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Lava lamps are functional as lamps - that is what they were originally designed for.

> No one is certain what lava lamps were used for.

Nitpick: I'm fairly certain lava lamps have been used as secure random number generators.

Edit: a quick search on kagi confirms it.

> > No one is certain what lava lamps were used for.

> Nitpick: I'm fairly certain lava lamps have been used as secure random number generators.

> Edit: a quick search on kagi confirms it.

But that use case came about in the ~90s? The patent for lava lamps was filed somewhere around the 60s...

Yep, military keep their secrets very well you see ;-)

> they seem like noodle portioner

Wouldn't you expect such a mundane tool to have some kind of "minimum practical design"? Your noodle portioner is just a flat object with holes; a hammer is just an object with a long part and a heavy part; etc. This object seems too complicated for any obvious single purpose like that.

Today noodles are mostly cheap mass products. Maybe back in the days the object (noodle) was much more valuable and so the objects surrounding noodles.