Obama's Binder Clip Causes Outrage

Apparently some people are really picky.  Obama came out with his American Jobs Act this week and there are lots of people weighing the pros and cons of his proposal.  There are also people who want to talk about his usage of office supplies.  The New York Post came out with an article titled O gives jobs ‘clip’ service calling it a "chintzy fastener" and an "enormous paper clip" in the headline and opening sentence, but the rest of the article actually talks about the jobs bill.  Why would they tease me with that great introduction and then launch into boring lectures about economic theory?  Yuck!  Talk about the binder clip people; that's the news!

Luckily, the Huffington Post was up to the challenge and ran an article about the article that should have been about a binder clip, and actually did a better job of binder clip reporting.  They link to a product page from Staples with the information that they are quite affordable.  The Huffington Post is not an office supplies blog so I can excuse their lack of knowledge on the subject but a 1" capacity binder isn't going to easily hold all 155 pages of the Jobs Act when printed on standard paper.  They also wouldn't realize that even the generic Staples brand binder clips are not the most affordable.

Universal Binder Clips are Cheaper than Staples

The people who rate binder clips live in a strange world of actual capacity vs ease of use.  Everybody who has spent some time in an office knows that different weights of different papers (see previous article about paper weights as it pertains to actual binders) so nobody wants to say a specific binder clip will hold an exact number of pages.  However, I do know that a large clip can physically hold the 155 pages of the Act.  The binder people would probably advise against it as the binder clips are being forced nearly to their breaking point at 200 pages.

Of course I didn't actually see Obama with the paperwork so I can't tell you if he was performing an act of treason against office supplies.  It's possible he printed the paper double sided and it would fit easily.  It's possible he printed on a lightweight paper that would fit easily.  It's equally possible that he only had 100 pages of the 155 page document actually in the clip at the time.  Like finding out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, we may never know.

It does go without saying that once you are binding more than a 100 pages with one clip you have to know the pressure on the inner most pages is greatly decreased and may not stay put as well as you would like.  Buyer Beware!

Office Supply Spaceships

Some people in some offices (not you or me), have a little bit to much free time, and a few too many office supplies.  So they go about building stuff.  We've covered the construction of guns previously, but here we are talking strictly decoration.  So without further ado, I present to you the Office Supply X-Wing.

Directions on Instructables

If you, like me, have spent some time with some supplies you know what most of those supplies are.  The only one that threw me for a loop was the purple rectangle behind the cockpit (it is a group of unused staples).  So if you want to build one of these for yourself I've collected your shopping list below.  I went for the absolute cheapest things available (though pricing may change) so it might not be the same color as shown above.

• Blue Chisel Tip Sharpie ($0.89)
• 2x Large Binder Clips ($2.02 for a box of a dozen)
• 2x Small Binder Clips ($0.32 for a box of a dozen)
• 4x Pen Caps ($1.49 for a box of a dozen pens)
• 4x Brass Fasteners ($4.93 for a box of 100)
• Plastic Pencil Sharpener ($0.50)
• Some Staples ($0.60 for a box)
• Flat Chunk of Plastic or Metal (check your trash or under the sink and you'll find something.)
• Glue (whatever you can find will work)

So for $10.75 you can build your self a funky little X-Wing model.  If you can convince your boss that you need these office supplies as part of a larger order of other things you can probably sneak it in for free.  Or for about $20 you can buy yourself a real officially licensed X-Wing model.  Of course you'd probably get fired if you were building that at work.

If you are more into Star Trek than Star Wars there are similar plans for building models of the Enterprise from Office Supplies.  One version that relies heavily on Paper Clips and another that relies on Binder Clips.  So decide if you prefer the Rebel Alliance or the Ferengi Alliance and get to building you office supply hoarders.

Is a Paper Clip a Children's Product?

As it would happen those killjoys at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (yeah, those guys who force companies to recall products because they explode, catch fire, or contain to much lead) were recently discussing what is and isn't a "children's product" and how the contents of science kits would be affected. Currently, you can sell a science kit with a bunch of regular house-hold stuff (like paper clips) thrown in it and advertise it for kids and the CPSC doesn't care too much because kids have access to that kind of stuff all the time. The Science Kit people don't like this because they'll have to spend extra time and money performing tests to see if their paper-clips are toxic and that means less profit for them. Science Geeks don't like this because that makes the kits more expensive and fewer people may take an interest in science from an early age.

Jumbo Paper Clip: Boon to Science or Danger to Kids?

I'm just worried about this because they might find out that these paper clips that I have previously been throwing around my office and using to hold stacks of papers together with reckless abandon might be toxic. I'm not sure how a piece of steel that's been rolled out thinly and folded oddly would be more toxic than any other piece of steel, but I'm just making wild speculation here, not factual examination.

Maybe Colored Paper Clips are Dangerous

It is possible that those colored paper clips that the kids think are so dope these days might be a little dangerous. Sure we know that they have a basic steel construction that is covered with colored vinyl, but we don't know what kind of vinyl it is, or what kind of dye is used to color the vinyl. I'm sure it is completely non-toxic, but because Sparco doesn't intend their gorgeous vinyl-coated gem clips as a "children's product", but rather an "adult office supply product," they don't have to test their products. Sparco is probably glad they never have to test what might happen if somebody puts their paper-clips next to a piece of cheddar cheese and fries it up between two slices of rye bread. I don't know if you should eat it, but it would probably be delicious.

Kid's Science News via Yahoo! Associated Press Feed

More From The Paper Clip Menagerie

James was talking about paper clips yesterday and got me thinking about all the other fancy styles of clips out there. There are many more clips out there than your standard gem clip. Yeah, apparently they're officially called gem clips. I'm on board with joining the French and calling them trombones. They may be metal and a must for every Apple user or amateur lock-picker, but elevating them to gem status is a bit much.

Granted, none of these other clips have as many alternate functions as the trombone. They can't measure your carpet to determine which chairmat you need. They certainly can't be bartered for a house. Then again, they also won't insist on helping you with your Microsoft Office documents. They can, however, do a better job of keeping your papers together, especially when you have a larger stack that even the "Trombones Geants" can't handle.

The best part about these clips are the names. No more musical instruments, but rather a full menagerie of aptly-named paper fastening goodness- butterflies, bulldogs and owls.


First is the butterfly- light, graceful and designed to land on documents without leaving marks. It holds a little more than the trombone, but otherwise serves the same purpose.


Here's the bulldog. It bites down on papers and doesn't let go. Great for large stacks up to an inch as it fits a lot into its jowls.


The owl clip is apparently nocturnal as it's not seen nearly as often as the others. It is similar in function to the trombone and butterfly, but with a smaller presence than the butterfly without scratching papers the way the trombone's business end can.

There is also the binder clip, which adds a pair of latching handles to the bulldog clip but lacks a clever name. I'm thinking venus fly trap, but open to suggestions. While you're coming up with names for that, this clip for panel walls desperately needs a cool name. Not sure whether to go with a bird of prey or some sort of spaceship.

An Homage to the Paper Clip

The other day I was digging around in my desk drawer for a pen, and I had to push aside a few boxes of paper clips to get to the back. I briefly glanced at bilingual labeling on a box of Jumbo Paper Clips and chuckled to myself after reading "Trombones Geants." It brought to mind a marching band of giants all playing giant brass instruments. I put it out of my mind and got back to work. I didn't think anything of it until a few weeks later when I noticed that most of our paper clips were labeled as "Trombones". It turns out that the French call paper clips trombones, and when you consider the shape of the typical wire paper clip it is an apt name. Sadly, the Spanish translation for paper clip, sujetapapeles, is more literal and a lot less interesting.

Jumbo Paper Clips aka Trombones Geants

The Wikipedia article on paper clips is long and boring.  I didn't waste a lot of time reading the details, but here is a good generalization for you.  Nobody quite knows who made the first paper clip or what it looked like because nobody ever bothered to draw it.  A lot of people have come up with odd stories involving paper clips and most of them aren't true.  Probably the most interesting part of that Wikipedia article is the current defacement "i like bologna and cheese."

If you've ever worked on Apple products of almost any vintage you no doubt have or had a straightened paper clip in your tool arsenal.  It was neccessary to remove any stuck disk for a number of years and they even distributed paper clips as an official tool to remove the SIM card from your iPhone at one point.

Even more recently Lindsey Lohan made the news due to some complications with her alcohol detecting leg shackle.  Some gossip magazines say that she once attempted to remove it using a paper clip.  She of course denied anything like that happening.  Maybe she was just trying to swap the SIM card in her iPhone while holding it near her ankle.  It isn't my place to say.

Paper Clips make MacGuyver Proud

Well there shouldn't be anything stopping you from buying an excess of paper clips and doing whatever you want with them.  Use them to hold papers together or straighten them and use them to fidget around with electronics. If you're extremely outgoing why not try to fold them into the old jumping paper clip toy.