spandex
spandex
----- wrote:
I'm not sure if this was listed yet, but I'd pick water or fire.
I nominated language earlier but I'd like to change my vote. Water has got to be the greatest invention in the history of mankind. How is this even debatable? And the guy who invented it must have been an absolute genius.
Anitbiotics
A video camera. Someone should introduce the folks at Footlocker to one!
Breast implants
Anything that moved us away from having to grind acorns on a piece of stone in order to eat for a day.
That Homer Simpson invention where a woman could put on her make-up instantly with just pulling the trigger of a shotgun aimed at her face - that had all her make-up kit mixed up in the barrel.
Think of all the millions of hours time saving.
Domestication of fire.
Black Invention Myths. Everything you are taught during Black History Month in school is total and utter GARBAGE.
Salt - not only does it melt ice / stop water from freezing, it also makes food taste good
Plumbing
The guillotine or the stretching rack. One of the two.
wheels. turned into gears, etc.
Some lunatic wrote:
Agriculture
This is the WORST invention - a diasaster from which we will never recover:
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.htmlThat's easy: electricity. It's a system, not a discrete device, and of course "electricity" exists in nature as static electricity, Ben Franklin's key-in-the-lightning-storm, etc.
But if you think back to human civilization, such as it was, before the advent of electricity, you lose:
--cars (magneto spark)
--workable elevators, and thus high rise buildings, and thus much of the modern urban world
--all battery-powered devices; all devices that plug in
--radio and TV, obviously
--movies (or at least talkies)
--all urban and rural lighting that wasn't gaslamps
--the vacuum tube and transistor and all the various things they powered and still power, which is to say, and above all.....
--all amplified music, which is to say all rock and roll (except unplugged stuff) post-1945, all electric blues, all punk,
--the entire rock/concert era, to the extent that it depended on large PA systems, with woofers, tweeters, EQ, stage monitors, etc.
--"Gangnam Style"
--YouTube, Facebook, Twitter duh
Nothing defines the 20th Century, in technological terms, as much as the presence of devices powers by easily-available electricity.
Heck, the guy who first invent the two-prong plug and the socket that you plug it into is THE great inventor in the history of civilization. All the rest is secondary.
quantum mechanics.
malmo wrote:
Dirndls and beer
Image:
http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/dirndl.gif
lol @
wysiwyg
Clearly the greatest invention is God. Just think of all the good and especially evil that has been accomplished with this seemingly nonsensical invention.
Shoes.
Adam R. wrote:
The spear was only a refinement of the earlier discovery of throwing stones. Throwing stones deserves greater credit.
Wrong-o. The spear was not a throwing weapon until relatively recently. For at least several hundred thousand years it was a stabbing weapon only, and against large prey, it still is.
Throwing rocks isn't an invention anyhow.
Bow down before the mighty spear.
