We're doomed!
Innovation is what stops us just getting by and helps us undertake activities in a minutely improved way. For instance, the invention of the zip fastener not only contributed to the birth of the punk rock movement, but allowed any chap bursting for the loo speedier access to his gentlemen’s siphon than buttons (and when it comes to trousers, the zip fastener is an unusual example where innovation has stopped, at least for the present, because the application of the next stage in fastening technology, Velcro, never caught on in the trouser department - the last thing that a chap wants to hear from down there is any kind of ripping noise).
Innovation has given us, well, just about everything really. But it comes at a price. Fire was invented when Prometheus stole it from the gods. It has now been developed to a degree that it can be safely carried on aeroplanes from Mt Olympus and carried in torch fashion through a different country every four years, carried in your pocket in handy Swan Vesta or Zippo form or, the pinnacle of conflagration innovation, the patio heater. The price of using a patio heater, essentially trying to heat the world, is a hell of a lot of gas being used, so depleting a finite resource in order to keep smokers warm, a questionable aim anyway because these are people already huddled around a tiny heat source never more than six inches from the tip of their nose.
Innovation marches on for two reasons. The first is mankind’s’ altruistic need to better the lives of others signally or collectively. The second, dominant, driver is the predisposition of certain types of scientist to just not bloody well leave well enough alone. This is the mentality that produced the large hadron collider (‘what happens if we combine this particle with that particle, at nearly the speed of light?’ The answer is: ‘the same thing that happens if you combine anything at near the speed of light – a sudden and dramatic release of energy. You could do it with two pots of yoghurt and, if they are moving fast enough, you’re still going to be scraping the results of your experiment off the ceiling at Christmas).
Hence my coffee beaker the other day. For years I have been getting by drinking my coffee from a cup – a straightforward design best described at as a cylinder closed off at one end with a handle on the outside. Then, a few years ago, lids began appearing on the take-away coffee scene. Like toddlers with Tommy Tippee beakers, we were not trusted to walk and drink at the same time, so lids appeared with a large hole to slurp through on one side and a pinprick to allow insufficient air to replace the lost liquid on the other.
And there innovation halted, until some bored beverage boffin obviously thought that what the world really needed was a lid with, wait for it, a slide that would allow you to close off the hole you drink through!
I have spent too much time considering why, but can only assume that it was the same quest for perfection that led the genius behind the packaging design for the biscuits I had the other day to come up with a design that allows the biscuits to actually stand vertical in their packaging.
That’s it, horizontal biscuits can go fuck themselves, once you’ve had a biscuit that stands up in its bespoke biscuit presenter, anything else seems archaic. Now, can somebody invest the ‘dunk-thru-lid’ for my coffee please?
The most enthusiastic exponent of innovation, is Marks & Spencer. Dedicated to convincing the world that their food is special, this message driven home by inaccessibility, M&S food being so over-packaged it requires a controlled explosion to open a packet of fish fingers.
The world will not end with a bang (not even a yoghurty one) or a whimper. It will end with a mountain of landfill landslide engulfing the last square inch of the planet still open to the sky. In such a circumstance, it’s time to fire up the patio heaters and innovate improvements to subterranean living.
Innovation has given us, well, just about everything really. But it comes at a price. Fire was invented when Prometheus stole it from the gods. It has now been developed to a degree that it can be safely carried on aeroplanes from Mt Olympus and carried in torch fashion through a different country every four years, carried in your pocket in handy Swan Vesta or Zippo form or, the pinnacle of conflagration innovation, the patio heater. The price of using a patio heater, essentially trying to heat the world, is a hell of a lot of gas being used, so depleting a finite resource in order to keep smokers warm, a questionable aim anyway because these are people already huddled around a tiny heat source never more than six inches from the tip of their nose.
Innovation marches on for two reasons. The first is mankind’s’ altruistic need to better the lives of others signally or collectively. The second, dominant, driver is the predisposition of certain types of scientist to just not bloody well leave well enough alone. This is the mentality that produced the large hadron collider (‘what happens if we combine this particle with that particle, at nearly the speed of light?’ The answer is: ‘the same thing that happens if you combine anything at near the speed of light – a sudden and dramatic release of energy. You could do it with two pots of yoghurt and, if they are moving fast enough, you’re still going to be scraping the results of your experiment off the ceiling at Christmas).
Hence my coffee beaker the other day. For years I have been getting by drinking my coffee from a cup – a straightforward design best described at as a cylinder closed off at one end with a handle on the outside. Then, a few years ago, lids began appearing on the take-away coffee scene. Like toddlers with Tommy Tippee beakers, we were not trusted to walk and drink at the same time, so lids appeared with a large hole to slurp through on one side and a pinprick to allow insufficient air to replace the lost liquid on the other.
And there innovation halted, until some bored beverage boffin obviously thought that what the world really needed was a lid with, wait for it, a slide that would allow you to close off the hole you drink through!
I have spent too much time considering why, but can only assume that it was the same quest for perfection that led the genius behind the packaging design for the biscuits I had the other day to come up with a design that allows the biscuits to actually stand vertical in their packaging.
That’s it, horizontal biscuits can go fuck themselves, once you’ve had a biscuit that stands up in its bespoke biscuit presenter, anything else seems archaic. Now, can somebody invest the ‘dunk-thru-lid’ for my coffee please?
The most enthusiastic exponent of innovation, is Marks & Spencer. Dedicated to convincing the world that their food is special, this message driven home by inaccessibility, M&S food being so over-packaged it requires a controlled explosion to open a packet of fish fingers.
The world will not end with a bang (not even a yoghurty one) or a whimper. It will end with a mountain of landfill landslide engulfing the last square inch of the planet still open to the sky. In such a circumstance, it’s time to fire up the patio heaters and innovate improvements to subterranean living.
Labels: Coffee, Drink, Engineering, Food
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