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Friday, October 9, 2009

Geek Uh... Baby Cage?

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 3:14 PM

Hey! Life magazine did something actually funny and interesting. They put together a collection of photos of the most useless inventions of the first half of the 20th century. Behold: A horrifying "dog retainer" and L. Ron Hubbard trying to hear a tomato scream.

HT to Right Brain Resource.

 

Comments (9) RSS

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1
Man, people in the old days really had some fun ways to smoke cigarettes.
Posted by Joneser on October 9, 2009 at 3:38 PM · Report
2
...but the curved machine gun barrell wasn't a stupid invention. Germans used them well in WWII, and I've seen new high-tech versions on that dumb Discovery channel show. Didn't Angelina use one in "Wanted?"
Posted by Reymont on October 9, 2009 at 4:11 PM · Report
3
The sideways firing gun was a WWII German technique to protect tank crews. I think it worked as well as could be expected, it just looked silly.

Now, if you want ridiculous wartime inventions, I recommend this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb
Posted by atomic on October 9, 2009 at 4:13 PM · Report
4
The sideways firing gun was developed by the Germans in WWII as a way of protecting tanks from dudes running up real close and dropping bombs down the tailpipe and whatnot. Apparently it worked well enough in that regard.

There were waaaay crazier inventions going on at the time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb , for instance.
Posted by atomic on October 9, 2009 at 4:18 PM · Report
5
Wha... OK, I thought it ate the first post. I'm not usually this redundant.
Posted by atomic on October 9, 2009 at 4:41 PM · Report
6
Useless, are you kidding me?
With a corner shooting machine gun and a rocket belt, I could take over the world.
Posted by D on October 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM · Report
7
@D: But we don't want you to take over the world.
Posted by Matthew D on October 9, 2009 at 4:57 PM · Report
8
I don't want it either, jus sayin is all.
Posted by D on October 9, 2009 at 5:03 PM · Report
9
there were a number of great inventions & ideas in there; Life is just trying, as too many do, to be uber-hip (lookit me! i'm cynical & ironic)(uh, no & no).

the larynx phone has been available for years, although modern tech works with vibrations from any part of the head. the 2-person baby holder morphed into the Johnny-Jump-up, a great invention (my kids loved it, and i would love a 200-ft adult version). the cigarette inventions were bad ideas, but the point of many inventions is to take an idea an run. many inventions fail, but we learn from our mistakes more than our successes.
Posted by tabarnhart on October 11, 2009 at 9:00 AM · Report

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