Pointless Inventions the World Never Needed

As Bill the Shake put it ‘What a piece of work is a man!  How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty’.  It seems like we’ve been inventing stuff ever since ancient man first picked up a funny shaped twig and invented the Pozidriv screwdriver.  We just can’t seem to stop coming up with great new ideas but maybe it’s time we did.

  1. Air conditioned shoes

air-conditioned-shoes-concept-1

‘Hey those are cool shoes.’

‘Yes, you’re right they are cool, literally.  You see these Cool Breeze shoes from Japan come equipped with advanced filter technology.’

‘You mean they’ve got holes in the bottom.’

‘That’s right, holes equipped with advance filter technology.’

‘They’ve got holes in the bottom.’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  1. Shoulder holster for your wallet

wallet

Don’t have a gun but want to feel like an FBI agent?  What better way to get gunned down by a jittery 7/Eleven clerk than by reaching for your wallet?

  1. Rock in a box

rock

Back in 1975 Gary Dahl had the brilliant idea of selling rocks as pets.  Brilliant because one and a half million people parted with $4 to acquire one.  In six months, the fad was over and Gary was a millionaire.  You can’t keep a good idea down though and in 2012 the rocks became available again.  You can buy one today on Amazon for $13.50.

  1. Pre-peeled bananas

prepeled-bananas

In 2012 German supermarket chain Billa launched their peeled and packaged bananas.  What is perhaps surprising is that in a world where people are happy to buy pet rocks this was an invention just a little too innovative.  The supermarket’s Facebook page was deluged with angry customers pointing out that if ever there was an example of God’s pre-eminence as a packaging designer, the banana was it.  Those folks at Billa should have realised that whenever you peel a banana there’s a banana skin and we all know what happens to folks with banana skins.

  1. Glowing hockey pucks

The innards of a glowing puck.

Our Nobel prize winning poet once wrote about ‘flesh coloured Christs that glow in the dark’ but had these babies been around at the time I’m sure that they would have been the focus of his scorn.  In 1995, the NHL introduced the glowing puck as a gimmick. The idea was that they would make it easier for TV viewers to follow the game.  The technology was cutting edge: a hockey puck was cut in half and a battery and circuit board were stuffed inside.  The foolish public rejected this brilliant innovation after a couple of seasons, but don’t despair they’re being re-introduced at this year’s World Cup of Hockey.

  1. The rope less skipping rope

rope

Tired of tangled skipping ropes?  Your torment is at an end.  Now you can get all the exercise benefits of skipping without any of the ropey unpleasantness.  A mere thirty dollars gets you a JumpSnap, the rope less skipping rope with sound effects – why didn’t they invent this sooner?!

  1. Gold pills

gold-pills

Always wanted that Midas touch?  Now, for a small fee, well quite a large one actually, glittery poo can be all yours.

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