most inventions, with hindsight, are really obvious. the amount of times i’ve nearly kicked myself to death after discovering that another one’s been revealed before i thought of it is astounding. i’ve been close to tears on many occasions.
this morning i suffered yet another semi-regular fit of jealousy whilst on the bbc website after reading about a guy called ray dinham. ray, disabled himself and surrounded by pets and spare time, has trouble bending down to place bowls of petfood on the kitchen floor.
“of course he fucking does” i thought to myself as i read through the first couple of sentences, “there must be millions of old / disabled people with the same problem, and those kinds of humans always own cats. bbc website, don’t you dare fucking tell me there isn’t a device already invented that could negate this problem?”
as it happens, no. ray fucking dinham was the first ever human to create a solution to this problem – a problem that obviously existed. for god’s sake, i’ve watched dozens of old people straining to put bowls on the kitchen floor for pets in my lifetime (i always offer to help by the way. i don’t just watch). why the fuck isn’t my retarded brain switched on enough to be able to process the scene i’m digesting whilst at the same time alert me to the fact that all you’d need to eradicate the problem is a really simple mechanical device? a fucking pulley system!
it’s unreal. he’s on a winner there. old people will lap it up.
by the way, here’s ray’s device. i hope the cats eat all the money he earns.
anyway, in honour of ray’s infuriating ‘lightbulb moment’, here are what i consider to be 6 of the simplest (successfull) inventions ever, erm, invented. i also reckon i could’ve come up with all of them had the moment been right (and in some cases if I’d been born in a different century).
6. roller skates – james leonard plimpton (1863)
for fuck’s sake. it’s not as if he had to invent the wheel or the boot, those things already existed. his input? to put pre-existing wheels on pre-existing footwear using some bolts (that already existed). maybe he invented the stopper at the front? well done mr plimpton.
5. post-it notes – art fry (1980)
again, mr fry certainly didn’t invent paper. nor did he invent the special adhesive that makes them stick. he simply put the 2 together, made a sticky piece of paper and the whole world went loopy for post-it notes. bastard.
4. chocolate chip cookies – ruth wakefield (1933)
of course cookies are gonna taste better with bits of chocolate on top. why wasn’t this a standard as soon as cookies were invented? ruth actually ’sold’ the idea to nestle in return for a lifetime’s supply of chocolate. what the hell were you thinking? you’ve just come up with one of the simplest ideas ever and you’re cashing it in for chocolate? fucking nuts.
3. fingerless gloves – unknown (1953)
apparently a scotsman ‘invented’ fingerless gloves in 1953 but his identity seems to be a mystery. no doubt he’s rich, smug and very cool around the fingertips. his input? to massacre a pre-existing invention for his own gain. the fucker didn’t even have to add anything, he literally partly destroyed an idea and took the credit. bravo.
2. hula-hoop – richard knerr (1958)
it’s a fucking hoop made out of some kind of plastic. i bet he couldn’t believe his luck when he successfully got the patent. his input? i doubt very much that he invented hoops. it seems he just re-invented an old idea, got a patent for the name ‘hula-hoop’, told kids it would be a lot of fun to shake manically in order to keep the hoop near the waist and then watched the money pour in. sickening.
1. smiley face – harvey ball (1964)
the sheer simplicity of this one makes me want to vomit all over my keyboard but at the same time there is a saving grace – harvey ‘invented’ the design and pocketed a whopping $45 in total, a one off payment. holy shit, i’d be frothing at the mouth after being shafted like that. if he’d just asked for 1% of all future profits he’d be richer than most. at it’s peak of popularity, more than 50 million smiley face buttons were sold worldwide. do the maths.
Filed under: arty, design, geek, heh, history, interessant, money, photo, technology | 1 Comment
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