Life Magazine’s gallery of thirty dumb inventions is so funny my instinct would be to repost every single photo here. I settled for Goodyear’s illuminated tires (1961), which I am in fact amazed didn’t catch on - I’m sure many people would love to pimp their rides with those. It’s interesting to note two inventor heroes of mine - Hugo Gernsback (the first television broadcaster and sci-fi pioneer) and Clive Sinclair (of the ZX Spectrum fame) - are present in this infamous list, as apparently both had some kind of miniature TV fetish in the 1960s (still, I wish to know in which way is cellphone television smarter than Sinclair’s miniature television set).

And another thing: what’s the story with all those smoking accessories? A tiny umbrellla for cigarettes? Serial cigarette apparatuses? Come on!