With 50 Wacky Inventions Throughout History, history has never been so fun--or wacky! Have you ever heard of a bike TV? Or a bird diaper? 50 Wacky Inventions Throughout History describes 50 inventions that seem too crazy to be true--but are! Whether useful, entertaining, or just plain silly, these mind-boggling inventions and gadgets from yesterday, today, and tomorrow will surprise and delight fun-fact lovers of all ages.
Have you ever heard of a bike TV? Or a bird diaper? Wacky Inventions Throughout History describes some of the wackiest inventions that seem too crazy to be true--but are! Whether useful, entertaining, or just plain silly, these mind-boggling inventions and gadgets from yesterday, today, and tomorrow will surprise and delight fun-fact lovers of all ages.
Discover strange gadgets you never knew existed in this volume from the nation’s top collector of curious and interesting information! The writers behind Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader present this totally true treasury of amazing gizmos—devilish devices you never knew existed, created by people who thought the world absolutely needed what they had to offer and sell. Read all about: * The onesie that turns your crawling baby into a mop * The fart-stifling blanket * The square watermelon * The video game you control with your mind * The weight loss device that sucks food out of your stomach, and much much more!
Totally Absurd Inventions offers the best of the goofy from the millions of patents granted during the past 70 years. Each of the nearly 100 off-the-wall inventions unearthed for this collection features the detailed patent application illustration and a lively description of the bizarre proposed creation. Need to know when your baby's diaper is dirty? You'll want to see the plans behind the Diaper Alarm. Little boys wanting to avoid playground kisses may find just what they need in the Kissing Shield. Want to add a unique Wisconsin twist to your cigarette? The Cheese-Filtered Cigarette might do the trick. Super Trash Man, the Cranium Cooler, the All-Terrain Stroller, and the Pet Toilet are just a few more of the zany but fascinating inventions highlighted in this compendium of creativity.
A captivating, humorous, and downright perplexing selection of nineteenth-century inventions as revealed through remarkable–and hitherto unseen–illustrations from the British National Archive Inventions that Didn’t Change the World is a fascinating visual tour through some of the most bizarre inventions registered with the British authorities in the nineteenth century. In an era when Britain was the workshop of the world, design protection (nowadays patenting) was all the rage, and the apparently lenient approval process meant that all manner of bizarre curiosities were painstakingly recorded, in beautiful color illustrations and well-penned explanatory text, alongside the genuinely great inventions of the period. Irreverent commentary contextualizes each submission as well as taking a humorous view on how each has stood the test of time. This book introduces such gems as a ventilating top hat; an artificial leech; a design for an aerial machine adapted for the arctic regions; an anti-explosive alarm whistle; a tennis racket with ball-picker; and a currant-cleaning machine. Here is everything the end user could possibly require for a problem he never knew he had. Organized by area of application—industry, clothing, transportation, medical, health and safety, the home, and leisure—Inventions that Didn’t Change the World reveals the concerns of a bygone era giddy with the possibilities of a newly industrialized world.
From the same brains who brought you The Encyclopedia of Immaturity comes The Klutz Book of Inventions, a 200-page catalog of never-before-seen contraptions that are equal parts brilliant, useful, and ridiculous. None of them exist as actual products, but in a better world, a funnier world, they would all be household essentials.One of the most ambitous projects we've ever undertaken, this compendium was created over the course of hundreds of brainstorm hours by an all-star team from Klutz and IDEO, the world's foremost product design firm. Each of the inventions was actually built in the legendary IDEO workshop before being photographed (usually in action) and described on its own page.
In an age of technology and convenience, there seem to be more and more products designed to help people in their homes. However, inventors have been coming up with creations for the home for as long as people have lived in homes. Over the years, many of these inventions have been quite strange. This innovative book takes a look at how these products worked and explains how some of them have even been remodeled over time to create different, more useful inventions.
"From codes and signals to social media, communication inventions advance the ways we interact with one another. Humorous text follows these inventions throughout history, showing how one invention often led to another--or how some inventions didn't turn out so well."--
