1/8th Ton of Silly Putty
Soon after I started at Google, I met a software engineer who had a very large chunk of Silly Putty on his desk. I thought it was cool, so I asked him about it, and he explained that you can bulk order the stuff. I thought, great!
The problem, though, was that the minimum order is 50 lbs, and I didn't want 50 lbs. So I sent an e-mail around to Googlers in the Mountain View, thinking one or two other people might want a few pounds. As it turned out, seemingly everyone wanted some, and in the end, I ended up placing an order for 250 lbs.
You can read more about how we cut it (it's very difficult!) on the Google Blog.
Here's what that 250 lbs (1/8th of a ton) of Silly Putty looked like:
How it arrived at my desk.
Putting it all together in one big pile.
Trying to pull it apart.
Bagged and ready for distribution.
One of the many "uses": copying entire newspapers.