'UNNOVATIONS'
The 24/7 Work Week Enough already! Everybody should have a day of rest – no work, no noise, no obligations, and all communication on a strictly voluntary basis and conducted face-to-face or in pen and ink on nice paper. We need a Sabbath. This doesn’t have to be a religious thing, although many sensible religions require it. The Muslims say Friday. The Jews say Saturday. The Christians say Sunday. I say “Three Day Weekend!” The Juicero Juicer This is Steven’s top “unnovation” – a $400 juicer that’s been the darling of Silicon Valley and also the darling of Silicon Valley gadget start-up funding. Let me repeat the Juicero’s price. $400 . Because... Because when you put fruit and vegetables into the Juicero juicer it produces... juice. You also have to pay for weekly deliveries of special Juicero prepackaged fruits and vegetables. The Juicero then presses these fruits and vegetables with enough force to, according to the company’s literature, “lift two Teslas.” LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY IS READING OUR MINDS. As wewent to press, Juicero announced it was shuttering its business... destroying more than $100 million in venture funding in the process. Despite its lofty price tag, the company lost money on each juicer sold. Count this "innovation" as unnovated.
in our lives. It’s none of the government’s business whether I’m employed or not. (In fact, since I haven’t held a “real job” since 1981, I’m not sure myself.) The same goes for... Political Polling You’ll recall what it got us by way of presidential candidates last year. Movie Special Effects When special effects were limited to ketchup and blank cartridges for tommy guns we got The Godfather . Now, with highly sophisticated computer-generated imagery, we get Captain America Fights the Civil War With Doctor Strange and the Guardians of the Galaxy at Spider-Man’s Homecoming Dance . PowerPoint Presentations They violate the “PowerPoint Rule” – If something is so complex that it needs PowerPoint to explain it, it’s too complex to be explained with PowerPoint. The Social Sciences They’re not science and they’re not social unless you like hanging out with weird academic types. Sociology is bad chick lit. Anthropology is lousy travel writing. And Psychology is vicious gossip.
32 | September 2017
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