HA! Funny movie. Zug zug.

Sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll.
But not Smartypants.

I was going to list:
6. Gibson Les Paul

Kind of ironic, but maybe the internet would be a nice addition?

Antibiotics should probably be number one on the list. There’s not a single invention in history that’s done more to improve our quality of life. The transistor should also be pretty far up there, as should interchangeable parts and the assembly line.

Re:There’s not a single invention in history that’s done more to improve our quality of life.

Psalms 90:9,10
“For all our days have come to their decline in your fury;
We have finished our years just like a whisper.
In themselves the days of our years are seventy years;
And if because of special mightiness they are eighty years,
Yet their insistence is on trouble and hurtful things;
For it must quickly pass by, and away we fly.”

Antibiotics aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, in my opinion.

Jpad, right on about antibiotics.

How about?:

The telegraph - enabled for first time, really, the coordination of distant events & schedules/trains.

Seaworthy clocks - allowing for rationalized navigation.

There’s a BBC show that I used to watch, where this guy would take one simple “technology” (something we take for granted and see as rather mundane and obvious), and shows how revolutionary it was and how much it effected history.

The modern world is such an amazing web of such a myriad of interdependent inventions & discoveries, it’s hard to prioritize them. Take the discovery of antibiotics - I’ll bet we can name ten prior inventions/discoveries that the discovery of antibiotics depended upon - take away one of them and no antibiotics.

And that interests me too: what is the difference between a discovery or an invention? Are all inventions merely discoveries? Was the airfoil invented - or did we merely discover it in nature?

beer...

How about Pasteur?

I just thought that it was interesting that 3 out of at least the top 10 most important inventions of all time have specifically to do with typography. That means we are cool.

DanGayle,

I’d go even further: every one of them has to do with typography. That makes us supercool :-)

I second the beer, and I’d like to nominate wine and coffee.

SARAN WRAP

In The 2000 Year Old Man, Mel Brooks tells Carl Reiner that “the greatest thing mankind ever devised, I think, in my humble opinion, is Saran Wrap.” Why? Because “you can put a sandwich in it! You can look through it!...It’s so good and cute.”

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989802-1,00.html

Or, you could argue, sliced bread. Since you hear all the time, “it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread”

I just recently saw Caveman for the first time in over 25 years... last time I saw was in the theatre with my sister. Still offers some good laughs.

My thoughts on what are the some of the most important discoveries / inventions:
•Shoes (I cannot imagine not having shoes, it would suck not having them)
•Red Bull (for sometimes helping me start design jobs)
•Grey Goose (for sometimes helping me finish them)
•OS X (because using OS 9 pretty much become my own personal bug-ridden hell)
•Ramen Noodles (for keeping me alive during some very difficult times)

I was going to list:
6. Gibson Les Paul
Well, you’d get my support. Timeless design, great tone, and no other guitar I’d had sustained a note quite the same way. Mine turns 20 this year, I should celebrate by buying another.

BEER AND WINE. Sex is choice as well. Does that count?

Muzz

Uh... Muzzer - I don’t think you can call sex an invention. A discovery, maybe.

Dan, the rule about talking about the president of Iran applies to pictures too.

Anyway mark me down for beer and nuclear bombs - both in short supply in Iran, so I hear.

6. Gibson Les Paul

Bah - only if you want to end up bent over and at the chiropractor. SG - forever.

Just kidding guys - I like the Les Paul tone but man wearing one every night is just too painful…

I have 1968 SG Custom with 3 pickups, a fretless wonder neck and gold hardware. I don’t need no stinking Les Paul… :)

peace

The steam engine — helping to melt the polar ice caps ever since its invention.

(Bit of gallows humor there, sorry.)

Paul - I’ve got a 1961 SG with gold hardware as well. One day I’ll get it refretted with gold wire and get some gold humbucker covers too.

I vote SG.

- Lex

Vision correction.

(How many of the top 10 listed here are useful if you can’t see?)

Oh, did anyone say indoor plumbing and clothing? I’d be very cold in New York without them.

This + Lipsticks + Mirrors?!

Sex — invention / discovery? I think it depends on how it’s done!

Personally, I’d include a bunch of mathematics in the list.

Just a little reminder. Most of these inventions apply to very small wealthy part of the human kind, unfortunately. Internet (two per cent?), electricity, sometimes even wheel, medicines and writing are still unknown/inaccessible for many.

_______
AL
lenart.pl

Art.

Vision correction. (...)
Art (...)
(...) coffee (...)

and I’d like to replace this:

OS X

By Free Open Source Software (FOSS), UNIX, and the C programming language, which got us where we are.

>which got us where we are.

I really don’t think you can blame these things for ’where we are’

> I’ve got a 1961 SG with gold hardware as well.

Lex - you’re obviously a man with superb taste… :)

No Fender players here?

peace

Chalk up another vote for the SG. (Chrome hardware only for me thanks...)

Art? If I can’t vote for sex then art is out as well! As far ai I know we have always been artists.

Muzz

Flint
Bronze
Iron
Fulcrum & lever
Pulley
Vaccination
Bikini

Tim

- manned flight
- mass production
- the transistor
- motor vehicles
- irrigation

Many of these inventions/ideas have spurred fundamental changes in the way we interact with the world and each other, as well as spawning enormous related systems (such as the road system for cars). Their relative goodness or badness is debatable.

- legal property rights

Vacations

ChrisL

PS: Patty who first discovered sex? It wasn’t Adam because he’s been taking a ribbing for it :-)

To know to be
Communication
Music
Books - more books - even more books
But the most exciting discovery for me in my life was:
my wife - again and again, since 24 years.

Georg

Chris - sex was probably discovered by an early invertebrate many gazillions of years before humans were (unfortunately) invented. But I’m no biologist.

Georg - you have a lucky wife to be so loved.

God

kink

music

art

sushi

g-spot
music
cooking

sushi — I guess that rules out cookery.
but not wasabi.

Music

Air travel

Language (although not necessarily languages… ;-) )

Letters, letter drawing, typography, and printing! :-D

And British television

Lagavulin (16 year) & Talisker

Theatre

Lagavulin, now you’re talking!

I’d have to put God on the other list tho. And he is for SURE an invention.

Architecture - pure raw Architecture.

_________
Hiro

yes, i realize she / it is an invention. however, this list isn’t for the best, but the most important.

joshua

—-

jlt : http://www.hewnandhammered.com : rnrmf!

Scotch, Calvados, Port, and Champagne.

Real cheese (not artificially flavoured orange gum).

Monty Python.

“It’s only a flesh wound!”

ChrisL

flying cars

futbol.

When I said vision correction, I should have included the needed hint of sarcasm, which reminded me... someone once designed a punctuation glyph to denote sarcasm (jokingly of course). Does anyone remember this, or have I gone off the deep end?

A few thoughts:

1. Writing, type, and paper aren’t that useful without spectacles. Yay!
2. Buffalo wings, cooked up right and with a side of celery and gorganzola for dippin’ sauce. Mmm.
3. Brassieres. Defeating gravity for over 100 years™.

v-six: Maybe you’re thinking of this?

Spire, seems that way yes, even though I don’t remember the mark matching anything there. Perhaps I dreamt it. I’m glad to see the subject exists, this way I know that I am only half crazy.

Thanks for pointing that out to me.

The paperclip.

- Duct/Gaffer’s Tape
- The Digital Camera
- Text messaging on Mobile phones
- Trees
- Italy
- Germany
- England
- Canada
- Venice

I remember it well. He uses it as his avatar.

ChrisL

Pi? ;)

Dan,

A few thoughts:
1. Writing, type, and paper aren’t that useful without spectacles. Yay!

I’m glad someone’s on my side.

Chris - sex was probably discovered by an early invertebrate many gazillions of years before humans were (unfortunately) invented. But I’m no biologist.

Patty, you give biologists too much credit.

Canada
As long as youe exclude Quebec.

At least you don’t have France listed.

Quebec is fine, Dan, so long as you don’t run afoul of their politicians.

Ditto with France. ;-)

Any nation listed here should also be put it in the ’Worst Discoveries/Inventions EVER’ thread.

“Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.”
Albert Einstein

Nationalism is a lie, told to create conflict without reason and unity without purpose.

I am ashamed for so much that has been done in the name of England / Great Britain / United Kingdom. Even 2 of those names are lies.

Just to counteract my earlier nagativity...

female ****
amphetamines
electric guitars

;)

Yes Jon, and yet: what’s the alternative to nationalism? The only realistic one I can see is a (terrifying?) reversion to tribal/family loyalties.

katzenjammer: “what’s the alternative to nationalism? The only realistic one I can see is a (terrifying?) reversion to tribal/family loyalties.”

Alternative? Reversion? Nationalism just changed the scale.

Peace, brother.

I’m with the BMA on this – urban sanitation is the thing that’s made the most positive difference for many of us in the last century.

1. electric motor
2. refrigerator
3. that thing that keeps the ends of shoelaces from fraying
4. the screw

1. The ability to klll that little animated paperclip guy that pops up every minute in MS Word!

ChrisL

2. Seeing a picture of Ringo Starr wearing an old shag bathroom mat that had been pulled from a dumpster :-)

ChrisL

3. that thing that keeps the ends of shoelaces from fraying

It’s called an aglet. Don’t ask me how I know that.

“Don’t ask me how I know that.”

Patty, my guess would be it was your “Final Jeopordy” question and you missed it—thereby losing to that dorky looking guy sitting next to you on the show :-)

ChrisL