• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Worst inventions ever?

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
vi edit said:
Motion sensing toilets that flush every time you so much as flinch. Yes...I love having the thing flush 4 times as I'm trying to wipe my ass and pull up my pants. And then I go over to the motion sensing sink and have to wave my hands around furiously trying to find the magical spot where it notices I'm trying to get it to turn on. Only to be faced with the same motion-retarded soap dispenser that doesn't know your hand is there until it's gone and then blows it's load on the counter. And once I have consumed 14x the amount of water that I normally would, taken 4.3 times longer to wash my fucking hands while leaving foaming piles of lightly scented antibacterial spooge on the counter I have to go over and spend another 45 seconds drying my hands under a motion sensing hand dryer consuming god knows how much electricity it requires to fire up, make heat, and blow it at 180 miles per hour across my hands when I could have just grabbed a paper towel and been on my merry way.
Click to expand...

Oh, man. This.

With soapy hands, I could try for 8 minutes, trying multiple techniques at every sink, refusing to give up, and still only get the tiniest little "spurt". When I finally give up, I get the soap lather off my hands by smacking the shit out of the mirror with my open palms (possibly making my hands dirtier than they originally were).

Then someone walks up after me and the sink works just fine. D:
 
Oh...in addition to just being outright painful to operate...you also have the auto-on sinks that have like 9 bajjion PSI of water pressure run to them and they impact the sink with so much velocity it ends up spraying everywhere and it almost always happens when you are wearing white/light colored pants and it looks like you dribbled piss all over yourself.

Good times!
 
bignateyk said:
What are your least favorite things that have been invented?

I think whoever invented the straight blade screw should be shot. He must have felt like a real moron when the phillips head screw was invented. The worst part is that people still use straight blade screws. WHHHYYY! There are at least 10 kinds of screw that are better in every way than the straight blade.

My runner up is that hard plastic packaging they put everything in nowadays that is damn near impossible to open without slicing your arm off. I'm amazed companies haven't gotten sued for it with all the other stupid lawsuits that have happened like the coffee spilling ,etc...


edit: I'm talking more about things that you use on a day to day basis that are so aggravating you have to wonder what the hell the inventor/engineer was thinking when they designed the product.
Click to expand...

why use that stupid phillips head screw that gets striped out half the time. Robertson is better.

"best" was a commercial for a special knife/package opener. that makes it easy to open that hard plastic packaging. That came in a hard plastic package.
 
mobile telephones, cell phones, by whatever name you want to use...followed by the ability to use said mobile phones for texting and internet use.

The asshole who invented those should be lined up against a wall and forced to use corded phones for life.
 
blinblue said:
I came in here to complain about bad hand dryers.

Now the good super high power ones (or the ones you put your hands into) work pretty well and actually seem to be solving a problem (paper towel waste, both in terms of environmental costs and general mess and nastiness in the bathroom). But those old hot air driers that turn your cold dripping hands into slightly warm dripping hands drive me to a rage.
Click to expand...

They should just be a motion sensor and a LED display that says "Please wipe hands on pants" because that's what fucking happens anyway. It'd save time and electricity if we just cut to the chase.
 
BoomerD said:
mobile telephones, cell phones, by whatever name you want to use...followed by the ability to use said mobile phones for texting and internet use.

The asshole who invented those should be lined up against a wall and forced to use corded phones for life.
Click to expand...

By that same token you should be forced to post to the internet via punch cards and a "computer" that takes up most of your living room, kitchen, and bedroom.
 
anyone say parallel port ZIP drives yet? completely terrible fucking idea. especially when the only other media at the time were floppy disks....and the god damn drivers for the portable fucker was larger than 1.44mb so you couldnt take the piece of shit anywhere unless they had dial-up, which added another 45 minutes to the 19 hours you were going to have to spend moving data over a parallel cable.

/also, that was the worst tech gadget i ever bought.
 
bignateyk said:
What are your least favorite things that have been invented?

I think whoever invented the straight blade screw should be shot. He must have felt like a real moron when the phillips head screw was invented. The worst part is that people still use straight blade screws. WHHHYYY! There are at least 10 kinds of screw that are better in every way than the straight blade.

My runner up is that hard plastic packaging they put everything in nowadays that is damn near impossible to open without slicing your arm off. I'm amazed companies haven't gotten sued for it with all the other stupid lawsuits that have happened like the coffee spilling ,etc...


edit: I'm talking more about things that you use on a day to day basis that are so aggravating you have to wonder what the hell the inventor/engineer was thinking when they designed the product.
Click to expand...

square drive > *
 
bignateyk said:
What are your least favorite things that have been invented?

I think whoever invented the straight blade screw should be shot. He must have felt like a real moron when the phillips head screw was invented. The worst part is that people still use straight blade screws. WHHHYYY! There are at least 10 kinds of screw that are better in every way than the straight blade.

My runner up is that hard plastic packaging they put everything in nowadays that is damn near impossible to open without slicing your arm off. I'm amazed companies haven't gotten sued for it with all the other stupid lawsuits that have happened like the coffee spilling ,etc...
Click to expand...

Yeah but they do not strip as easily as phillips.
 
xSauronx said:
that was the worst tech gadget i ever bought.
Click to expand...

Speaking of tech..

Anyone remember Nokia's and SE's charger port from 3 years back? They are one if the worst kind to deal with.. and can be a real pain in the ass... those same connectors were used for headsets before 3.5mm became standard.

I am extremely glad that micro USB has become the standard these days.
 
vi edit said:
Motion sensing toilets that flush every time you so much as flinch. Yes...I love having the thing flush 4 times as I'm trying to wipe my ass and pull up my pants. And then I go over to the motion sensing sink and have to wave my hands around furiously trying to find the magical spot where it notices I'm trying to get it to turn on. Only to be faced with the same motion-retarded soap dispenser that doesn't know your hand is there until it's gone and then blows it's load on the counter. And once I have consumed 14x the amount of water that I normally would, taken 4.3 times longer to wash my fucking hands while leaving foaming piles of lightly scented antibacterial spooge on the counter I have to go over and spend another 45 seconds drying my hands under a motion sensing hand dryer consuming god knows how much electricity it requires to fire up, make heat, and blow it at 180 miles per hour across my hands when I could have just grabbed a paper towel and been on my merry way.
Click to expand...

Excellent analysis.

Also, I read a study that showed Hand blowers are actually LESS sanitary than using paper towel. This is because the friction from rubbing your hands together can work out bacteria, virus, etc, that were deeper in your skin. Where as the paper towel will actually swab it away.
If only i could find a link to that study...

Other bad inventions: Lingerie for 12 years.... wtf??
 
All this talk of flat-head vs Phillips (screwdrivers)...

I wonder when the name "Phillips" became accepted? I once looked at a Sears & Roebuck catalog from the year my grandmother was born (some time in the early 1900's) and Phillips screwdrivers were called "AMAZING, NEW, self-centering screws and screwdrivers!!!!1111oneone [not sic]".
 
Last edited:
FuzzyDunlop said:
Excellent analysis.

Also, I read a study that showed Hand blowers are actually LESS sanitary than using paper towel. This is because the friction from rubbing your hands together can work out bacteria, virus, etc, that were deeper in your skin. Where as the paper towel will actually swab it away.
If only i could find a link to that study...

Other bad inventions: Lingerie for 12 years.... wtf??
Click to expand...

That has to do with women as opposed to creativity in the fashion industry.
Also note over the last 12 years they wear even more jeans, butt-ugly shoes, get tattoos and in general act like dirty whores.

Women are turning into men!
😱
 
vi edit said:
motion sensing toilets that flush every time you so much as flinch. Yes...i love having the thing flush 4 times as i'm trying to wipe my ass and pull up my pants. And then i go over to the motion sensing sink and have to wave my hands around furiously trying to find the magical spot where it notices i'm trying to get it to turn on. Only to be faced with the same motion-retarded soap dispenser that doesn't know your hand is there until it's gone and then blows it's load on the counter. And once i have consumed 14x the amount of water that i normally would, taken 4.3 times longer to wash my fucking hands while leaving foaming piles of lightly scented antibacterial spooge on the counter i have to go over and spend another 45 seconds drying my hands under a motion sensing hand dryer consuming god knows how much electricity it requires to fire up, make heat, and blow it at 180 miles per hour across my hands when i could have just grabbed a paper towel and been on my merry way.
Click to expand...

hahahahah.
 
xSauronx said:
anyone say parallel port ZIP drives yet? completely terrible fucking idea. especially when the only other media at the time were floppy disks....and the god damn drivers for the portable fucker was larger than 1.44mb so you couldnt take the piece of shit anywhere unless they had dial-up, which added another 45 minutes to the 19 hours you were going to have to spend moving data over a parallel cable.

/also, that was the worst tech gadget i ever bought.
Click to expand...

.zip span across floppies for the driver, and set your parallel port for ECP.
Parallel was blazing fast for the time.
 
DominionSeraph said:
.zip span across floppies for the driver, and set your parallel port for ECP.
Parallel was blazing fast for the time.
Click to expand...

That wasnt a problem with ZIP drives, it was a problem with parallel ports in general. They were useless unless you carried around the driver disks with you.
Having USB devices that could send a basic driver upon plugin was fucking brilliant.
 
vi edit said:
Motion sensing toilets that flush every time you so much as flinch. Yes...I love having the thing flush 4 times as I'm trying to wipe my ass and pull up my pants. And then I go over to the motion sensing sink and have to wave my hands around furiously trying to find the magical spot where it notices I'm trying to get it to turn on. Only to be faced with the same motion-retarded soap dispenser that doesn't know your hand is there until it's gone and then blows it's load on the counter. And once I have consumed 14x the amount of water that I normally would, taken 4.3 times longer to wash my fucking hands while leaving foaming piles of lightly scented antibacterial spooge on the counter I have to go over and spend another 45 seconds drying my hands under a motion sensing hand dryer consuming god knows how much electricity it requires to fire up, make heat, and blow it at 180 miles per hour across my hands when I could have just grabbed a paper towel and been on my merry way.
Click to expand...

My company has the "no-flush" version of urinals that you walk up, take a leak, and then walk away. This may be fine with saving water and all, but damn is that disgusting. Makes you wonder sometimes if they get cleaned regularly or not
 
somethingsketchy said:
My company has the "no-flush" version of urinals that you walk up, take a leak, and then walk away. This may be fine with saving water and all, but damn is that disgusting. Makes you wonder sometimes if they get cleaned regularly or not
Click to expand...

Read up on how they work. The ones on campus work quite well. No stink. Just needs the nightly pube hair cleaning.
 
slag said:
Plastic grocery bags. They always seem to split down the center and dump the contents of your purchase on the ground with just the slightest poke of something sharp. Then you have over 9000 of them gathering at your house that you have to take somewhere to get recycled or use them for ghetto lunch boxes.

Bring back the paper bags. Those had tons of uses and were biodegradeable as well as functional as trash can liners. They rarely ripped, were able to stand open on their own, and held a ton more groceries than those flimsy plastic pieces of shit. They also folded down nice and neat to store between the counter and wall.
Click to expand...

Switch to fabric bags. They can easily carry 5-6 times the weight of plastic or paper.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top