Anything Thread

A little bit of trivia.

Cannon Balls
> It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on
> old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the
> problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square
> based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine,
> which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be
> stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one
> problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from
> under the others. The solution was a metal plate with 16 round
> indentations, called a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the
> iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem
> was to make Brass Monkeys.
>
> Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster
> than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too
> far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls
> would come right off the monkey.
>
> Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass
> monkey.

 You know wolf, that wouldn't surprise me at all, someone a long time ago gave me an cartoon, of what the guy had in mind, which was an "tire swing" for his kids, and all the things the people afterwards did, to what they thought he wanted,or they could do, to what he ended up with...which was an tree split down the middle and an swing inserted between the sides of the split tree trunk. It was cute. When those iron balls fell down, is that how they invented racking up pool balls in the little tri-angle "thingy'..smiles* 

Can someone please explain to me what can be made out of an "Anything thread"....I mean if you should knit some little anythings..what do they look like? who are they for? What do they do?...Can anyone explain please?