The history of the international fraternity of Freemasonry is riddled with secrets. Attempting to make a definitive account of its beliefs, rituals and influence would prove to be an extremely difficult, if not impossible, task. By their very nature, the Freemasons are a mysterious group, and although in the 21st century they claim to be “less a secret society and more a society with many secrets,” they do not relinquish covert information to non-members readily. What is known about the Freemasons is that a phenomenal number of great innovators, thinkers and influential individuals have been, upon closer inspection, members of this shadowy organization. The following inventive and original minds all, in their own ways, changed the world — and they were also all members of the Freemasons.

10. Vannevar Bush (1890 – 1974)

American engineer, scientist and developer of the first electronic analogue computer Vannevar Bush is perhaps best remembered as the author of the revolutionary essay “As We May Think.” Published in 1945, it envisaged much of the technology we take for granted today, including personal computers, the Internet, hypertext, online encyclopedias, and speech recognition software. In 1939, Bush — a Worshipful Master in Massachusetts’s Richard C. Maclaurin Lodge — was appointed president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; as such he assumed considerable influence with the US Government in military and scientific research. Bush was involved in the development and proposed use of the atomic bomb. And, as the alleged head of the “Majestic 12” — the purported code name of a secret committee of scientists, leaders and officials formed by President Harry Truman — Bush is rumored to have investigated UFO activity in the wake of the Roswell incident, the supposed crash of an alien aircraft in New Mexico in 1947. The secrets his fellow Lodge members may have heard are almost too immense to contemplate.

9. Sandford Fleming (1827 – 1915)

Sir Sandford Fleming was a Scottish-born Canadian inventor and engineer. Perhaps best known as the man who, in 1851, designed the first Canadian postage stamp, Fleming is also often credited with the invention of standard time zones. Amongst his many achievements, Fleming was chief engineer of the cross-continental Canadian Pacific Railway. Knighted by Queen Victoria in 1897, Fleming was also a Freemason. Freemasonry helped Fleming in no small way, providing him with links to many influential members across the international fraternity. His proposal of world time zones was supported by many powerful masons, most notably the fourth Governor General of Canada, 9th Duke of Argyll John Campbell. Fleming’s engineering genius also helped to bring about the trans-Pacific submarine telegraph cable, which some have dubbed the “Victorian Internet.”

8. John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683 – 1744)

The French-born astronomer, scientist, natural philosopher and priest Rev. John Theophilus Desaguliers has been credited with the invention of the planetarium and is also remembered as the man who took steam engine design a step further though the addition of a safety valve. Influenced by Sir Isaac Newton, whom he was an assistant to, the Oxford-educated Desaguliers chose to settle in England. Desaguliers was also an extremely prominent Freemason and a major force both in collating the early history of the society and in attracting noblemen to the world’s first known Grand Lodge — the Premier Grand Lodge of England. Mystery shrouds his connection with Freemasonry up to 1719, but in that year he was elected the third Grand Master, and after serving in this post he subsequently held various prestigious positions within the Fraternity — in his adopted home as well as in Europe. Desaguliers, who appears to have invested far more time in science and Freemasonry than he did in the Church of England, has been called the “Father of Modern speculative Freemasonry.”

7. King Camp Gillette (1855 – 1932)

It can be reasonably claimed that the American innovator King Camp Gillette changed the world when he launched the cheap, disposable safety razor to a grateful public in 1901. Yet the founder of the world famous Gillette brand (now a business unit of Procter & Gamble), who was known for his business acumen and innovative marketing strategies, was also a Freemason. Little is known of Gillette’s personal experience within the Fraternity, but his political ideas are well documented and must surely have been shared among other members. Gillette was a “Utopian Socialist,” and envisioned a single public-owned corporation that controlled the entire world’s industry. He also imagined a giant US-wide city named Metropolis that would be powered exclusively by Niagara Falls. King Camp Gillette: dreamer; inventor; Freemason.

6. Traian Vuia (1872 – 1950)

The Romanian inventor, engineer and aviation pioneer Traian Vuia was one of the earliest innovators in flight technology. In 1906, his self-propelled, fixed-wing aircraft – complete with landing wheels – managed to fly 39 feet, approximately 3 feet off the ground. What is less well known is that the aeronautics genius was a member of Romania’s Masonic Order, which had grown steadily more organized following the unification of its lodges in 1880. It has been reported that, in the wake of World War I, Vuia was part of a small group of Freemasons who traveled to the Peace Conference in Paris to facilitate links with the Paris Ernest Renan Lodge — and in turn, between the governments of the two countries. As a world famous innovator and designer, Vuia’s value to Romania and his lodge was priceless, while journalists who were part of the French fraternity ensured Romania got good press at the conference.

5. Antonio Meucci (1808 – 1889)

It is widely held that Alexander Graham Bell was the inventor of the telephone. However, it is also claimed that inventor, revolutionary thinker and unconfirmed Freemason Antonio Meucci had devised the principles of the telephone when Bell was still an infant, and had a working model by 1859 — long before Bell and others. Unfortunately for the Italian, due to technical omissions relating to vocal sounds in his patent — which was filed five years before Bell’s — he never gained the credit for his work; until recently, that is. In 2002, the US Congress officially recognized Meucci’s work in the development of the telephone. The rumors of Meucci’s involvement with the Freemasons appear to be largely down to his close friendship with the great military hero Giuseppe Garibaldi, the unifier of Italy. Garibaldi was an active Mason and arrived in New York around the same time as Meucci. The two shared ideas, and it seems likely that Freemasonry played some part in this exchange.

4. James Bowie (1796 – 1836)

James “Jim” Bowie, legendary frontiersman, pioneer, battle hero and reputed joint designer of the Bowie knife (with a little help from his brother, Rezin), is something of a folk hero in American cultural history. Bowie’s fame was born of violent circumstances. Having been shot and stabbed in the famous brawl known as the Sandbar Fight, Bowie killed the sheriff of Rapides Parish, Norris Wright, with an unusually long knife. It’s said that this became the basis for the design of the now-famous hunting knife. While many different manufacturers have produced their own versions of the blade, Bowie can lay claim to being the original inspiration for the design. Among his many other roles — including a slave trader and land speculator — Bowie was an esteemed member of L’Humble Chaumiere Lodge No. 19 at Opelousas, Louisiana. Yet just as his life appeared to be at its most settled and comfortable, his wife and children were killed in a cholera outbreak. He then fought and died alongside fellow national icons Davy Crockett and William Travis at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.

3. Samuel Colt (1814 – 1862)

The American industrialist and inventor Samuel Colt is best known for popularizing the revolver that eventually led to the Colt Single Action Army, otherwise known as the Colt .45. He applied for his first patent at the age of 18, and his dream of perfecting the ‘impossible gun’ never faded. An engaging and pioneering character in the world of munitions and other fields, Colt once made a living as “the celebrated Dr. Coult,” lecturing on chemistry and performing demonstrations of the effects of Nitrous Oxide on willing audience members. Like his manufacturing rival Daniel Leavitt — who patented the first revolver after his own — and another great firearms exponent, Richard Gatling, Colt was also an active Freemason. Colt’s name will forever be associated with the gun, and interestingly his products were of great use to fellow Masons Benito Juárez, Simon Bolivar, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Sam Houston in their various violent revolutionary activities.

2. The Montgolfier Brothers (Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (1740 – 1810) and Jacque-Étienne Montgolfier (1745 – 1799))

The celebrated French inventors the Montgolfier Brothers — arguably the earliest important names in the history of aviation — performed the first manned ascent of a hot air balloon in 1783. Based on experiments with bags made of paper and fabric and a naked flame, their paper-lined silk balloon was lifted 6,562 feet in the air. In the same year they successfully transported first animals (a sheep, a rooster and a duck) and then later human passengers, the first one being Jacque-Étienne himself. Less is known about the brothers’ lives as Freemasons, but like Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier — who made the first untethered manned flight in a Montgolfier balloon — they were active members of the Fraternity.

1. Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

Benjamin Franklin, the great statesman, scientist, political theorist and philosopher, is without doubt one of the most important inventors and public figures in American history. The creator of the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and the glass harmonica also believed in generously donating his genius and never patented his work. He was a true Renaissance man, and possibly his greatest gift to civilization was the lightning rod, which led to a greater understanding of the nature of electricity. Franklin was active as a Freemason from at least as early as 1731, when he was initiated into St. John’s Lodge in Philadelphia. Appointed Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1934, he was heavily involved in Masonic work his entire life, and edited and reprinted Scotland’s Rev. James Anderson’s Constitutions of the Free-Masons in the same year as his high appointment. This was the first Masonic book in America and effectively linked the “Antient” and the “Modern” world. Franklin, known as the “First American,” was instrumental in the creation of modern America and, in doing so, brought the secrets of Freemasonry to a new nation. Or at least to its chosen few.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the death of a computing icon, a man who changed how we interact with the virtual world forever.  I’m talking, of course, about Unix creator Dennis Ritchie.  Just kidding, odds are the first time you heard Ritchie’s name in a sentence was recently, and the sentence had more mentions of “Apple”, “Steve Jobs”, uncapitalized “i”s and the phrase “and also Dennis Ritchie” than “Unix”.

During his life, Steve Jobs was no small source of contention among nerds, and the Mac vs. PC debate raged for year after incomprehensibly rage-filled year (oh by the way we’re talking about Steve Jobs, he’s the one who died in case you missed that).  So undoubtedly, once the near-beatifying mourning of Jobs dies down, these same people will begin to whisper a whole slew of critiques of Jobs.  Some will be honest and well-reasoned, but this is the Internet so the majority will probably be loud, not very nuanced, and unfair to Jobs.  Some critiques such as:

Tablet Computers Pre-Date the iPad by Decades

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What They’ll Say:
The concept of a tablet computer is by no means novel at all.  In fact, the first patent for a tablet that electronically recorded handwriting was filed in 1888, barely more than a decade after Thomas Edison first demonstrated his incandescent light bulb.  And even as far back as 1992, IBM was releasing fully-functional tablet PCs as part of the ThinkPad lineup.  Of course these early versions didn’t have the power or functionality that current technology can offer, but all Jobs did was take a half-step forward based on almost a century’s worth of work by other people.

Why It’s Unfair:
No less a great mind than Sir Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”  In a word, no innovation occurs without building on millennia of effort that preceded it.  But most importantly for the iPad, it wasn’t the tablet technology that came before it, it was the technology the grew alongside it, most importantly the internet and Wi-Fi.  No matter the power of the processor or the amount of memory in a tablet, if you have to plug it in, its fundamental purpose is negated.  Tablets were envisaged as early as 1968 in 2001: A Space Odyssey as tools of convenience, not workhorses, as we see a character use a tablet to watch a video message while eating his dinner.

So yes, Jobs didn’t exactly re-invent the personal computer with the iPad, but he did recognize that this oft-failed concept was finally at a point where it could be made feasible, at a time when the market for tablets had been dry for almost a decade.  Not giving Jobs credit for gathering the knowledge of the preceding decades and distilling them into an elegant framework because a similar concept had been done before is like not giving Newton credit for creating calculus simply because Leibniz came up with something similar at around the same time.

The iPod is Just a Fancy MP3 Player, Not a Fundamental Innovation

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What They’ll Say:
The product that really brought Apple into everyone’s side pocket was the iPod, but what’s so special about it?  Sure it allowed you to play MP3s and ditch the pile of CDs you used to carry around, but so did a lot of other products in the market at the same time.  And a lot of those were cheaper, more versatile, and didn’t force you to go through proprietary Apple software to get music on your device.  The iPod won this war simply because it had the sexiest marketing campaign, not because it was the best value.

Why It’s Unfair:
Raise your hand if you owned an MP3 player before 2001.  Now explain the process by which you loaded music onto it.  Now explain how in the world you expected that to fundamentally replace a system where you put-a-thing-in-a-thing and press play.  The problem with MP3 players wasn’t sexiness or even technology; it was getting the digital files from the record producer to your device.  This involved a whole host of technological savvy and legal issues which Apple solved not by making the iPod, but making iPod stupid-simple to sync and (later) the iTunes store, respectively. Though it certainly didn’t hurt that they had some amazing advertising.

Apple’s Computers Haven’t Changed Personal Computing Since the 80s

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What They’ll Say:
While all of Apple’s shiny portable products are nice, the truth is that you still do the vast majority of your day-to-day work on either a PC or a laptop.  No giant capacitive touch screen is going to change the fact that you can type a lot faster on a keyboard.  The personal computer forms the great spine of any productive worker (or particularly productive procrastinator), and Apple hasn’t made any great contributions to the field since the 80s.  Sure the iMacs are pretty and all that, but there’s simply no denying the fact that they’re over-priced, underpowered devices for people who don’t know enough about computers.  Steve Jobs’ greatest contribution to Apple before 2001 was little more than designing a computer that didn’t come in a beige box.  Bravo.

Why It’s Unfair:
No matter how impressive the specs or price of your computer, if you’re shipping a product with features that a majority of your users are nigh-incapable of accessing, that’s riddled with problems that require specialized training to address, you’re shipping an over-priced, under-powered product.  What a customer can do with your product is the ultimate test of how powerful it is, not the processor speed or memory size.  And by the ease-of-use measure, iMacs come out far ahead.  Of course this isn’t to say that someone with proper knowledge can’t do more with a high-powered PC than a Mac, but we’re talking about the average user.

But the far larger and more important point is that Apple didn’t have to revolutionize the personal computer market.  PCs are already insanely cheap, Windows XP wasn’t that bad, and, to a certain extent, most people have acquired the working computer knowledge to address basic bugs and open Excel.  All iMacs did was fill a niche of people looking for an easier and (yes) more eye-pleasing less intimidating PC.  Asking why Steve Jobs focused on mobile devices and didn’t bother to create a better computer is like asking Henry Ford why he made the flashy, expensive automobile instead of a faster horse.

Dennis Ritchie Did More Than Jobs, but Jobs’ Death Overshadowed Ritchie’s

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What They’ll Say:
Among other things, Dennis Ritchie created the C programming language and the UNIX operating system.  To put it simply, Apple may have made your phone, computer and MP3s, but code written by Ritchie are in virtually every complex electronic device you own.  And it’s likely Ritchie’s creations will continue on in some form for decades.  What’s more, Jobs operated a greedy, extremely private corporation that pursued numerous lawsuits when competitors got even remotely close to Apple’s technology.  In contrast, C and Unix are open-source, and have been used as a powerful resource for entrepreneurs and amateurs alike.  Jobs may be the name everyone remembers, but Ritchie had a much larger impact, and should have received a little more publicity.

Why It’s Unfair:
Ritchie was an academic and an engineer.  Jobs was a college drop out and an entrepreneur.  Jobs was a perfectionist, megalomaniacal CEO with billions of dollars to his name who deliberately sought the spotlight.  Ritchie was, by all accounts, a quiet, humble man.  Jobs shut down Apple’s philanthropic giving in 1997 and never restarted it.  It has also been reported that Jobs kicked way more puppies than Ritchie.

Comparing the two is like comparing oranges and (ahem) apples.  You can set up the same sad dichotomy by comparing just about anyone famous with a lot of people who actually contributed something and no one’s heard of.  In an ideal world, Ritchie would be the icon and Jobs would be the greedy capitalist, but in the end it still doesn’t diminish the fact that Jobs made substantial contributions to technology.

iTunes is Awkward and Propriety, Making it Difficult to Hold On To Music

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What They’ll Say:
If you own an Apple product, you are forced to use iTunes to get your media from your computer to your device.  Sure, you can download podcasts and load a fair amount of third-party content on there, but you still have to use Apple’s software every step of the way if you want to play it.  Any apps have to be specifically approved by Apple, leading to a media experience greatly out of the hands of the end user, and that’s the way Apple likes it.

Why It’s Unfair:
Years from now when you’re explaining to your grandkids that yes, at one time all media was sold and held in physical form by the end user.  And in much the same way you once asked your parents when was the first time they bought a CD instead of a cassette, your grandkids will ask you when was the first time you downloaded a song.  Most of us will not tell them the truth (Kazaa), but will instead tell them about the first time we downloaded music was from iTunes.  Apple may be annoyingly guarded in what software and hardware will work with their devices, but they (along with others) fundamentally changed the way media is distributed, and—more importantly—proved that in an era of pirating lawsuits, that it could be done profitably.

On top of this, Apple has inspired several copycat devices and marketplaces among all their major competitors, almost all of which are much more open and forgiving of customization.  Henry Ford insisted the original Model T would only be sold in black, and then his competitors made them in all sorts of colors.  Attacking Apple for an authoritarian but highly functional model is like attacking the Model T because it only came in black—it still worked well and ended up changing the world.

The iPhone and iPad Are For Movies and Games, Not Work

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What They’ll Say:
Let’s be honest, the iPad is basically a more expensive, less useful netbook.  They’re pretty and eye-popping, and most importantly of all, you can read them while eating cereal at the same time.  The iPhone is bright and flashy, but typing anything longer than a few sentences on a touchscreen is exhausting and frustrating.  Giving Jobs credit for a “revolution” in these devices is shiny-object salesmanship: he didn’t fundamentally make them better, he just made the brighter, flashier, and more fun.

Why It’s Unfair:
It turns out that all the moaning that came with the switch from keyboard to touch screen was largely unfounded, as recent studies show that the average user can output around 33 words per minute on the touch screen—just a hair below the average for keyboards.  Some can even get up to 80 words per minute.  On top of this, the larger screen allows you to read e-mails, presentations, photos etc… on a screen that doesn’t cause eyestrain.

But the most important part here is that, especially for the iPhone, any work you do on it is work done during time when you would usually not be able to do this work (since you didn’t have access to a computer).  And say what you will about the iPad, it’s bright, crisp screen and smooth lines are a lot more inviting than a giant lumpy textbook.  Which is exactly why more and more educational institutions are using them as tools to entice children to read and play educational games, as well as a way for students to communicate with teachers and store all their academic work in one place.  Oh and they’re also great tools for our rapidly aging population and the visually impaired.

He Tried to Strangle Apps

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What They’ll Say:
The biggest beef that nerds likely have with Jobs is his enmity toward open-source.  To the independent developer, Apple is the tallest, most lucrative fortress with the most impenetrable walls on the planet.  Everything is developed in-house under Jobs’ watchful, perfectionist eye, any third-party apps have to go through a rigorous approval process, and Apple gives only piecemeal, begrudging support to developers.  Jobs’ attempt to stop the App Store is viewed as one of his few professional mistakes, even by his fans.

Why It’s Unfair:
Most people seem to forget that every iPhone comes equipped with a button that takes them to the Internet, a world filled with all of the smut and apps you’d like — none of it restricted by Apple, and this space is only getting bigger and more capable.  More and more, it’s getting harder to distinguish what content is based on your browser.  Jobs realized this, and his resistance to the App Store seemed to come less from the fact that he didn’t like third-party development on the iPhone, it’s just that he wanted it to be done in the cloud.  Those of us who don’t live in Cupertino and have experienced the hellacious nature of AT&T’s network can attest that, while a noble idea, going completely to the cloud simply isn’t feasible yet, though Jobs was probably only a few years off (after all, without apps, how would we play Angry Birds on the subway?).

He Contributed to the Myth of the Silver Bullet CEO

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What They’ll Say:
In an era where Americans are particularly…perturbed at the growing economic inequality in this country, where CEOs make 475 times the average worker, here comes Steve Jobs perpetuating the myth that all a company needs is a magical CEO to save them.  These CEOs demand exorbitant pay, rarely pan out, and then take millions in golden parachutes. Steve Jobs was a visionary CEO for his company, but his visibility will only make corporate America’s views on management more perverse, tyrannical, and full of magical, short-term thinking.

Why It’s Unfair:
Steve Jobs’ salary: $1.  Of course he makes millions a year in stock appreciation and has numerous other investments, but Jobs was part of a growing club of CEOs that take only a small, symbolic salary and draw all of their income from the company’s growth.  While this may seem like an empty gesture, let’s say that, theoretically, Jobs demanded the salary of $33 million including bonuses that Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum does.  With that money, he’d essentially be depriving Apple of more than 400 talented engineers making around $75,000 a year.  For some perspective, the average firm in the US employs roughly 16 people.  Jobs may be the quintessential magic CEO in most peoples’ minds, but if more CEOs were like him, outrageous CEO pay wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.

Outsourcing Products to Foxconn

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What They’ll Say:
Apple’s relationship with Chinese supplier Foxconn is storied and gruesome.  In addition to the high-profile suicides a few years ago, stories emerge of 34-hour shifts and employees so young that their hands become mangled and twisted as they grow into the repetitive work.  Reports indicate that Foxconn only pays the equivalent of $300 dollars a month.  Despite all their clean, sexy, innovative flashiness, the iPhone was built on the pain and suffering of hundreds.

Why It’s Unfair:
First off, Jobs was a good CEO, not necessarily a foolhardy philanthropist who would inexplicably force his company to source products from factories that would drive costs several orders of magnitude higher than the competition.  In a word, outsourcing wasn’t his choice; it was made for him by the market.

In addition, at the risk of sounding like a heartless imperialist, Foxconn pays far better than the average Chinese job.  Plus Foxconn recently raised wages, and are seen as a positive force of upward wage growth in China.  While we should never get comfortable saying “they’ll take their slave wages and unsafe working conditions and like it”, and always pressure foreign and domestic suppliers to funnel profits into wage growth and better worker conditions—there is and will always be some dark underbelly to the world capitalism that we all support.  If this is your first time coming face-to-face with this fact you should also know that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny aren’t real, and that the failings of capitalism can’t be laid across Jobs’ shoulders any more than they can be laid at the feet of everyone who bought an iPhone.

He Struck a Deal With the Devil Dealing with AT&T

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What They’ll Say:
When you hear complaints about peoples’ smartphones, they rarely complain about the operating system, the touch screen, or even the ergonomics.  The number one complaint is always about dropped calls, slow data speeds, and text messages that vanish into the ether, only to reappear about 8 hours later along with 4 to 5 copies.  For all the perceived faults of Apple, their product is streamlined, reliable, and does what you ask it to.  Meanwhile, AT&T and other telecoms have responded by throttling data plans and continuing to charge exorbitant rates for services as basic and inexpensive as text messaging.  Jobs clearly believed in cloud-based services as an end-game, so why did he sell his soul through an exclusive deal to a company whose profit structure depends on throttling everything that makes the iPhone valuable?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to offer it up on all major carriers to encourage competition?

Why It’s Unfair:
The short answer is basically US networks couldn’t handle the iPhone’s increased data demands, and Apple needed a carrier willing to build out the network improvements necessary to support the phone.  You may complain about how long it takes to load your joke-a-day column each morning, but before 2007, even decently fast Internet on your phone was a laughable pipe dream.  You know how when your phone (if you have AT&T) loses a good data signal, displays the dreaded “E” and speeds drop to next to nothing?  Before the iPhone, no network had even that lumbering speed.  Yes the way in which Apple went about this was annoying to those who were locked into two year contracts with other providers, and yes there might have been some shady, under-the-table kickbacks going on.  But Apple pretty much single-handedly forced some of the biggest improvements in network infrastructure in a decade.  Far from a deal with the devil, Apple essentially told the devil “Okay we’re gong to make this deal, but in return you have to be slightly less of a dick”.

You may think Steve Jobs was a greedy megalomaniac, but there’s little doubt that he knew what he was doing and did it well.  In a time when Americans are near-desperately searching for fast-fading examples of American exceptionalism, Steve Jobs was one of the few that really remained.  In the years to come his life, business and management style will undoubtedly become the subject of many studies and books.  Most of us can’t really touch the unfolding narrative of Steve Jobs, but maybe after this article some of the comments on blogs will be a little less petty and asinine.

If you are scared by the booming industry of doctors and hospitals and fake flu shots — you should be. Every generation opts to undergo ‘cures’ which are not really cures at all, but ridiculous charades with no medical effects whatsoever (except for negative ones). Doctors think they know everything just because they went to medical school, but there’s a whole other world of alternate medicine out there that they don’t want you to know about, just because it’s probably insanely dangerous.  Don’t let Big Pharma scare you!  You can be scared by these crazy cures instead.

Dead Scorpions on the Face

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Don’t let some “doctor” say that you need “prescribed medicine” just because he has some fancy degree.  In China, you can have scorpion carcasses applied directly to your face.  That’s way more badass than some doctor injecting you with a mystery serum.

Bee Stings

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Ever get stung by a bee?  Turns out, that bee may have been trying to cure your aching bones or MS.  So if you’re laid up with a complicated medical issue, you really have nothing to lose by punching the nearest beehive.  At least the beehive will be down and you’ll probably have a nice handful of honey to go along with your agonizing, painful, curative stings.

Mummy Powder

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In the 12th Century, being a “doctor” meant doing things like prescribing mummy powder for wounds and bruises.  This usually happened after some meddling kids and a dog foiled the mummy’s plan and captured him.  Sadly, science has yet to find a cure made from phantoms or swamp monsters.

Tobacco Smoke Enema

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There was an actual time when a doctor would blow smoke up your ass and you’d pay him for the privilege.  Learned from the Native Americans (who obviously took a prank on their European friends way too far), the smoke is believed to help you poop or at the very least, make your poop smell like a carton of Marlboros.

Mercury

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In the 2nd Century, the Chinese began to “cure” Syphilis with mercury, which just goes to show you how desperate people get with their junk is on the line.  This treatment lasted all the way to the 20th century, when insurance companies realized that mercury was too expensive and rare to give to their customers.

Electricity

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When your genitals aren’t functioning, guys will pretty much try anything.  In the 18th and 19th centuries, the thing to try was electricity on the ol’ wiener.  Shockingly, this Johnson abuse didn’t work and sadly, there was no YouTube then so we could mock the idiots who tried it.

Terrapin Touch

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Once again, the Chinese have crazy remedies, including applying a terrapin to your face.  Sadly, your local CVS does not have terrapins in stock and they are a special order.

Malaria

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Maybe it’s the idea of “fighting fire with fire”, but using malaria to fight syphilis sounds like burning down your house just to kill the roaches.  This cure actually works, though it is exceedingly dangerous.  Maybe it would be better just to lay off the hookers and use a condom.

Hot Irons for Hemorrhoids

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Keep in mind, medieval doctors lived in the era when there was a lot of torture  (no doubt we’ll be seeing some waterboard cures soon).  The Middle Ages monks believed that by using hot irons, you could remove your hemorrhoids and probably scream a whole lot.

Heroin for Kids!

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Heroin was widely touted as a miracle drug.  Then again, what else do you expect to hear from people who are probably already addicted to heroin?  Heroin was put into cough syrup, which was no doubt given to kids.  The kids didn’t like the medicine at first, but then they couldn’t get enough!

Urine Therapy

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Roman and Indian cultures gave us urine therapy.  But then again, they also gave us vomitoriums and insanely hot restaurant buffets.  When ‘urine’ trouble, rubbing pee in during a massage or drinking it was said to cure a variety of ailments and make you smell like that guy that begs for change on the subway platform.

Bloodletting

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We’re not sure who was the first medieval jackhole to say, “Hey, as long as you’re sick, let’s bleed you.”  For some reason, people thought this was a good idea.  It would be hundreds of years later before it became cool with your Goth nephew that works at Hot Topic.

Penis Exerciser

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Get your mind out of the gutter!  This is a serious instrument of body change!  You can’t rely on those Korean girls to do it every time you go to the massage parlor. Besides, that costs extra.

Trepanation

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Did you ever hear that expression, “I need that like I need a hole in the head”?  Well, some people take that expression in a different way.  They believe that by drilling holes into their skulls they can relieve pressure, and they usually do…When their brains come pouring out.

Honey Mummies

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Hands down, the most insane cure of all time was developed in Arabia around the 16th century.  It involved men who would literally eat themselves to death by consuming only honey.  Then, once they died, their bodies were sealed in honey for many years.  Their tasty bodies would then be used to treat wounds.  Sure, it sounds extreme, but it’s still the only thing that’s 100% covered on Arabian HMO’s.

A long, long time ago…well, maybe just in the 1970s, Apple Computer, Inc. released the Apple 1, as well as incorporating the new company. This new computer was actually the offspring of the code-named Apple Lisa project, which Steve Jobs developed after he saw the Xerox technology in action.

This little computer was the first to introduce the GUI (Graphical User Interface) to the computing public. Currently, nearly every computer available uses this interface, which features icons and a mouse to navigate the machine and its software applications.

The Apple I and Apple II were quickly followed by the ubiquitous Macintosh line. In 1983, Apple introduced the Macintosh with the now famous Superbowl commercial, which made television history. In an Orwellian scene the new Apple computer destroyed the IBM world.

While sales of the new Mac where not at satisfactory levels, they rose when the company introduced a desktop publishing program — Aldus PageMaker — as well as the new LaserWriter printer. These two products opened the way for the Apple computers to become the rock foundation of future desktop publishing and graphic design endeavors. Other groundbreaking Apple applications soon followed including:

• Apple MacWrite
• Apple MacPaint
• Macintosh Operating Systems
• iTunes

Development of the Macintosh moved forward with the new Macintosh Operating System. This OS has seen a rapid rate of development over the year, surpassing that of Windows. It is now in its 10th version — the Mac OS named Mac OS X Lion. The operating system has seen serious upgrades and additions to its former GUI, now sporting easier-to-use menus and navigation.

The Macintosh is now considered one of easiest platforms available to learn and use. The company has introduced many new computer models including desktop and laptop versions. Currently, users can find their Apple desktops and Apple notebook on eBay and many other retail outlets.

However, when discussing the Apple line of products, one cannot forget the iPod. This little MP3 player burst on the scene in November of 2001 and quickly overtook the market. With the subsequent introduction of iTunes, the iPod was, and still is, the model of MP3 player most desired.

Additionally, the market has seen the iPhone take over the cell phone world. With its sleek styling and available apps, it set the cell world on its ear. Today, the iPhone is still a market leader and the number of available apps increases on an almost daily basis.

Apple also introduced its notebook computer, the iPad, to rave reviews in April of 2010.

As you can see, Apple developed and produced products with end-users in mind and the potential for new products looks seems unlimited.

Inventions often happen by accident when scientists, or sometimes even regular people, are looking for one thing and end up finding another. Like when Nicholas Cage tried to make a fantasy movie and instead ended up with a hilarious ironic comedy. Here are 15 of those happy accidents.

Smart Dust

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When Jamie Link’s homework exploded, she thought she would have to blame it on her dog. Fortunately, she instead discovered Smart Dust. These are tiny particles that can be directed as sensors.

The Microwave Oven

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Percy Spencer was working on a new kind of radar and a way to legally change his first name to something more manly, when he noticed the chocolate bar in his pocket kept melting. Turns out, he was microwaving himself! Healthy. A machine to make popcorn quickly and everything else too hot to eat was born.

The Slinky

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Richard James was working on springs in the Philadelphia shipyard when he accidentally knocked one down the stairs. It was alone or in pairs and made a slinkity sound. Fortunately for James, that sound was much like a cash register. To date, over 300 million Slinkies have been sold and zero have been untangled.

The Popsicle

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The popsicle was invented in 1905. That was before most people had a freezer or before anyone would do anything for a Klondike bar. Frank Epperson mixed up a soda and left it out on the porch overnight in the cold. The next day, popsicle! Unfortunately, he was only 11 at the time and would have to wait several years before making his millions. It was probably for the best. Just ask Gary Coleman’s ghost.

Saccharin

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In 1879, Constanin Fahlberg stumbled onto this sweet concoction while experimenting with new uses for coal tar after not washing his hands got the sweet stuff all over his dinner rolls. Mmm, mmm! Makes that cancer sound so delicious! No wonder lab rats and supermodels can’t stop eating it.

The Ice Cream Cone

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Just before Epperson left his popsicle out on the porch, the 1904 World’s Fair vendor was selling so much ice cream, he ran out of plates. Next door, a Persian vendor was selling flat, wafer-like cakes that were not selling like hotcakes at all. The rushed ice cream man start rolling them into cones and selling the ice cream in them. Delicious! Let’s be glad he didn’t go to the vendor selling flank steaks or ice cream cones would cost you over $20 a piece, take 20 minutes to grill and would quickly melt all your ice cream.

Play-Doh

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Play-Doh was originally developed as a wallpaper cleaner. In 1956, it began to be marketing as a non-toxic modeling clay. That was way better than all the poison modeling clay people had been sculpting with before. This added years to the life spans of small children and would-be Michelangelos.

Teflon

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Long before John Gotti got his nickname, a scientist named Roy Plunkett was working with refrigerants when he and his assistant left something in the fridge overnight. The next day, they had discovered Teflon and were finally able to make omelets without leaving a mess in the pan. After breakfast, they went on to become millionaires.

Penicillin

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The Egyptians used to treat wounds by placing moldy bread on them. Unfortunately, they never patented the process and in 1928, Professor Alexander Fleming returned from holiday to discover mold in his Petri dish. Wherever the mold grew, his bacteria would not. Let’s face it, Alexander had way too much free time on his hands. But he did end up curing a lot of diseases, which proves that you can get a lot of work done while on vacation.

Vulcanized Rubber

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Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy did not discover Vulcanized Rubber, but he, like many of us, probably uses it every day. It was Charles Goodyear (who was probably from this planet) that discovered that by removing sulphur from natural rubber, the results would last year round. This opened the door for tire shops everywhere to overcharge you $10 just to fix a flat.

Stainless Steel

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Leon Gillet invented Stainless Steel in 1904. He didn’t realize its rust-resistant capabilities, or think that it would one day coat time traveling DeLoreans. Nevertheless, some other guy did and made millions. And that is how you live the American dream.

Post It Notes

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One guy at 3M invented the adhesive, while another guy invented the function. Now you can blame both those guys for all those passive aggressive notes you get from the wife and your co-workers. Without this amazing invention, the people who made tacks would still be in business.

Champagne

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Don’t let the snooty French tell you differently: Champagne was a complete accident. A French Monk named Dom Perignon experimented with the fermentation process in 1668 and stumbled upon a sparkling wine that costs way too much and is likely to blind someone when you open it. Thanks to him, rappers finally had something to pour all over hot coochie mamas in their videos.

Plastic

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In 1907, Leo Hendrik Baekeland was trying to invent a new kind of electronic insulation. Instead, he stumbled upon something that would eventually revolutionize the world and be used to refer to the faces of the cast on the Jersey Shore.

Mauve

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Mauve was apparently invented by a man. Who knew? However, it was by accident. While trying to invent something important (a treatment for malaria) William Perkin accidentally stumbled upon a color which allowed women to use another word to describe pink.

Since the start of 2011, top technology companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft have been ramping up efforts to push consumers on their cloud computing services. Before we continue, I’m sure some of you are wondering what the “cloud” is. Polls show 60% of Americans don’t understand what this new computing term means. The cloud is simply a virtual storage hub that can be accessed from any device. Consider Google Docs: you can upload your files to the service and then access them from any computer or smartphone.

One question being dodged by most analysts is how cloud computing will affect the music. Best Buy, Amazon and Apple have released cloud music services that require you to buy their music or pay a monthly fee. Apple is even charging users just to upload to their iCloud service. It was only a matter of time and now there is finally one startup out of New York that is allowing consumers to upload and stream their music for free.

CloudPlayer.me is the only cloud music service offered free of charge to users. The product intends to eliminate hard storage and create a massive virtual database of music. Think of it this way: you have 500GB of music, you can’t fit that all on your iPhone, can you? However, if you upload it to a cloud storage solution you can access all of your music from phone’s browser and not have to use any of the hard disk space.

CloudPlayer.me

The value proposition is surely there. CloudPlayer.me will make waves in the music industry during 2011. The music industry appears to be on its last legs after their failure to deal with the Torrent industry. It seems the cloud computing industry will be the final nail in the coffin. 11 years ago the RIAA ruled against MP3.com because they allowed users to stream music on the website. Will the RIAA come after CloudPlayer.me next?

The founder of CloudPlayer.me, Adam Raymond, believes they will have to eventually. After all, the RIAA ruled the only way music can be played on the cloud is through a pay-per-stream basis. Adam has said he will stick to his guns and keep the service free. As the CloudPlayer.me service grows rapidly, he is expecting trouble from the RIAA soon enough.  The question now is: Who will win the same battle that took place 11 years ago – the masses of Internet users or the government establishment? Let us know what you think in the comments.

It’s tempting to assume that in the back of every Wal-Mart (and some of the seedier Targets) there’s a machine that combines obscure, sterile chemicals and a dash of cancer into everything the modern human needs. Looking at the ingredient list of just about any processed food certainly gives that impression. The truth is some really weird things ended up in your daily life for some incredibly bizarre reasons.

Denim

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In the short list of things indelibly American, a pair of denim jeans ranks right up there with Grandma’s Apple pie and starting wars in countries with unpronounceable names. Is there anything more iconic in American culture than the denim-clad cowboy slowly smoking a Marlboro while contemplating what a rogue he is and how he just needs a woman to change him? Well the ugly truth is…

Actually, they’re from France.

Denim is actually a bastardization of De Nimes, meaning essentially “This is from that country that symbolizes everything real Americans hate“. Though it might seem like it, denim jeans aren’t made of any special quasi-kevlar material, they’re just a specific cotton weave that was developed by some industrious Frenchmen in the 18th century. Though they were invented elsewhere, Americans can take comfort in the fact that, like the automobile, we were the ones who made them cool.

Red Bull

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Commonly known as the pick me up second only to coffee and that thing you get wasted on second to alcohol, Red Bull has quickly become a staple among bar-goers and exhausted college students world-wide. The drink was originally discovered when an Austrian entrepreneur noticed that a drink called Krating Daeng helped cure his jetlag while visiting Thailand. It was quickly integrated into his beverage company’s line and the rest is history. Which is funny because…

Actually, the energy kick comes from cow bile.

If you pick up the can of Red Bull that you, internet user, most likely have lying around somewhere, you’ll notice that one of the ingredients is something called “Taurine”. This very appropriately named compound is derived from the bile of cows, and, like caffeine, is a naturally-occurring stimulant in mammals. If this fact grosses you out, take comfort in the fact that nowadays taurine shows up in just about every energy drink on the market.

Salad Dressing

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What is a salad if not an excuse to consume copious amounts of mayonnaise disguised as “dressing”? Everything looks healthier when it’s slathered on some iceberg lettuce, and a straight helping of pure animal fats and vegetable oil is no different. Well it’s a good thing that dressing doesn’t get more disgusting than that because then we would never go anywhere near leafy greens. Oh wait except it totally gets more disgusting than that because…

Actually, it’s made from putrid, decaying slime.

Imagine you left a pile of vegetables to rot in the hot, humid sun for a couple of days. Can you picture the thin layer of slime that’s formed like a perverse glaze as they degrade? That’s Xantham Gum, also known by the completely inedible description of “bacterial coat”. Apart from showing up in practically everything, it’s a common ingredient in salad dressing. Its unique chemical properties make it a perfect additive to anything that needs to be thick, creamy and oily. Don’t hurt yourself thinking about jokes related to that sentence.

Cheese

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Throughout all of history, one thing has been certain: life is undoubtedly improved by a double bacon cheeseburger. There are few ingredients in the culinary repertoire that can increase the calorie count deliciousness of a meal quite like a good slice of cheese. Light and sharp or heavy and smelling like armpits, nothing bitch slaps the palate like a good piece of cheese. Which is an appropriately metal description since cheese is…

Actually made from ground up stomach of the animal they took the milk from.

As a milk derivative, cheese is beholden to the speed of chemical reactions. And in the world of chemical reactions, enzymes are the angry drug dealers that break down your door, sleep with you wife, and make a mess of your pots and pans. Specifically, an enzyme known as Rennet is used to turn thin, watery milk into the badass tongue-curb-stomping-cheese that it was always meant to be. Rennet occurs naturally in the stomachs of cows and other mammals, so, according to the brutalistic rules of cheese crafting, their stomachs are ground up and mixed with milk to produce a variety of cheeses. There are a handful of cheeses produced with artificial substitutes of rennet, but connoisseurs conclude that such cheeses are usually sub-par in taste and “kind of pussy, come on guys”.

Kotex

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Kotex is well-known today as a popular line of feminine products including pads, tampons, and other euphemistically titled “Period Protection” devices. Kotex was actually one of the first widely advertised and distributed pads in history, back when they were made with wood pulp. After a pause to allow all the women reading this to shudder, we can continue with their even more cringe-inducing origin.

Actually, they were originally used to treat horrible, disfiguring wounds in WWI

Before World War I, Kotex had nothing to do with women’s hygiene. All they did was make bandages. With the war ending and the 17-35 with-gaping-wounds demographic began to dry up, Kotex began to look elsewhere to sell their absorbent bandages. The truly disturbing part about all of this isn’t that MaxiPads were once used as actual bandages, but that someone saw a gushing, bloody stump on the battlefield and thought to himself “Now what does that remind me of…”

Twinkies

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You read Twinkies up there and are now silently praying that these delicious golden treats aren’t ruined for the rest of your life. Well the dastardly truth is that Twinkies don’t actually contain any dairy products. Isn’t it weird that one of the items most closely associated with the phrase “cream filling” in American culture doesn’t have a drop of milk? Just kidding.

Actually, they’ve got a heaping helping of Beef Fat.

The problem with the American palate is that we want it all. Every dish needs a heaping helping of the essential vitamins and minerals that matter: fat, salt, and sugar. It’s hard to blame Hostess for this decision, after all it’s that hint of savoriness, or umami that makes Twinkies the object of nearly every post-apocalyptic toil.

Graham Crackers

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Some remember Graham Crackers as the heavenly container of s’mores, some remember them as a crappy excuse for a cookie in kindergarten. Graham Crackers have a long and storied history, and date back to the invention of another staple: Kellog’s famous corn flakes. That’s because Kellogg and Graham were contemporaries who both subscribed to the idea that bland foods were inherently healthy. And not just that…

Actually, they were designed to limit the eater’s sex drive.

Dr. Graham was an adamant activist against masturbation, and believed that lustful urges were at the base of most health problems. Graham crackers were supposed to be so bland that they would bland-up the whole of the consumer’s personality, including sex drive. The modern version of the cracker is made with bleached, refined flour and heaping helpings of sugar and cinnamon—all things Graham would have detested for their tendency to make couples want to have sex outside of a hole in the sheet. Knowing that these crackers were intentionally designed to hold back sexual urges puts a new spin on the fact that they’re commonly given to young children.

Jelly Beans

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Contrary to the presumably sex-killing properties of Graham crackers, urban legend fanatics have been scarfing down green jelly beans for decades. For whatever reason, it is believed that the color green is an aphrodisiac, a belief stretching back hundreds of years. Which is funny because you probably won’t be so aroused when you find out they’re…

Actually made from crushed Lac Bugs.

Oh come on, you knew the “crushed up bugs” entry was coming sooner or later, and the bug juice at camp was a low-hanging fruit. The shellac is what gives jelly beans that shiny, crispy outer shell. Well that and enough pure, caramelized sugar to induce diabetic coma. Shellac is also a main ingredient in several varnishes, and pretty much anything that has a smooth, shiny coat to it. Shellac was used for paints and varnishes long before it ever ended up in candy, so one has to wonder who it was that said “Let’s crush some paint chips and throw them into children’s candy”.

IEDs

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The infamous IED has become the notorious tool of insurgents, terrorists and other nice folk you see in church on Sunday. Many are composed of Urea Nitrate, which is almost as destructive as the more commonly employed Ammonium Nitrate, but much easier to obtain the ingredients for. You would think that there would be wide-spread efforts to limit the constituent ingredients in Urea Nitrate, except…

Actually, it’s made from piss.

Urea is a chemical that occurs naturally in human urine. Combine distilled urea with a powerful fertilizer (the nitrate in the name) and you get a hefty explosive that’s nearly impossible to prevent people from producing. Take comfort though; this disgusting, explosive additive is only an ingredient in…well pretty much everything.

Vanilla & Raspberry Flavoring

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When someone says vanilla or raspberry flavoring, you’re probably thinking of some incredibly artificial compound that emulates the taste of raspberry and vanilla without actually going anywhere near a vanilla bean or a raspberry. For most ingredients that fall under that dubious “artificial flavors” at the end of the Nutrition Facts, you’d be right. But sometimes the flavor comes from what can charitably be termed “natural ingredients” because, you see, your next bottle of raspberry-flavored juice…

Actually is flavored with beaver ass.

Specifically, a pair of glands in a beaver’s anus produce a scent known as castoreum (which is what it will show up as on the label, you’re welcome). This is…extracted and used by companies in a variety of products, no doubt leading to some of the strangest urban legends among beaver kind. But surely it can’t get any worse; surely consuming beaver’s ass in a small handful of products is something we can all live with. Surely there’s nothing disgusting in the food we consider day-to-day staples like bread or your morning bagel?

Bagels

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There are few things more wholesome and pure than a loaf of freshly-baked bread. How could something produced since prehistory that has sustained the caloric needs of western society for centuries be perverted? Well history never accounted for baldly opportunistic capitalism and so we’re left with bagels that…

Actually use human hair to stay light and fluffy.

If you’ve ever made bread at home, you know how impossible it is for even a very good chef to create light and fluffy bread with every batch. This is due to the fact that baking is actually an incredibly delicate process that requires just the right amount of ingredients, heat, and time to form an intricate glutamate structure that is the basis for good bread. The density of bagels makes this an even more frustrating process.
When you’re a company that produces millions of loaves each day, this imprecision starts to become a cost concern. Which is how l-cysteine became a common ingredient in mass-produced bread. L-cysteine is a naturally-occurring amino acid that, when added to dough, makes one kick ass loaf. The problem is the most plentiful and cheap source for this protein is human hair, largely sourced from China. Don’t worry though, a substitute has been found recently, so as much as 80% of L-cysteine that you will consume doesn’t come from human hair, your bagel is now produced using 100% duck feathers.

The Bra

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Let’s start out by stating a simple, unequivocal fact: boobs are pretty much 70% of the reason that men choose to continue living. That said, the bra has a tempestuous reputation as a symbol of male dominance, forcing women to wear an uncomfortable piece of clothing simply to allow their breasts to appear more perky and desirable. If a woman chooses not to wear a bra, suddenly she’s a slovenly hippie with no sense of class. Given its history, you’d think the bra was invented by a misogynist intent on the (admittedly noble) goal of making women’s breasts appear more desirable more frequently. But…

Actually, they were originally invented by a woman to liberate women.

Various versions of the bra have, unsurprisingly, popped up all throughout history. But as the Enlightenment waned in Europe, the standard of beauty for women ended up somewhere between Christina Hendricks and…well Christina Hendricks. For most normally-proportioned women, this meant wearing a corset — an incredibly stiff and uncomfortable article of clothing designed to slim the waist, accentuate the breasts, and making normal breathing impossible. In 1910, Mary Phelps Jacob, who was a little too…well endowed to comfortably wear a corset, decided that she’d had enough of these men telling her what to wear, and fashioned what became the first modern bra. The invention took off like wildfire, not because men were particularly enamored by it, (dudes. seriously. have you seen a woman in a corset?) but because women wanted a practical piece of clothing to support their breasts. So the next time someone over an A cup tells you that bras are a symbol of male oppression, ask them how comfortable they are jogging without a sports bra. Then tell them how much you respect women’s liberation. This may or may not end up well.

Fancy Perfume

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Back in the days when bathing was infrequent and no one cared how your breath smelled, a person’s stench was largely irrelevant for the unwashed masses. But thanks to hyper-modern innovations like personal hygiene, cleanliness and a sweet-smelling odor has become a premium. Nowadays, almost everyone has a can of Axe or some similarly putrid stench ready to spray on before a date in lieu of a shower. The more refined among us (read: probably no one reading and/or writing this) purchase fancy perfumes to create an illusion of hygiene where one may or may not exist, which is funny because…

Actually, these fancy perfumes used to be made from whale vomit/shit.

For those of you who haven’t read Moby Dick, some strange things happen in the digestive tract of a whale, one of which is the production of a substance known as Ambergris. This waxy substance was, for years, used in the production of the finest perfumes on Earth. Ambergris has been largely replaced with synthetics thanks to those pesky “Not hunting a beast on the brink of extinction” regulations. Though this doesn’t negate the fact that, at some point in history, someone picked up raw ambergris—which smells like feces—and thought “I could make some amazing scents with this”.

Skin Cream

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Human skin is a treacherous thing. Especially on the face, it can curse us with acne, chronic dryness, port-wine stains or herpes. When we age, it is one of the earliest and clearest indicators that our physical faculties are declining. Fortunately, there are literally hundreds of companies out there eager to sell you creams that will marginally reduce the aged-ness of your face, salving your mortality through conspicuous consumption. It’s best that you not think too hard about it, or—in case you haven’t learned anything yet—read the ingredients label because…

Actually, a lot of them are made with the oil sheep exude from their pores.

Have you ever not showered for a couple of days? You know how your hair gets oily? Now imagine you didn’t shower for your entire life and constantly grew your hair out several feet. That oily, disgusting sensation you feel right now is caused by lanolin, better known as the crap that accumulates in unwashed hair due to excretions from the sebaceous gland. Sheep, which are bred to do little more than eat, screw, grow hair and never bathe, produce a nauseating amount of this substance. It’s conveniently harvested and resold as a basis for many cosmetic creams, as well as a water-resistant lubricant. Strangely, they are not used in any personal (read: sexual) lubricants, which likely leads to many a lonely sheepherder in Scotland.

Booze

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Where would modern society be without booze? It’s difficult to imagine a world where a man or woman can’t come home from a long day’s work and crack open a cold one to relax and unwind. Not to say that booze doesn’t have both a hilarious and tragic downside. In fact, this sinful brew has been recently correlated with increased cancer rates as well as increased calls from your friend to “drink more, you pussy”. With all the debauchery, insanity, and danger surrounding alcohol, it’s difficult to imagine that humans managed to survive this long with it being readily available. The truth is that…

Actually, it was probably a staple food akin to bread.

To clarify, we’re not talking about the 6% ABV craft brews or even watery 3.2% Natty Ice. We’re talking about the earliest fermentations of alcohol, which were likely much smaller in alcohol content. Here’s the thing, a long time ago humans figured out that they could raise grains, and chew these grains raw in order to get nutrients. The problem is, chewing them was a laborious process, so humans invented bread. Now bread, and that other thing we need to survive called water, are very easily turned putrescent by bacteria. Fermenting grain into a bready-water, introduced alcohol—perhaps the world’s first anti-bacterial. Now humans had a meal that was both filling, hydrating, and—most importantly—capable of getting them totally blitzed.

 
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Everyone who’s been successful knows that more often than not the success comes down to a combination of hard work and luck. Ideas and skill are important too. But ultimately it’s the people who increase their chances of success through perseverance and hard work who are successful. Of course there are some people who owe their success more to luck than anything else (and we’ll look at ten of those people later in this article). The fact is we’re always going to have to let some of the puzzle pieces fall into place. We can’t micromanage the world. We can’t perfectly execute every detail down to the sub-atomic level of reality. What we can do as business people, is to create the best possible set of circumstances to achieve our goals, and then to let luck work itself out from there.

When I started out my online business I didn’t know what I was doing. I had some technical skills and I had a dream: to work for myself. I took a lot of stabs in the dark. The learning curve was steep. And I failed a whole lot. But I persevered and learned what works and what doesn’t work. The perseverance allowed me to learn how to improve my chances of “getting lucky.” And eventually I got “lucky” with a few small successes. And then duplicated the “luck” a few times and got even more lucky. It turns out that in business, “luck” can be controlled.

Because of the huge respect I have for the “luck” aspect of success, I decided it would be fun for BusinessPundit to put together a list of accidental discoveries that made people rich. And here’s that article:

Sometimes the most lucrative business discoveries come about by sheer chance. Here we bring together ten resourceful men whose incidental discoveries are a template for budding entrepreneurs looking to make a quick buck. While these finds may have come about by accident, it is no coincidence that they went on to generate huge profits. Each discovery exemplifies how with ingenuity, prudent investment in R&D and a bit of good fortune, companies and individuals can make billions. Most of these discoveries found many applications, which, with some skillful marketing, were able to take the world by storm. They offer valuable lessons in business that can help anyone to start a company.

10. Frank Epperson – Popsicle

Eleven-year-old Frank Epperson became part of American folk lore when on a cold winter’s night in 1905 he left a mixture of soda powder and water on his porch with a stirring stick inside the glass. He had unknowingly created the ice lollipop. But it was not until 18 years later, in 1923, while running a lemonade stand that he began to produce his frozen treats under the name ‘Eppsicles.’ Later the name was changed and by 1924 he had patented the ice lollipop and founded the Popsicle Corporation. The following year, he set up royalty arrangements with the Joe Lowe Corporation and sold his patent. By 1928 Epperson had received royalties on more than 60 million Popsicle sales. The year of his death in 1983, Unilever paid $155 million to Empire of Carolina Inc. for the Popsicle brand.

9. Harry Coover – Super Glue

At the height of WW2, American chemist Harry Coover and his research team at Eastman Kodak set out to make clear plastic gun sights using the highly adhesive chemical cyanoacrylate. They failed and instead were stuck with Super Glue. The idea took hold and by 1958 superglue was sold as a commercial product, while under Dr Coover’s direction the R&D team at Kodak helped introduce 320 new products, resulting in a $1.8 billion to $2.5 billion sales growth. However, the company was never able to fully capitalize on his discovery after it sold the business to National Starch in 1980. Dr Coover also developed the glue for medical use and during the Vietnam War it was used as an aersol treatment for wounded soldiers. Today it has applications in surgery and to stop bleeding ulcers. Dr Coover was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by Barack Obama in 2010 and by the time of his death last month, he held 460 patents.

8. William Henry Perkin – Mauveine

English chemist William Henry Perkin was just 18 when in 1856 he stumbled upon the synthetic dye mauveine while trying to produce a medicine for malaria. He quickly patented the process and the following year built the world’s first organic chemical factory at Greenford Green, near London. The dye proved immensely popular and was considered the height of fashion when Queen Victoria wore a mauve silk gown at the Royal Exhibition in 1862. By the late 1860s the dye, also known as aniline purple, had lost its appeal, but Perkin had already made his fortune. Soon after he turned 36, he sold his factory and was able to live off the profits and buy a much bigger home laboratory where he devoted himself to research.

7. Roy Plunkett – Teflon

American researcher Roy Plunkett was experimenting with gases for Freon refrigerants for Dupont in 1938 when he inadvertently left a sample out overnight. By morning, it had frozen to a whitish wax. But rather than consign the lump to the trash, he tested it to discover some of its very unusual properties. By 1945 it was trademarked as Teflon and Dupont managed to find a wealth of applications for its latest profit maker, from kitchenware to cable insulation. Plunkett stayed with the company and at the time of his retirement in 1975, he was director of operations for Freon products. Teflon has since earned billions for Dupont. It goes to show how prudent investment in R&D, combined with a spot of luck, can help businesses generate mass profits.

6. Leo Hendrik Baekeland – Bakelite

Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland became the patriarch of the plastics when in 1907 he developed the polymer Bakelite, used in radios telephones and kitchenware. He had been searching for a replacement for shellac, a varnish for coating and preserving wood products. When he thought he had come close, he heated his shellac-like substance in an iron pressure cooker, his “bakelizer”. With that, plastic was born and in 1910 Baekeland founded the General Bakelite Company. The plastic was marketed as “the material of a thousand uses,” and it comes as no surprise that his discovery drew imitations, leading Bakelite products to carry logos of authenticity. Academics say Baekeland was not the original ‘accidental discoverer.’ Adolf von Baeyer had experimented with phenol and formaldehyde in 1872 to produce a lump with the same properties, which he threw in the trash. Though Bakelite, no doubt made Baekeland wealthier, he was already a made man following his earlier discovery of Velox, a paper processing technique, which he sold for around $1m. Asked by friends why he entered the polymers industry, he reportedly replied: “To make money.” He got his wish and sold the company to Union Carbide in 1939. But, as though proof that money can’t buy you love, he fell into decline, became reclusive and started eating all his meals from cans after falling out with his son. Bakelite became unfashionable from the ’50s onwards, but products made from the polymer have enjoyed a small revival more recently as retro commodities.

5. Robert Chesebrough – Vaseline

Twenty-two year old Brooklyn chemist Robert Chesebrough was in Pennsylvania in 1859 and looking to establish himself in the oil industry. He was down an oil well when he discovered a gooey substance known by workers as ‘rod wax.’ Chesebrough noticed how the workers would use the goo to heal cuts and burns. The entrepreneurial-minded chemist took a sample home for experimentation. Soon he managed to extract a usable petroleum jelly and in 1872 he patented the process before setting up business. By the late 1880s Chesebrough was selling Vaseline to Americans at the rate of one jar per minute. International operations began as early as the 1870s when his company opened an office in London with subsidiaries in Spain and France. By 1911, it began opening plants and factories in Europe, Canada, and Africa. Chesebrough died in 1933, but his company continued to reap the rewards of his discovery for decades. Shortly before Chesebrough-Ponds was sold to Unilever in 1987, it was generating over $75m dollars in profits.

4. Joseph McVicker – Play-Doh

Before it became the beloved children’s toy it is today, for 22 years Play-Doh was a wallpaper cleaner. In 1954 American Joe McVicker was working for Kutol, the company producing the dough-like substance when his sister-in-law approached him with an idea. She had taken some of the non-toxic cleaner to the nursery where she worked. The kids went wild and McVicker immediately saw a commercial opportunity. He added colorants and gave the dough a pleasant almond scent. He soon established his company, Rainbow Crafts, as a subsidiary of Kutol. Thanks to his business acumen, McVickers secured a TV ad campaign for his product, a deal unheard of for a start-up company at the time. Kutol continued to sell cans of wallpaper cleaner for 34 cents, but sold Play-Doh, the same stuff, for $1.50 a can. Play-Doh propelled Kutol’s sales from under $100,000 in 1954 to $3m within just four years. In 1960 McVicker filed for a patent and split Rainbow Crafts from Kutol. He was shipping a million-plus cans a year when he began exporting to Europe in 1964. Soon after, General Mills offered McVicker $3m for his company, the equivalent of $18m today. He accepted.

3. Arthur Fry – Post-it note

American scientist Arthur Fry was given a gift from God on a Sunday in 1973 when he came up with the idea for the post-it note while singing in his church choir. The 3M researcher had earlier attended a seminar by retired company scientist Spencer Silver. Silver had discovered a unique adhesive but had yet to find a commercially viable application. Fry’s eureka moment came when the scrap paper he had used to bookmark his hymnbook continuously fell out causing him to lose his page. He thought of Silver’s adhesive. “If I could coat it on paper,” he said, “that would be just the ticket for a better bookmark.” He began experimenting and with his new product sent messages to his boss. It was then he discovered that its best application was as a note. It took another seven years before the product was launched nationally after reservations from management, but today more than 400 post-it products are sold throughout 100 countries worldwide, with some 6 billion post-it notes sold every year. Fry earned a promotion for his part and is now enjoying a comfortable retirement.

2. Percy Spencer – Microwave Oven

American engineer Percy Spencer was experimenting with a device used to detect enemy planes during WW2 when the microwaves transmitted from the radar melted a candy bar in his pocket. He began testing with popcorn and eggs and invited a colleague to witness his findings. The colleague saw how the egg would shake as it heated. As he marveled at this spectacle, the egg splattered over his face. Spencer began a secret project codenamed “The Speedy Weenie,” meaning quick hot dog. By the late 1940s, Raytheon secured a patent for the use of microwaves to cook food. For the first decade microwaves were large and expensive, but by 1975, 14% of American households were cooking by microwave. Spencer, who held 150 patents during his lifetime, became Senior Vice President and a senior member of the Board of Directors at Raytheon. His legacy helped the microwave manufacturer turn over $25bn last year.

1. George de Mestral – Velcro

Finally, a valuable lesson in resourcefulness. Swiss engineer George de Mestral was taking a morning stroll through the countryside in 1941 when he noted how hard it was to remove the flowers of mountain thistle from his trousers and his dog’s coat. He examined the burdock burrs under a microscope and saw hundreds of small hooks that explained the thistle’s adhesive properties. With his scientific background, de Mestral set out to invent an innovative new fastening system. Ten years later, Velcro was born. De Mestral obtained a patent in Switzerland and his product began to hit the shelves throughout Europe by the late ’50s. However, it took some time before he would see a return on his efforts. Velcro was not popularized until the ’70s when NASA astronauts began to use it for space suits and to secure food pouches. De Mestral was selling over sixty million yards of Velcro per year before he sold the company and worldwide patent rights to Velcro SA, a Swiss company (later Velcro International). Before he left he gave the company executives some sound advice: “If any of your employees ask for a two-week holiday to go hunting, say yes.” According to his wife he lived on royalties and profits from his Swiss factory for the remaining 30 years of his life.

Crowdsourcing, which involves a community of anonymous people completing a given task, has become an attractive labor model. Everyone’s seeking it out, from solopreneurs needing transcriptions to Fortune 500 companies looking for answers to complex scientific problems. Here are 50 ways to crowdsource just about everything you can think of.

Accommodation

Image: Antony J Shepherd/Flickr

1. While hotels offer predictable accommodations and quality, sometimes you need something different. Like an entire oceanview flat, or an ultrabudget basement room in the heart of a city’s university area. Sites like AirBnB and VRBO let you search rooms, apartments and houses listed for (nightly) rent by their owners. When you book through the site, the owner gets everything but the small cut taken by the booking site. Ideally, you get the kind of different vacation or business travel accommodations that you’re looking for.

Advertising

2. With its network of video producers, copywriters, graphic designers, and other kinds of artists, GeniusRocket crowdsources custom advertising for your organization. It takes care of the nitty-gritty aspects of dealing with herds of people while keeping everything proprietary. You provide direction on the end result, they guarantee the rest. They are perhaps the next evolution of the ad agency: the ad curator.

3. GiantHydra is another ad agency curator that uses the “heads” of its hydra to create customer, crowdsourced ad and marketing solutions. Like GeniusRocket, it vets everyone involved in projects, then fishes together the right team for the campaign. The client company’s Creative Director oversees progress. At the end of each “mass collaboration” project, the team, rather than the winner, is rewarded.

Zooppa is another site that crowdsources the creation of complete ad campaigns. IdeaBounty is more of a branding-focused crowdsourcing site.

Algorithms

4. TunedIT specializes in crowdsourcing data mining and data-driven algorithms. They pose both industrial and scientific challenges, with student contests to boot. The best algorithm wins the payout.

Brainstorming

Image: /Flickr

5. In his book “The Smart Swarm,” author Peter Miller relays the fact that the most effective kind of swarm involves smart people who specialize in a variety of tasks. Atizo, a crowdsourced brainstorming site, harnesses this idea. From naming a unique company to marketing ideas to product concepts, this Swiss site lets you collect hundreds of ideas from people across disciplines. Its innovative payment system is based on points, which brainstormers can accrue in a variety of ways.

6. If you want to focus on the kinds of fresh ideas that young people provide, Brainrack is an idea and solution site with an army of students brainstorming behind it. Prize money gets divvied up between the best 15 ideas. Kluster is another brainstorming site to check out.

7. There’s also a DIY option in this space. If you want ideas for new products or services, or even how you conduct business, take an example from Dell. The computer giant’s IdeaStorm website lets consumers submit their ideas for new Dell products and services, as well as anything else that strikes users’ fancies. Dell doesn’t define the topics, leaving its users creative space. Of the 15,000 or so ideas it has received to date, the company has used more than 400. If you’re a smaller operation, you can do something similar through a Twitter list or a Facebook group (or your fan page) devoted to the topic.

Broadway Plays

8. Ken Davenport is producing the musical Godspell this year exclusively with crowdsourced funding. One share of the musical costs $100, and investors have to buy a minimum of ten shares. This entry ticket pales in comparison to the usual Broadway investor minimum of $25,000. Godspell needs a total budget of $5 million, relatively meager compared to other plays. Davenport, who had to pass a finance exam in order to sell the shares of his play in the first place, runs a site called The People of Godspell to continue the effort.

Business Innovation

9. Innovation Exchange, like many crowdsourcers, runs contests that award winners with a cash prize. They focus on the business side of innovation, such as products, services, and processes. Companies submit problems to the site, then facilitators pull together teams from diverse backgrounds to tackle them. Challenges range from marketing ideas and ad campaigns to better packaging and transport. (Though the site doesn’t advertise its challenges as being technical, some of the challenges do require a technical background.)

Cancer Treatment

10. Cancer Commons’ goal is to provide patients with the best cancer treatment possible through crowdsourced information. Doctors, scientists and patients contribute to the effort by sharing treatment results (based on the tumor’s genomic subtype) and using that knowledge to figure out how to best treat the next person. The website also aims to outsmart the shortfalls of Big Pharma’s randomized clinical trials by gathering volumes of specific information.

Collectibles

11. These guys have quite the niche. Colnect is a crowdsourced collectibles catalogue on which collectors display hundreds of thousands of stamps, coasters, phone cards, and other things they’d gathered. Call it the crowdsourced anti-print catalogue. Users have both wish lists and swap lists, so people in this little industry can fine-tune their collections.

Data Entry and Digitizing

12. Microtask crowdsources your data entry and digitizing of handwritten forms to a mixture of people and machines. Instead of being able to select their assignments, human Microtaskers work through a queue of seconds-long tasks for as long as they’re available to do them. This is what the New York Times calls an “online assembly line.” Companies use these information factory workers full-time; Microtask’s software facilitates the process and guarantees results.

Donations

Image: eperales/Flickr

13. “If you don’t give back nobody will like you” is Crowdrise’s motto. While certain politicians and beloved-by-investor corporations continually prove this statement wrong, there’s something to it, and Crowdrise knows that. Basically, you create a profile, put up your cause (or join someone else’s), message via existing social media sources, and network. Eventually, unless everyone still hates you, you’ll get the money you need.

Finding a Mortgage

14. You know those automated mortgage comparison sites? SmartHippo isn’t too different, except that it’s powered by a human community, which gives you a more personal touch—and potentially more accurate information—during your mortgage hunt.

Forecasting and Data Prediction

15. If you have reams of data and want trained eyes to tell you more about it, hit up the statistical analysis crowdsourcer Kaggle. There, teams of data scientists can predict everything from the speed of freeway traffic at a certain time of day to the ratio of people who will default on their bank loans. The team with the best data prediction model wins your prize.

Graphic Design

16. Your website design, logos, business cards, pamphlets, and more can all be crowdsourced now. 99Designs is a contest site where you submit your concept and let a pool of more than 100,000 designers compete for your prize. At the end, you get the design and the copyright. ReDesignMe is another website to check out in this space.

CrowdSpring is a similar website that specializes in small business graphic design. It also offers a host of writing services, from opinion articles to company naming. It also operates on a prize-based model. Squadhelp is another site that crowdsources web design and marketing, also with a focus on small businesses.

17. Minted is more of a niche crowdsourcer. It only crowdsources paper designs, especially cards, announcements, wedding invites, and other kinds of stationary. Their open design competitions are, unlike many other crowdsourcing sites, democratic: Users vote the best designs to the top.

Ideas

Image: kinmortal/Flickr

18. Tapping your Twitter followers will help you gain real-time input on your products, services, and anything else you need to know. Depending on how much feedback you want, and how detailed you want it to be, you may want to offer an incentive such as a prize. You can also join or create Twitter lists for ongoing collaboration and discussion. Using Twitter doesn’t require an intermediary, it’s fast, and it harnesses people you’re already familiar with.

19. Facebook is another way of doing just that. Through a private group or by using your fan page, you can collect rapid-fire feedback for your company. As with Twitter, offering a prize will often get you more responses. You can also use the site for ongoing collaboration.

Innovation (B2B)

20. Some big corporations have set up proprietary networks to crowdsource their innovation. For example, P&G Connect + Develop, Procter & Gamble’s invite-only open innovation website, lets companies work with the consumer products giant on its innovation. Only select companies can participate, and ideas aren’t visible to everyone. While P&G has the heft and leverage to pull off this kind of proprietary network, if you’re a small business owner, you can also crowdsource innovation through private groups on Facebook.

Investing

21. EquitySplash says it’s “crowdsourcing Wall Street” by letting users invest in a fund (their ownership is proportional to their investment), then having them buy and trade individual picks via a proprietary platform. The outcome of each trade gets spread around the fund. It sounds fun, unless you’re the one making all the bad trades.

22. Through StockTwits, you can network with a huge community of traders around the world, riding their coattails, adding to the info pool, or being a revered lead-dog trader yourself. It doesn’t just run through Twitter, either—you can get tools, widgets, data feeds, and more off their website.

Lawn Mowing

Image: Giovanni Guisi/Flickr

23. Who said you couldn’t crowdsource cutting grass? Put in an order on Lawn Mowing Online, and someone from your area will come over and cut your grass the next day, for $19 and up. Anyone with a lawnmower, digital camera and computer can compete for a gig on this site. As a result, moonlighters and professionals are available at a moment’s notice, all from one central website.

Loans

24. If the bank won’t lend you money, or if you’re looking to make a better interest rate than the measly one banks are currently offer, peer-to-peer lenders like Prosper offer alternatives. Find real people to lend to or from. With more than 1 million users and $227 million lended, Prosper is money.

Marketing Research

25. If you need to build and organize a client database, run marketing surveys, or even just sort your existing information, the dutiful Clickworkers will hand it over with characteristic German efficiency. They also crowdsource things like writing instruction manuals and glossaries.

Mobile Testing

26. If you’re developing anything on a mobile platform, Mob4Hire can basically crowdsource the entire development process you, using a swarm of more than 45,000 testers on more than 300 carriers around the world. They give you feedback in every stage of the development cycle, helping you bring your product to market quickly and efficiently.

Music

Image: Cerebro Humano/Flickr

27. When millions of users share their playlists, streaming individual songs to other users who want to listen to them real-time, you have one massive crowdsourced music system. That system’s name is Spotify, and its technology lets users listen to just about any song they want to—with the exception of a few with licensing issues, like Oasis in the UK—on demand and for free.

28. If you want to crowdsource your music making, MusikPitch lets you tap the swarm for custom songs, compositions, jingles, background music—you name it. is the first site for crowdsourcing custom songs and music compositions. You name the kind of music you want and what you’re willing to pay, then sic the crowd on the task. The winner gets your prize.

Patent Research

29. Patent validation can be a horribly time-consuming pain, and Article One Partners has the panacea. Their network of more than one million patent researchers digs up patents and any research around them on command, saving time and migraines. Article One lets you communicate with your researchers to make sure you get the precise results you need. As with many crowdsourcing sites, the best or most extensive research, as determined by you, wins your monetary prize.

Philanthropy

30. You have the means. You have an idea of the societal problem you want to address. But you’re not sure how to put your funds or available grants to best use. Enter Philoptima, which crowdsources the design and implementation of nonprofit programs for people who have money, but need good solutions. Whoever finds the winning solution gets the cash prize.

Photography

Image: Fabian Reus/Flickr

31. In the traditional stock photo industry, photographers would license their images to established companies, like Getty Images, and receive fees whenever someone bought those photos. As a result, photographers could establish a passive income stream–say, $50 every time someone bought a photo. iStockPhoto disrupted this system by letting amateur photographers, generally more concerned with getting their names out than making money, sell their photos for $1 a pop. Legions of amateurs filled the site with cheap and, with numbers on their side, many high-quality photos. This changed the stock photo industry forever. Getty ended up buying it.

32. Yahoo-owned Flickr hosts hundreds of thousands of users who display their photography on the site. Many of these users let you use the photo for free—with credit—via specific Creative Commons licenses. All you have to do is find the picture and credit it appropriately. Many such Flickr users have excellent photographs, meaning that companies seeking to crowdsource that function have good prospects here.

Preventing Poverty

33. Yes, even the act of preventing downward mobility has been crowdsourced. The Modest Needs foundation has people with serious financial emergencies write about their issues online. Readers then donate whatever amount of money they can afford until the person’s “modest need” is met. The organization performs due diligence on the people in need, making the website legit and free of scammers.

Project Management

34. Smartsheet is a project collaboration tool with integrated crowdsourced labor. You use their software to collaborate with your remote team on the project, and plug in labor wherever in the process you need it. The software has HR, IT, marketing, and product management features integrated, kind of a one-stop shop for both collaboration and labor.

Protests and Causes

Image: Dave Watts/Flickr

35. Got cause? CrowdVoice can help. By tracking protests around the world, it gives you a central place to find cutting-edge information about your cause and what people are doing about it. CrowdVoice collates news, video, and social media information, so it saves you time and effort in finding the crucial updates you need.

Publicity

36. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) matches up experts and businesspeople with reporters to create a symbiotic source/PR relationship. You scan your daily HAROs and see if there’s something you can comment on; reporter publishes or airs a story with your commentary in it. Bingo—instant PR, without the legwork.

Quality Assurance (QA)

37. uTest offers on-demand, crowdsourced mobile, web, gaming, and desktop application testing. They offer usability, functional and load testing, by nearly 38,000 testers in more than 170 countries. They offer custom quotes in advance, too, so you know exactly what you’re getting into.

Scientific or Technical Problems

38. Familiar with RNA sequencing, chemical derivatives, or GUIs? Then you might be the kind of user that InnoCentive seeks out to solve companies’ pressing technical problems. Geared at braniacs, and offering handsome prizes for the winning idea, InnoCentive lets companies tap a global community of more than 200,000 users to solve the problems they can’t figure out internally. Those users, in turn, attempt to tackle the problem for a prize. Companies select their winners—and gain a whole bunch of alternative solutions from non-winners in the process.

39. Like InnoCentive, Idea Connection taps the brains of engineers, scientists and other tech-oriented people to solve difficult problems. Unlike InnoCentive, however, Idea Connection is facilitated, and keeps much of its information confidential. Companies come to the service with their challenges, and Idea Connection acts as a middleman, seeking out input from users via collaborative intranets. Companies can customize how much input they get and how much they pay; Idea Connection takes care of the rest. With that level of service, one wonder about the size of the cut that Idea Connection takes vis-à-vis other crowdsourcing helpers.

40. There are more companies in this space. Consultant Nine Sigma also provides a high level of service, helping companies customize the kinds of structures they need to support open innovation, as well as facilitating open innovation processes. Hypios is another company that provides a platform to outsource your R&D.

Tedious Tasks

Image: Theodore Lee/Flickr

41. If your business involves QAing software or content, or perhaps transcribing, finding things online, tagging, or any of the other miscellaneous tasks that come up in your business, there are a couple places that can help out.

42. Mechanical Turk, powered by Amazon.com, lets you splice up your task into minute pieces, enabling you to crowdsource those slices of the project to hundreds of people at the same time. As a result, you’ll get your entire project done faster, because loads of Mechanical Turk providers finish their own slices in the time span you allot. You can get a project that would have taken days done in hours or even minutes this way.

43. CrowdFlower, formerly known as Dolores Labs, is a similar service. It harnesses its millions of users to take on parsed sections of bigger projects, many of the same nature as Mechanical Turk’s. Indeed, CrowdFlower sources people through Mechanical Turk (and several other places). They can also help with custom projects for small businesses, as well as enterprise-level crowdsourcing projects.

Translation

44. Starting at 5 cents per word, you can have your content translated by a crowd of 1,200 translators around the world on MyGengo. The Japanese company offers translation in 11 languages. The site’s simple, intuitive interface and pay model make human translation almost as easy as plugging something into a machine translator—but with more accuracy, of course.

Transportation

45. Zipcar is pretty well-known as an easy way to rent a car by the hour, but there are other services that make sense. Car2Go is Austin’s answer to Zipcar; RelayRides takes the community aspect one step further by letting you rent from independent car owners, by the hour or by the day. They’re only in Boston and San Francisco so far, but will hopefully spread to new cities soon.

Video

46. Poptent crowdsources commercials, virals, how-tos and all of the other video needs today’s companies have. Basically a social network for people who make videos, Poptent gathers assignments by mostly Fortune 500 hundred companies, lists them on its site, and Poptent members create videos with the given content and creative brief. After users finish the assignments, the company picks their favorite and pays.

47. Tongal’s tagline is “where the best ideas meet the best filmmakers,” and that pretty much sums up the collaborative videomaking contest website. If you want an ad, you put up your project and prize, and let the masses compete. Users can also be paid based on the number of times people download their videos, so all is not lost, even if a user loses a contest.

Waste Disposal

Image: University of Scranton/Flickr

48. If you have something you want to get rid of, chances are someone in TerraCycle’s crowd is willing to do it for you. They specialize in both recyclables and “upcyclables,” things that you don’t want, but someone else can use. eCycler is another crowdsourcer that focuses solely on recyclables; Freecycle, on the other hand, is the ideal place to dispose of and pick up things to upcycle.

Writing

49. If you need a press release in an hour, content on the quick, translation, or proofreading/editing, Serv.io has officially parsed the single human being formerly known as the writer into an anonymous online crowd of college students, stay-at-home parents, unemployed people, and anyone else seeking a quick job fix. It’s quick, because Serv.io guarantees a 24-hour turnaround time; the proofreaders and other service providers are sourced through sister site CloudCrowd.com. They attract these users in part through quick assignments and guaranteed next-day pay. Sadly, Serv.io automates the personal communication that generally makes writers more effective to a client, and it doesn’t let you use the same writer twice.

50. LetterRep.com takes an interesting slant on niche writing. For $25, you can get a letter—any letter—written in 24 hours. We’re talking letters of acceptance, resignation, hypothecation, rejection, and anything else you can dream up. In a nod to the former glory days of copyright, LetterRep pays writers again if existing letters get purchased more than once.

Despite the world’s trials and tribulations, it seems like a lot of inventors are hell-bent on creating products which are nothing more than a worthless gimmick. This is because people would rather try and buy their way to health and happiness than work toward it. Money-hungry inventors and investors are all too eager to give the lazy and stupid what they want: useless crap which promises to improve the quality of life while really serving no more purpose than a dust-gathering end table in an unused room. Here are 15 of the most worthless inventions to ever separate a fool and his (or her) money.

The Dumbell Cane

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Like olde tyme fitness in an olde tyme way? Then you need the Dumbell Cane from the early 1900′s! Invented by what we assume was an olde tyme scientist, the Dumbell Cane was essentially a very heavy cane with a nickel top. This was more likely used to club unruly man servants and those jerks on the Hi-Wheel bicycles.

Get a Grip Wine Glass Grip

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Have you ever said to yourself, “Gosh, I’m too stupid to properly hold a wine glass!”? Do you wonder how you might make it abundantly clear that you are a clod in front of a group of sophisticated wine drinkers? Look no further! The “Get a Grip” wine glass grip puts a bright red grip on your wine glass that says to the world, “I am probably a toddler, and you should call child services right now.”

Prosthetic Dog Balls

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Do you feel bad about what you did to Rover? No, not the peanut butter thing, the other thing when you took him to the vet and got his nuts removed? What is your best friend going to lick for the rest of his life? The answer is Neuticles! Neuticles allows your dog’s junk to return to its former glory. Now he’ll have something to do while you visit your therapist.

Cleavage Coverage

Let’s face it: boobies are distracting. You don’t want to be doing a kidney operation when the nurse leans over to help and gives you a clear view of her meat jugs. Fortunately, there’s Camiband! Now when that hot chick goes to work, she can wear this and pretend people take her seriously.

The Flatulence Deodorizer

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After years of failure with corks, the inventor of this gadget decided to go in a different direction. Why not stop butt gas near its source? The Flatulence Deodorizer is kind of nice way of saying “Fart Tampon”. But unless your gas is SBD, the noise is probably still going to give you away.

Cat Wigs

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Finally, something for bald cats! Cat Wigs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. It’s the perfect gift for your crazy cat lady that isn’t quite crazy enough. It’s probably the same kind of people that tried to order Kitten Mittens. It is highly doubtful that a cat would ever tell its owner about a desire to own a wig and mittens, and much more likely that weird single women across America are struggling to force these stupid inventions on their poor, squirming cats who want nothing more than to be left alone to their windowsills and strings.

The Dog Sack

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Like your dog enough to take him on a drive, but not enough to let him in the car? The 1950′s had the answer… Kind of. It’s a Dog…Sack…thing. Just fasten old Rover in this bag and I’m sure he’ll remain perfectly still while you barrel through traffic at 60 mph. It’s a good thing pets were disposable in those days.

Phone Fingers

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It’s not really clear what demographic of people would be interested in this product, but for those have a weird rubber fetish and/or love the tiny finger condoms used at the dentist, Phone Fingers is the way to go. Why look like an idiot pounding the touch screen while wearing gloves, when you can look like a douche from the not-too-distant future? It’s truly a product that says to the world, “I’ll buy anything that’s in a Sky Mall catalogue.”

Subway Chinrest

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No, this isn’t a device for Jared, the fast food spokesman if he gained back all his weight, it’s actually a device for people to lean their chins on in the subway. It was marketed in Japan, the only country where this might not look completely insane. But finally, Bill O’Reilly has something to hold up his giant forehead if he gets too tired.

The Pizza Fork

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Sadly, this is not a fork made out of pizza, which would at least be delicious. It is instead a fork with a pizza cutter on the handle. It’s sort of like a lame Swiss Army Knife for people too lazy to wash utensils AND cook.

The Plow Gun

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We don’t know what kind of farm the inventor was running to build this, but it must’ve been pretty bad. When you have to take your turnips hostage or shoot your mule in a hurry, this invention from 1826 is for you. Either way, you’re not getting on a plane with this baby.

Fork Alarm

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And you thought the Pizza Fork was going to be the dumbest fork on the list. This invention has a timer that allows the user to know when its time to take another bite. Still, you have to understand that it was patented in 1995, a crazy era for forks and timed eating. Seinfeld was still on the air and if you could be “Master of Your Domain” you at least had to be master of your fork.

Helicopter Ejection Seat

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No one wants to go down with the chopper, but is it better to get ripped to shreds instead? The Helicopter Ejection Seat probably had good intentions, but the guys that invented it just didn’t think it through. Maybe a Helicopter trap door would work better.

The Prostate Gland Warmer

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Patented in 1918, the prostate gland warmer was suppose to stimulate a man’s “abdominal brain”. Instead it ended up more like an alien probe sans the alien. From the looks of that invention, it may have been adapted for the ladies later on.

The Useless Box

Even more useless than a computer floppy drive or Ryan Seacrest, the Useless Box performs as advertised. It’s a robot whose only function is to turn itself off. Now if only they could somehow adapt it so it would work on Joe Biden’s mouth.