Wednesday, December 3, 2008

What is the dumbest invention ever?

I was watching the History Channel yesterday and was sucked into their show "80s tech". It was a bit nostalgic, but I do remember cool toys, Simon, Rubik’s cube and other gadgets of the 80s. How can you beat a true floppy disc, the transformation from records to tapes to compact discs and the beta vs. VHS war? Man, I loved the 80s. The end of the show summarized 80s technology at its best. All of our current technology has its roots in the 80s.

Fast forward to today. My wife has been begging me to finish raking the leaves, a job that I am not fond of. Being that I work through the course of the fall, the leaves tend to take a back seat. In an effort to get me to finish raking the leaves, my wife borrowed, what could be the dumbest invention ever….





From the picture, you can see the dumbest invention ever... the leaf blower. What is the point of this apparatus? I’m not really sure. I think that it is to rapidly move leaves into a large pile. However it is so strong and powerful all it did was ruin my lawn and create a bigger mess. The point of raking is to collect all the leaves and bag them. With a rake this task can easily and quickly be accomplished. With a leaf blower you create a mess.

How does this thing work? Take a vacuum cleaner and turn the switch from “suck” to “blow”. All you do is create a bigger mess. In all honesty wouldn’t we just be better off with a leaf vacuum? We have lawn mowers that collect the grass as we cut, and vacuum cleaners to collect dust. Surely we have the technology to create a leaf vacuum.

What is the dumbest invention ever? In my opinion it is the leaf blower. I will take suggestions.

Note: The second worst invention is the GPS, but that is a discussion for another day.