Signs of the apocalypse – the mechanical eraser





























Nat came back from school with this (see left picture) the other day. The world has gone mad when it needs to invent a mechanical eraser that vibrates so that you don’t actually have to move your hand over the paper. Absolutely stark raving bonkers.

I googled useless inventions and came up with these other zingers. They are all REAL products, mind you.

- The solar powered torchlight (commitably insane yet incredibly widely sold)
- The motorized ice-cream cone (rotates so you get to lick all sides of the ice cream)
- The pizzafork (so you don’t have to use both a fork and a knife at the same time. Brilliant, yet useless.)
- Laser-guided scissors (so you can cut in a straight line. Problem is, laser is attached to scissors, so if your hand shakes, the laser shakes too)
- Phonefingers (for the truly OCD, to keep your iPod touchscreens grease-free)
- The thumbthing (so you can read with one hand. I actually think I would use this!!! Chips in one hand, Douglas Adams in the other, fantastic.)

There’s actually a Japanese term of art for this – chindogu. And the description of what is, and is not chindogu is priceless – see http://www.designboom.com/history/useless.html :D

And more hilarious pictures of mad inventions here http://www.hemmy.net/2006/04/27/useless-japanese-inventions/ . I especially like the “cockroach swatting slippers”.

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