## Sunday, December 30, 2012

### Over/Under

Who'd a thunk it?  Thunk WHAT, you ask?  This, sez I:

Toilet paper when used with a toilet roll holder with a horizontal axle parallel to the wall has two possible orientations: the toilet paper may hang over (in front of) or under (behind) the roll. The choice is largely a matter of personal preference, dictated by habit. In surveys of American consumers and of bath and kitchen specialists, 60–70% of respondents prefer over.[1]

Despite its being an apparently trivial topic, some people hold strong opinions on the matter. Advice columnist Ann Landers said that the subject was the most controversial issue in her column's history. Defenders of either position cite advantages ranging from aesthetics, hospitality, and cleanliness to paper conservation, the ease of detaching individual squares, and compatibility with a recreational vehicle or a cat. Celebrities and experts are found on both sides. Some writers have proposed connections to age, sex, or political philosophy; and survey evidence has shown a correlation with socioeconomic status.[2]

Solutions range from compromise, to using separate dispensers or separate bathrooms entirely, or simply ignoring the issue altogether. One man advocates a plan under which his country will standardize on a single forced orientation, and at least one inventor hopes to popularize a new kind of toilet roll holder which swivels from one orientation to the other.
That's from an article in The Wiki (I took the liberty of removing all those annoying extraneous links), which I stumbled upon while looking for something else.  There's much, MUCH more at the link and let me offer this, lest you think this is a trivial issue:
• For a public restroom stall with a dispenser holding two rolls of paper, Donald Knuth proposes classifying users into big-choosers (those who take paper from the roll that is currently larger) and little-choosers (those who do the opposite). Letting $p$ denote the probability that a random user is a big-chooser and $q$ that of a little-chooser, Knuth uses contour integration and generating functions to find the expected number of sheets left on the larger roll when the smaller one runs out. He shows (Theorem 1) that if $|p-1/2|$ is of order at least $1/\sqrt n$, then
$M_n(p)=\begin{cases}p/(p-q) + O(r^n), & q

p \end{cases}$

where $r$ is an arbitrary parameter larger than 4pq and n is the number of sheets in a roll. He also separately analyzes the case where p=q.[81]
Math explains everything, doesn't it?  The corollary, of course, is "What would we do without STUDIES?"

(I'm an "over" kinda guy.  I've also changed the orientation of the roll in other people's houses.)

1. I had never thought about which way the paper hung (blissfully ignorant) until my now ex-SIL pointed it out to me. I had just hung a roll of paper towels when she came along and re-hung the paper with the flap over the paper and said that it was better that way. Although she was nice about it, there was something about the episode that stuck with me - like an insight to her craziness - which proved to be true later. Yep, she was a bit over the top with everything - heh.

1. Ah... God LOVE the obsessive-compulsive, coz no one else will. ;-)

2. LOL. I'm an "over" man also. Someone once pointed out that one can tell that the "over" is the position intended by the manufacturer because patterned rolls always have the pattern extruded on the exterior when roll is "over" as opposed to revealing the indented side when positioned "under." Works for me..

I hate the "under" because it facilitates the roll unraveling via gravity down to drag on the floor.
(Hygiene control officers take note..)

PS: One of the FUNNIEST things I've ever read was in a book on military procurement in which the author humorously described the differing bureaucratic/stylistic manner in which each of the three services' approach any given subject/problem. I've lost the reference sadly, but it had the AF creating an elegant quadratic equation for a systems approach; the Army prosaically asking how many rolls of what ply and did they want packs of individual sheets as well for easier stacking? And (LOL) by-the-by "what about the extras for HQ units when they find out the outer wire has been breached by the enemy?" While the Navy says: "Hell's Bells. We've been delivering toilet paper to the fleet since John Paul Jones--who ARE these dweebs to tell us how to procure toilet paper? But just in case get that GS-13 we keep chained in the Pentagon basement to run some numbers for 'em but under NO circumstances is he to come up with a number other than what is already programmed!" LOL--it was FAR funnier in the original as I only remembered parts, its been so many years...but it was a GREAT example to describe the differing bureaucratic styles/mindsets between the services.

1. I wish you hadn't lost that reference... I'd LOVE to read it. That said, I'm surprised there isn't an AFR... umm, s'cuse ME, AFI... about how to load toilet paper. There's one for everything else.

3. OVER! OVER! OVER!

What's starting to bug me, though, is the Arms Race between the TP manufacturers as they each try to put more squares on the roll. Now the rolls are too firkin' big for the dispenser. The roll drags against it and tears prematurely. Kinda like setting the drag on your fishin' reel too high and breaking the line. :(

1. That's why I like those Euro style TP holders (not to be confused with AG Holder).

2. @Skip: Euro holders? ¿Qué es eso?

@Inno: I hear ya. The first week after putting one of those big-ass rolls on the holder is a big PITA.

3. The example in your pics is Euro style.
Ya just slide on a new roll.
Piece of cake.

4. Ah. Gotcha.

4. Sometime during the last year I heard that one of the major hotel chain logistics folks had a couple of hotels do one over the other under so it could be calculated which was more cost efficient.
I think is was Motel 6.
The finding was that less paper per visitor night was used at the motel where it was over.

1. Like I said: what would we do without STUDIES?

5. Over versus under eh? No contest for me, it's over. Basic training spring of '75. The instructors mandated it be over, therefore it remains with me to this day. Drives my wife nuts as in "What difference does it make?!?"

Funny how I remember that but almost immediately rejected and forgot all of that expensive "how to fold your underwear training". The things I do remember.

Heh.

1. I NEVER folded my underwear like they taught us at basic, after basic. What a freakin' waste o' time THAT was.

2. Underwear-folding training? Every so often I get a sense of just what I missed by not serving in the military. . .

;)

3. At basic training in '98 we were issued Army Brown underwear of the tighty-whitey variety (only, you know, brown). We were allowed to wear boxer shorts if we so chose (I think they let us buy some at the Px on our first trip there, a week or two in). But we still had to keep 4 or 6 pairs of the Army issue underwear, folded according to the block of instruction given, in our locker at all times.

4. @Craig: The AF also taught me how to drive a buffer AND fix radar... both skills haven't been used a whole helluva lot since I retired. You missed a LOT. ;-)

@Andy: The AF did the same thing on choice, and the same thing as to "issue." All the way through tech school, too.

6. Over. End of discussion. Altho my beloved wife points out that, in a house containing a toddler (and we've had a few of 'em), the 'over' configuration is significantly more conducive of a major PITA than 'under' is. . .

And you know, even math geek that I am, the bit you cite here is. . . how shall I say it? . . . ridiculous. . .

1. the bit you cite here is. . . how shall I say it? . . . ridiculous. . .

My point exactly, but it's hard to do sarcasm in print. The toddler thang is one of the "unders" biggest points.

7. Over. MY WIFE is an under. One of the reasons we have been married as long as we have is because, despite our preferences, we will both occasionally change the roll and put it into the configuration the other one prefers. Not always, mind you, or even a majority of the time, but sometimes. And that's enough to keep the flames of love fanned :-)

1. You two are prolly gonna STAY married, too.

8. Over. Less likely to get slivers in your knuckles if you have rough wood walls.
Bec

1. Heh. Good point!

Just be polite... that's all I ask.