unit of Gambia.

OK, so how did you know that?

And I thought delasis stood for deluded engineer lost all sense in space. You mean wasting all this matter to create less space. To make space for some other. At least it ended up being a currency. Gambia is were the most Gambits are fought out. There is a hole in the bucket Oh Henry, Oh Henry. Love Ya's. KY

I have just noticed that it is a dalasis and not delasis. We are sometimes all lost a bit in the empty spaces and to quickly framed. I wonder what the animal is called. Maybe it is an Ambia to replace the engineer.

That critter looks like an aardvark. Do they have them in Gambia ? It's kind of cute looking, but it does look just a bit like it's straining to.......

Does your coin collection include dolphins ? I read recently that some type of fresh-water dolphin had just become extinct in China.. It's a real shame that we only hear about the pretty critters that get extinctified. 21st Century, people in space, and yet we still manage to kill off species.. Maybe we have too many toys before we know how to use them.

Never heard of survival of the fattest?

Well, I wasn't too far off (post #51). There really are "holes" punched out but not for gaskets.

re: the silica packet warning

They also put a warning on gunpowder cans that say 'do not vacuume'

reason: somebody out there is bound to try it

CM