Complex Numbers

Regrets

Old article is old, but what the hell; I'm doing "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  [13+] again starting tomorrow and this will probably be the last of these for a month. Unless I foul up 30DBC, which is always a possibility.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67288/10-inventors-who-came-regret-their-cre...

10 Inventors Who Came to Regret Their Creations
Just because someone's invented something, it doesn't mean that they're happy with the end result.

Unlike Cracked, this site apparently counts up instead of down. This takes some getting used to.

1. J. Robert Oppenheimer/ Albert Einstein — The atomic bomb.

Despite past associations with left wing organizations, Oppenheimer welcomed the opportunity to play a part in the war effort. Later, however, he had mixed feelings about the bomb.

But hey, he was also responsible (along with Civ IV) for introducing the West to the Bhagavad Gita  , so there's that.

Einstein was less equivocal.

In retrospect, on balance, I think Einstein probably did more good than harm.

2. Mikhail Kalashnikov — AK-47.

"I keep coming back to the same questions. If my rifle claimed people’s lives, can it be that I…, an Orthodox believer, am to blame for their deaths, even if they are my enemies?" he wrote in a letter to the head of the Russian Orthodox church in 2010.

I skipped quoting a sentence of dubious grammatical provenance there. Pedantry aside, though, between this and the first entry, we should have learned by now that no weapon will bring peace in the long term. Or, well... they all bring peace, depending upon your point of view.

3. Tim Berners Lee — the double slash.

"Really, if you think about it, it doesn't need the //. I could have designed it not to have the //," he said, according to Business Insider.

Yes, the internet is a good thing in general. No, the double slash found in web addresses is far from its worst feature, since these days, no one ever has to actually type it.

4. Ethan Zuckerman — the pop-up advert.

If you've ever found yourself yelling at your computer screen in frustration as yet another pop-up ad leaps into view, obscuring the content behind it, Zuckerman is the person to blame.

WAY worse than the double slash. I wish there were a Hell so that this guy could burn in it for all eternity. On the other hand, if he hadn't invented it, someone else would have.

5. Dong Nguyen — Flappy Bird.

Flappy Bird was a sensation a year ago.

Again, old article is old. I vaguely remember Flappy Bird being a brief flare in the cosmos of the internet. Meh.

6. Bob Propst — the office cubicle.

While working as a consultant for Herman Miller in the 1960s, Bob Propst introduced America to the open plan office and with it, the office cubicle.

This guy should share cubicle space in Hell with Zuckerman.

7. Vincent Connare — Comic Sans.

"If you love it, you don't know much about typography." An anonymous critic of the font Comic Sans didn't say that, for those are the words of its designer, Vincent Connare, talking to the Wall Street Journal. Connare followed up that comment, however, with this: "If you hate it, you really don't know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby."

For a long time, something has been circulating on the Web, alongside all the double slashes and pop-up ads, to the effect of "There is great need for a sarcasm font." I have proposed that Comic Sans become the Official Sarcasm Font. This suggestion has gotten nowhere, perhaps because I keep proposing it in Comic Sans.

8. Tom Karen — Raleigh Chopper.

Before the BMX arrived on the scene in the late 1970s, if you wanted a bike that wasn't of the drop-handlebarred racing variety, Raleigh's Chopper (pictured up top) was one of the few options. Loved by millions for its comfortable saddle, laid-back seating position, and those huge Harley Davidson-esque handlebars, it was one of Raleigh's best-selling bikes in the 1970s.

Hell, I'm old and I don't remember these. Deprived childhood.

9. Kamran Loghman — Pepper spray.

Kamran Loghman worked for the FBI in the 1980s and helped turn pepper spray into weapons grade material. He also wrote the guide for police departments on how it should be used.

Which was then promptly ignored.

10. John Sylvan — Coffee capsules.

"I feel bad sometimes that I ever did it," he said a few years ago. "It's like a cigarette for coffee, a singleserve delivery mechanism for an addictive substance."

Millions of people are going to disagree with him, and probably worship him as a god. I mean, come on, as far as addictive substances go, caffeine is probably the least problematic.

So that's it for April. Yes, for those of you following along at home because you've been home for the past month or more and have lost track of time, it's the end of the month. Tomorrow is May Day, and nothing else is changing.

Except the format of these entries. For a little while.