Scatologics?

After Fred's lovely post on modern physics from yesterday, this short blurb might look a bit trivial, especially because I will file this post as 'toilet philosophy'. In my defence, however, the transition from quantum theory to any other subject is a step down the conversational ladder - unless you really want me to elaborate on hyperbolic functions and their connections with universal parabolic constants, quoi.

And so I might as well start from the fairly simple observation I made today; one of my roomies bought new toilet paper the other day, and clearly has different preferences than I have. Unlike me, choosing the environmentally friendly version (trying to ignore my brain having second thoughts whenever it starts mentally digesting the somehow confusing sentence "no trees were harmed in the making of this toilet tissue"), he or she has bought a somehow more commercial brand of toilet paper. Nothing wrong with that, don't get me wrong, but what struck me was the design on the toilet roll. It was adorned with pictures of feathers. And so I started wondering: why is that?

Would we really feel less comfortable if we were to wipe our asses with toilet paper bearing pictures of barbwire and sharp pointy objects? I can only speak for myself, but my arse is as blind as a mole. Also, has there ever been a meeting between the CEO of the toilet paper factory and his team of designers, during which they tried to convince him of the fact that feathers are a better choice than koala bears? And prior to this: have they actually tested what felt better for wiping?

One day, I'm going to design my own toilet roll. The testing phase is on...