A message paid for by veterans for all voters. Listen to this message from Ted Delacath, former Army infantryman and Ranger qualified platoon leader active in the Army Reserves. When I enlist in the Army, I swore an oath to this country, not any political party. That's why I'm interested in citizens' ballot measures around the country to reduce the power of political parties. Colorado votes on one too. Right now, election rules allow political insiders to hand-pick party nominees. It's the reason we're usually stuck voting for the lesser of two evils. The Colorado's plan creates an open primary where all candidates appear on one primary ballot. Every voter has the freedom to vote for any candidate, no matter which party. The Colorado plan advances four candidates to the general election, not two. That means more choices for voters in the primary and general election. Get the facts, elections belong to the voters, not political parties. Paid for by veterans for all voters, Anthony Haas registered agent. The use of military rank and job titles does not implant endorsement by the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense of this ballot measure. - All right, guys, welcome to this show. I hope you sat there, you know, either fucking scantily clad or dressed in your world around you, branded clothing. If you're not, go to worldaroundyou.com or do yourself a T-shirt, listen to these shows, and then come back to these shows when you've got your T-shirt and listen to the show in your T-shirt. Anyway, I'll let you crack on with this show. All right, guys, I'm the world around you and this. This is Pause for Thought and Threshold FM, and this week it's gonna be a bit different. No, it may seem more noticeable to me because I know my own voice, but I'll be dead on this, guys, I'm pretty tired. I haven't stopped now for weeks, and I do this to myself quite regularly, but this time it's a bit different with helping me, my mum and dad move else and fucking up the car, the stress of all that, and the stress of organizing, well, trying to set up my stuff for an exhibition, doing that for two weeks, barely selling a thing, dealing with people that weren't really keen on my stuff, dealing with a people that didn't really seem to want me to take part in the exhibition because they fucking blocked me on Instagram, so I couldn't promote the fact I was taking part in it. Doing a wedding fair, preparing for the wedding fair, working big nights at the studio, making loads of stuff out of resin. I mean, it means there's loads of dead stuff now on my website, fucking tons, which sounds like I'm trying to advertise it, and I guess I kind of am 'cause otherwise, you know, well, although I may have money, but, you know, I'm tired in the thought yesterday of sitting and researching some of it for a day. It just seemed overwhelming, and I couldn't have couldn't be fucked. So what I thought I would do is, I've put together a playlist of some songs. I've wrote a hair's house though, when he was still gonna have the hair's house, but I thought I'd use my uni dissertation, another thing where I did something wrong in uni, and we were told we could write about anything we wanted to, and then I wanted to write about what I thought it would be like to lock a baby in a cave with no love and no affection and no people and just give it like a TV so it learns how to be a person, and then start giving it tools like hammers and screws and screwdrivers and wood to see if it would instinctively learn how to use those things. But the teacher said that was strange and had nothing to do with 3D design. So then I suggested that whatever did, could the string vest come back in fashion? And he said I didn't think I'd be able to get 20,000 words or whatever it was out of that. And I did have a long list of ideas for it, but what I ended up settling on was something that I called useless designs, which was basically like, very much like the books I've ended up writing, now was a job. It's just a compilation of different stuff I found interesting really. And different ways that items have been made that would either shit and not fit for purpose, or they were invented and then used for something else. So what we'll do is we're gonna have a song to get us going and then we'll, I'll crack on with this book and probably fill some bits in, we just rambles of whatever's going on in my head. So this is Suicide Girl by Army of the Farrows, planetary apathy and dope Nixon. So we'll get into it. What I'm gonna do is I'm even gonna give you as the little contents page, not because I think I need to fill time, but because it's gonna give you as a little teaser of what's to come. So we've got a section that I called reviews, reviews and revival, the extractor, the melon slicer, the sink snake, shoe organizer, novelty force it, a section called, you can't put that there. And the one called keep it closed. It's a fire door. Next section's called open wide and say, arse sentimental material, keep it clean or wrap it up. And then we've got the conclusion. Now, I'll be honest, I can't really remember any of this. I remember little sections of it, but not enough to be able to tell you what each of those things are about. I mean, we can guess what the melon slice is about. And I remember what the sink snake looked like. The extractor, I think, was a thing. I'll describe the pictures to you on the best details. I can. So, the Oxford dictionary defines useless as serving no purpose. This document will be comparing designs and products that have been deemed useless by reviews, critics and literal use of the word useless. Not all objects were created evenly. Some have been purposely designed to fill various needs. However, some were plucked out of the ether with an obvious that'll do attitude. Very much like this episode, boys and girls. That'll do. Through speculation, one could presume that the designer had to meet a deadline or maybe they felt they were expected to release a new product because that's what they've done the past few years, much like this episode. I've released one for the past few weeks and I've got to get one out. And it is with these excuses, which has led to the sale and production of their useless designs. However, the writer does not know these people and feels no reason to excuse their behavior. Instead, it is the author's belief that these designers have opened themselves up for ridicule and that is their distinct intention. The ridicule of these otherwise successful designers, whether it's fueled by jealousy or a lack of respect towards the entire profession, is left to the reader's interpretation. Regardless of intent, this book will endeavor to provide you with some useless designs, a brief explanation of how to use the information provided with a pinch of salt. This is a subjective topic. Generally speaking, quote unquote, user a, may like the design and see why it's perfect, conversely, quote unquote, user b, may be totally perplexed as to why it works the way it does. There will be pictures of some various designs, which I'll explain to you as if I can, an explanation of how the product is intended for use, how the objects are actually used and some personal opinions on the design. Please note, the personal opinion is the authors and does not represent the truth and should not sway the reader's judgment of the design. First section, reviews, reviews and revival. A good way to find badly designed items is to read customer reviews on the internet. Sure, some of them might not be serious, but may be written with by sour individuals who feel they've been ripped off. However, in this section, we're only gonna see items that are predominantly bad reviews, so let us get started. The extractor. Designed to peel hard boiled eggs 10 times faster and easier, its sole purpose is to instantly peel hard boiled eggs. To use the extractor, the user needs to initially cook the egg to a hard boiled state. The egg is then cooled for 10 minutes in cold water. Once cooled, the user identifies the shorter end of it. The pacer, located on the base, is then used to create a hole then, the opposite end, presumably known as the longer end, is gently cracked and then placed into the hole of the base, short end up. Even pressure gets applied to the bellows and forced down onto the egg. The shell then gets removed and the egg falls through the bottom. It's worth noting that on the demo, the user of the device failed to shell the egg on its second run through. So even the person that was showing us, look how great this fucking thing is, it didn't work. Like if the ad like an honest advert for monopoly, I guess in a way where they're like, "Oh, it's a great game, it's a fun game." And then they just show, you know, like fucking five family members holding each other by the throat, forcing fucking them little red hotels of each of those arseholes, trying to punch each other, saying, "I've lost a day, I've lost a day," you know, and screaming and crying. And a bit of honesty, you know, I like that it was honesty in the advertising with it, as well, to be honest, 'cause that's one thing that we do look for a lot in this show. We look for honesty and it's never there. It will be interesting though, to see if whilst I've wrote this all those years ago, like five, six years ago, did I have an obsession with the moon back here, or is it something that's happened to me in the meantime, it will be interesting to see if there's anything comes up about it. I imagine there will be, this might not be a great episode to play the parallax branded world around you bingo, though. So if you are playing along with that, that might be a bit, it might be a bit difficult, but we'll see how it goes. 'Cause I am gonna just let my mind wander with this one, because I could say I'm ill-prepared. And it's not like me, he's not like me to be ill-prepared. I know I am for truth-seeking, but I think that's part of the magic of the show. I like to think that I come at this one knowing everything possible about the topic, but I mean, this time I've wrote this word for word, and I don't remember this. But let's carry on with the extracto. When you're taking to account the 10-minute ice bath, the overall time to shell an hard-boiled egg is increased. So this time-saving device will only save the user time when they're shelling at least 20 eggs using the time that was taken in the demo as an example. Seeing as this item is marketed towards the home market, it's difficult to see the benefits of this product as odds are if someone is regularly shelling more than 20 eggs, they're gonna have to knock for it, especially if they do it at home for their family. The item is useful, but only took a very small, unimaginable denomination of people, consumers who suddenly have the need to shell nearly two dozen eggs in a single city with no prior experience. These people also have to have a recurring desire to consume all these eggs, and the author fails to see or know anybody who this appeals to. And then we've got a... Oh no, oh no, we'll get to that. Considering the author's opinion though, at least 204 people have purchased the product from Amazon. So let's have a look at some consumer reviews to get a real grasp of the public's response to the extractor with its overall score of 2.1 stars. Now, we might as well do some advices for these, aren't we? So we... Let's try Scottish. We'll go for a paged Brosnan, like you'll see. It's not definitely not a paged Brosnan, no, it's not Scottish either. Scottish, Scottish, aye. This product is by far one of the worst things I have ever purchased. It definitely does not help heal the eggs. It doesn't even help in a way, shape or form. I was ecstatic that I had a gadget to help, and it was a complete and utter letdown. I think it cracked under a pressure, do not buy one star, and that was anime from Glasgow, obviously. The item is a great idea, but it doesn't work. I managed one out of 15 eggs, and they left one star as well. Now, one out of 15 eggs, that's a high fail rate, that's fucking less than 10% success rate. What would that be, what's that, like, fucking 6.5? 7.25% success rate, one out of 15. Awful, right, so to describe the extractor to you, if you imagine like an old fashion iron lung that you attach someone who's had a fucking stroke or something to, and it goes up and down and fucking bellows. It's one of them made out of plastic, right? And you just put the egg in there, attached to a spike, and then you've got to basically smash it down as hard as you can with the palm of your hand, and hope that the spike doesn't pass through the egg and your bellows and your palm. Just seems like a poorly made thing, in my opinion. Oh, we've got another review here. Oh my God, we followed the directions exactly, and ended up with egg and shells all over the place. It takes super strength to push down the thing, and the egg comes out mangled, save your money and peel the old-fashioned way. Now, that's someone that feels the need to tell people, you know what, you know how they tell people to fucking out of suck eggs. It's telling them how to peel eggs. And I feel like I need to apologise, guys, 'cause this is probably gonna be one of the worst shows I've ever done, this is what I get for being lazy. But the watermelon cantaloupe slicer, fruit stainless steel divider is the next item. Designed to make the cutting of melons fast and simple. For readability, this device is gonna be, to use the melon cutter effectively, the user needs to own a knife. The very thing this item is trying to replace. Once the person requiring melon is wielding a knife, they must cut off what is described as the tips of the melon. Then they must cut the melon from middle. This is to separate the melon into two halves. With these two halves on the chopping board, and the flat surfaces of the melon facing the tabletop. Now, the user can finally open up their new device and proceed to slice the melon into slices. The seller recommends the user may wanna press down with alternating force on each side as to make the cut easier. After watching an online reviewer by the name of Kathy Ottersoon, it became clear to me that the slices got potential. It just depends to what lengths you're willing to go in order to slice your melon into 12 even pieces. Kathy has to place the melon on the floor in order to apply enough pressure to the device to cut through the round and the melon. There's another you struggle at first, but she achieves it in the end. However, it is worth mentioning that Mrs. Ottersoon is somewhat of a heavy set woman. And her weight on top of the melon is just enough to cut it. I don't know if someone with a healthier frame will accomplish the task as quickly. Kathy keeps a smile throughout though, even though her healthy snack is touching the floor in a garden and probably encouraging ants into her house and that fucking insects and that wasps, bringing wasps over me while you're trying to chop a melon. In summary, pretty much every household has a knife and a drawer somewhere or even maybe even a saw, you know, like a fucking doesn't have to be a special saw, it could be a creation saw, it could be a coping saw, hacksaw, you know. So this item isn't the most useless item in this collection, but it's definitely a waste of money. Let's see what the reviews say. - It just doesn't work at all. We're gonna live in Yet's News around and that was with my husband applying his phone, wait, trim it, please don't buy this. - I had to throw it away for two blunt takota melon. You need to have biceps like superman to push through a melon. Fell apart after a week, doesn't seem robust enough for melons. The first three reviews had a certain mental image, the image of a weedy little man precariously balanced on a melon on a kitchen table. However, they also show how this gadget doesn't do its job. The fourth review is interesting as it implies yack, the user is getting through more than one melon a week, yet has found an alternative mystery use for his melon cutter as it's not robust enough for melons, but this feels like an unfinished comparison. You know, as if he's found it's good for something else. And the picture of it kind of looks like a shit bike wheel with handles, but except the spokes and knife blades. Next one's called sink snake drain air removal tool, plumber's quality. Well, after all that time around food, we inevitably needed to visit the bathroom. And whilst we were there, we may as well give it a good clean. The sink snake designed to be fed down, you plug all to grab all the air blocking your u-bend. No proper explanation is typed out and how to effectively remove that lost keratin from your pipes, although there is a three-picture diagram. The gist of which suggests it's as simple as sticking it in the hole, giving it a slight tickle, and then pulling it out. And this should bring out all the air, attaching clumps at the hook and the iPad at the end of a limp stick. Again, this seems an unnecessary solution to the problem. And from its reviews, it seems to be adding to the problem, but we'll get into that a bit later. The solution to the sound of mind would be to use a thick drain on blocker. These tends to remove hair and blockages from u-bends, and there is little to no risk of adding to the build-up. However, in this age of the internet, the sound of mind are few and far between as the world as idiots, and it's allowed them 24-axis, 24-7-axis, to poor information. That, coupled with the chance to act on impulsiveness rather than rational, just leads to bad decisions. Now, this product does have its positives. It is more environmentally friendly than pouring chemicals down your sink. But this is a redundant point, as lots of chemicals are poured down sinks in the way of toothpastes, shower gels, and shampoos. It is also a little challenge that is sure to appeal to anybody who's having longstanding issues with the blockage, and he's having a bit of a slow Tuesday. Now, thinking about these chemicals, shower gels, and shampoos, right? Just to keep it on branding a bit of conspiratorial. Do you just think it's weird that we're told that we have to wash our air every day, right? With these chemicals, and even if we're bald, we've got to wash our reds with a different thing. Do you not think it's strange that we're rubbing those chemicals almost directly into our brain? And the same with toothpaste, I'm sure I brought this up before. Toothpaste seems crazy, mate. Toothpaste seems like a crazy invention. Because if you're fucking, if you're telling someone they've got to do something every day, mate, odds are that thing. Bad. I think one of the biggest fuck-ups in the world, right, is when they've told people stop smoking, smoking's bad for you, but keep brushing your teeth. Because smoking seems to have a lot more benefits to for you than toothpaste. Toothpaste has maybe two benefits for you. It cleans your gums and it cleans your teeth. But we don't, I don't know what that does when you're pushing all that into your gums and getting all of that into your bloodstream. Why do you need to get toothpaste into your bloodstream so much? What's it doing to our liver and our kidneys and our fucking blood and our fucking lungs and that? I don't know, I don't know what that's doing. That same blood that's rushing through our gums all the time, that way we're rubbing fucking Colgate into, is then going into our brains, mate, going into our air canals and fucking down our bodies. You're feeling, you're feeling your penis with toothpaste, boys. It's just fucking mental. But it's got to be something in it, mate. Shampoo just seems dodgy in it. Rub all this into your face. Rub all this into your brain, you know. There's no, I mean, you've got hand wash as well. Hands are the most sensitive, one of the most sensitive parts of your body. And we have a specific wash for hands. Why? Why do we have that? Face wash as well, mate, a face wash. It's all a scam. It's just all a scam. It's either all a scam or that it's very important that they introduce all these different chemicals at different parts of our bodies so that they can mix properly as they rush up our fucking evanes, like a fucking septic cut on your arm as your brain starts to turn black. But instead of your veins turning black, they just become this thick gelatinous fucking imperial leather moving up your arteries. And then as soon as they hit your shoulder, mate, you fucked. 'Cause it hits all the other blood in your torso and all these chemicals mixed together. And just fucking, I don't know what they do, but they've got to be doing something to people and it's something that someone should really look into. It's something that I worry about quite a lot. Getting back into the book though. Drain and blocker would be a convenient solution which is clean and efficient. Once you've used what you need, the lid is replaced and the bottle's stored away. But with the sink snake, you get multiple uses. It's just used and then placed in the drawer until next time you need to use it. And that seems pretty dirty to have this fucking dirty hook in a drawer. Alternatively, you could use this once and then act proactively, purchasing something that covers your plug hole and catches the vast majority of the hair. It seems a safe assumption that people will not think this way as many want to resolve a problem rather than avoid a problem, but it's wrong to assume. So let's see what the reviews say. Useless crap, tried both, quote unquote, snakes and both of them immediately lost the brush part, which went down into the pipe, clogging it further and leaving me with an even bigger problem than before. And then Kelly said, absolute muck. J.J.T. says about the sink snake. Don't even consider buying this product, it's always the time, effort and money for what you get. A piece of Velcro on the end of some bendy wire that'll come off in the end with seconds of going down the plug. And it'll cause a thousand times more aggro than the product does Velcro. I don't normally write reviews, but this is such a poor design that even I stop one person from buying this product. It will be worth it. Now, do you see what I mean about not being, you shouldn't allow idiots the internet. None of these reviews really read very well. I've wrote most of them word for word and as I'm trying to read them out loud, my brain's trying to correct it as we go. And all the reviews were like this. I've wrote pretty unanimous reviews really. It seems to have annoyed most people that bought it. Now, to describe what it looks like, if you imagine a trapezium shape of Velcro on the end of a fucking long rubber tube that's got some wire in it, it kind of looks like a phone charger, but for like a giant's phone. And it comes with a picture of a fucking sink as well, so you know what a kitchen sink, a bathroom sink looks like. Um, another review if I can read it. It says it is labeled flexible, but it is not just a piece of plastic covered wire with a stiff brush on the end. I expected nylon or some such material so that it would indeed go round the bends of the waistpipe. But the wire was too rigid and wouldn't go as far as the blockage. And when you remove it, a task and a half, it just twisted up a bit of wire. Laughably, it comes up with a hook to hang in the cupboard for next time. It's already in the bin, hence why I'm looking here for something that will work. Note, I didn't buy it from Amazon, which does tell you it's just wire last time they fall for TV advertising. So this person, what this person's got a problem here with isn't so much the sink snake, but it's a problem with JML. This next item is called the shoe store box under bed shoes, organizer storage tidy 12 pairs pockets. Rolls off the tongue, don't it? A totally ridiculous name. Well, refer to this one as the shoe organizer. This is a product which takes your shoes and hides them under your bed. Possibly the most inconvenient location to keep your shoes. Rather than keeping them by the door, you can file them away to be forgotten about forever. And as the name suggests, it's designed to keep 12 pairs of shoes organized and separate from each of the other pairs. It's tap meat. There's no other word for it. It isn't kits, it isn't a niche item. It's a flat plastic bag for shoes. Shoes are made to withstand the outdoors. Dust isn't going to affect the shoe. They're going in and out of the rain at some point in the lifetime and they're going to get some spilled on them so wide when they're in your own. Like, why would they be so delicate when they're in your house? Store in them away to prevent tripping up over your own shoe is understandable, but shelves, nails on the wall, a box, even a designated shoe pile in the corner of the room. It just looks flimsy and for this product, that is acceptable. It needs a certain amount of fluidity to it because shoes are all different shapes and sizes. It's also being hidden under a bed if it's used correctly, so aesthetics, aesthetics are unimportant. One obvious issue is that what shoe size was the same that it doesn't say. A 24/11 size shoe is going to fit in there comfortably. If the buyer has a smaller shoe size that he able to partition it accordingly to be able to fit more pairs, just too many unorganized, unanswered questions. So just as a wonder, anyone that's in the Discord reading this and listening to this, what do you think of this then so far? Like, is this the worst episode we've heard? Or are we enjoying it, maybe we're enjoying it? I don't know, this all just seems this, I don't know. I feel bad because I'm not telling you about fucking aliens or not, but I just want to prove to you that I'm not lazy, I'm not lazy. No, I'm going to, instead of researching, I'm just going to read you this. And we are getting really hung up on this. My ad is melted, guys, melted. This doesn't feel like something that'll probably stay in the show, I might edit this bit out, but I'm just fucking, ah, I just need to book and be able to sit down and stick a knife in a fucking dead rat meat and just sit on my own and not have to fucking speak to people, like verbal it, or look someone in the face and just peel the skin off of some rat's meat and just fucking sit and smile to myself whilst I listen to some guy who's fucking, sort of bigfoot last week. I just feel like I've got loads to catch up on as well. Fucking UAMTV, mate, it's been posting loads of stuff, but I can't sit and listen to it at work the past few weeks because all these fucking, all the middle age women sitting around are just going to be like, should you really be listening to stuff like that? That's, you know, that's not true, don't you? You know, it's not true that these fucking reptilians living in the series and watching your every movement. You do know that, don't you? No, I don't know that and you don't know that either. I had some right discussions with the mates, some proper fucking chats and they just, instead of discussing what I was actually saying, they just be like, oh, right? Yeah, okay, Jack. No one ever wants to fucking discuss a debate, things my normal wants to fucking learn, and it's fucking annoying. And I just fucking, like a few weeks ago, I found this guy who was talking about how we found out that big fucking turn into a moth. And I've not been able to look into it since 'cause I've just been too busy. And it's just, it's getting to me, it is getting to me. But soon I'll get back to normal and I'll be fucking, my adult, I'll fill up my head with information again. That's one of the things this show. It's nearly the years, I think it's nearly been a year since I started doing this. This is the 51st, I think 51st episode, the threshold I've had, so it's nearly a year's worth. So this feels like an anniversary, especially in a way, the penultimate anniversary special. And I don't know if doing this has been good or bad for my head, to be honest, because I don't, I still have all the fucking voices as a strong word, maybe the wrong word to use, but words rushing round my head, like someone reading books to me all at once. I still have that, but it's not. It's not as loud anymore 'cause it feels like I've emptied it all out to you guys. And that's kind of nice, you know, it's kind of nice to know that I can do that. I've never known that that's something you can do. If you just fucking talk about all the stuff you hear and you read, it kind of goes away for a bit. The fucking weird dreams I'm gonna wear out like that, but that bit has, it's a bit more, days are a bit more peaceful now, but still I kind of miss it. So I need to find fucking weird and weird and stuff, I think, to fill my head with again. But I don't know, it's a bit odd, and I feel, I just feel like I may be letting you down with this. But we'll get back into the reviews of the, I forgot in the name of it, obviously, 'cause it's a shit name. We'll get back into the reviews of the shoe store box under Bedshoe's Organizer Storage 12ie Tidy 12 pairs pockets. And let's see if any of the reviews answer any of the obvious questions that we may have about the product. Patzoo says, this is hardly tidy as the pockets are so poorly sewn together. This is the first time I've been unhappy with the product, two stores. In this picture, this item looks solid and strong. In reality, it is soft and pliable, and in my experience, the shoes wander through the whole thing as the dividers are not attached at the bottom. It doesn't slide under the bed, as there is no solid base and the whole thing, it is only worth burning. One star, Laila says. The quality of the storage box is very poor. Partitions are not fixed to the bottom of the box, and as a result, shoes end up in one big pile, waste of money. But I'll give it two stars. It's mad at what people will give two stars. People are fucking devastated with these things they've bought, but they'll still give it two stars rather than one. These reviewers are all severely disappointed with the shoe organizer. Understandable, but at a retail price of £4.35, it could be argued that buyers are expecting far too much for the money. There isn't anyone that dislikes a bargain, but they could save £4.30 by visiting the local supermarket and buying a carrier bag and still achieve the same outcome. And it does look like a fucking carrier bag just re-shoes inside. A fuck it will have a song and all. This is Mr Nice Guy, Smokey Joe and the Kid, and Miss Diggy. Just a minute, guys. I just wanted a little karma to work for a little karma advert. And if you're like me, a pseudo-intellectual, what you might enjoy are my books. You've got uneducated guesses where I found a lot of big words I don't know the meaning to, and then tried to work out what they mean by breaking down the syllables and doing illustration for each one. You've got how to date an antique table, a lover's guide, which is a book that will tell you how to get your end away with an antique table, complete with how to find an antique table, where to take an antique table on a date, like you could take your dog in, you could take it to the cinema, you could take it for a picnic, and some chat-up lines as well, like I know I'm drunk, but you look absolutely candid. And then they've got some pictures in the back of someone, they taxidermium that as well. And you've got my third book, More You Know, which is a book of very well researched fake facts. Just a book of lies basically, and some of them were suggested, as in topic-wise was suggested, by some of the people from TikTok. So you might even, if you took part in that, you might even have your username on the first couple pages of that book. Anyway, if you, like I say, if you're enjoying these, you might like the books, and you can get access to the books through Patreon or through my website, or fucking let you crack on with the show, guys. The next item that we're going to discuss was described in the, in the, in the fucking contents page, as the novelty faucet, but here, the actual name of it was exotic buying novelty home by a portable Coke faucet dispenser, so the soft drinking's drink saver. Yet another mental name. And it's worth bearing in mind that the elisted is these names, so that they appeared on multiple people's searches, because let's face reality, who's going to buy this with an initial interest in the item? Who thinks they need these things? It's described as a novelty item and listed as a best-seller, even though there is conclusive evidence that it does not serve its purpose. It's designed to be a single optic for bottled beverages, so does in particular. It is in response to tires and pouring of bottles into glasses, to use, you simply replace the lid with the screw on dispenser, place the bottle upside down and move the lever to pour your drink into your chosen vessel. It's a struggle to comprehend the sort of person who's going to look at this and think, "Yes!" Finally! A way to pour my drinks that saves time and effort, and for them using the pictures, there's a reference. It's designed for the average 500 millilitre of plastic bottles, which, you know, no one paused them into glasses. Like, you paused one of them fucking, like, a gila Coke bottle into a glass. You're fucking weird on them. What a fucking waste of washing up. The base plate which rests on a table looks like it's going to struggle to stay balanced with anything bigger than that. Anyway, a bewildering fact about this item is that it's frequently bought alongside a gimmicky spaghetti strainer, and it's obvious that these products are aimed at both the lazy and the moronic. Either that, or they're aimed at extremely high earners who cannot afford to waste any time at all, and the day as their wage gets them so much money, that to waste a few seconds would be detrimental to the earnings. The alternative way to empty a plastic bottle would be to pour it. Another way would be to siphon it with some form of hose, and looking at the product it's easy to assume that it will work, but may cause the drink to fizz or become flat, because the thread of the dispenser might not fit every bottle perfectly. Maybe it won't fit any bottle or even remotely, rather than picking holes though in a photograph. Let's see what the reviewers had to say. The player said, "I can't begin to tell you how frustrating this product is, so I screwed the bottle in." As others said, it was useless for fizzy drinks and spirted gas out. And it fitted tightly and securely. Only good thing about this waste of money. But do not think you use it for water, it will be any better. I put in a quick bottle, correct fitting, and put water in it. Nothing came out. I left it for a while and came back to see an empty Coke bottle. I was excited at first, but it hadn't filled up anything. It had leaked. The whole bottom had leaked. Nothing leaks that much. So what do you think should I should leave a five star rating? One star. Tenko says, "It doesn't work. Excited to use. But nothing comes out." One star. Avril has said, "Elixen does not pour very well." One star. These reviews aren't grammatically sound, but they do show a collective disappointment in the product. The player has even bought it after reading the reviews, which backs up the suggestion that this product's being aimed at idiots. And it's worth a Google, that one, because look up faucet dispenser on Amazon. It's a little red thing. It doesn't even make sense how it would fucking work. You can't look at it and be like, "Ah, yeah, that's a good idea." This next section's a bit different now, and it's called, "You can't put that there." Beauty is not some physical extra thing that is added to an object already complete. It is an intrinsic grace or perfection that is found in an object which fulfills its purpose with precision and economy. That's a quote from a blog called Henry Strauss. Don't know who it is. It says MP, yeah. There must have been a politician. The next segment is about bridging the gap between people and products. More specifically, that wobbly bridge between a mentalist and the belongings, with a focus on people who have found beauty and use within a product that others deem completely useless. But also looking at the interesting people who have found alternative uses for items with an already obvious use. Now, although these interesting people are the minority, it is worth looking at. It shows the way one object can appeal to all sorts of different people for a multitude of reasons. And this will hopefully show our innovation is not always happening in the studio, and maybe that isn't always a good thing. Yet on the odd occasion, it may be brilliant. It may influence a whole new range of items. It may lead a new marketing campaign in order to reach a new audience. However, it's all speculation for the moment. Let's journey together. Keep it closed to Firedoor. Let's start on our very own doorstep with Plymouth. And it's easy to understand after a walk around the town that you wouldn't have to look very far for a strange person doing questionable things with something. In fact, the person they have in mind has quite the back story to how they received the item and actually inherited both the item and their total disregard for public safety. During a different time, the early 1940s, when Nazis were rife and possible alien invasions were looming around the corner, and there's a good chance that, you know, the whole of earth was opening up and things like that as well. It is clear that people had a brilliant sense of humour in that time. A man, a member of the local Auxiliary Fire Service, was transporting furniture from a burnt-out building to the local football ground when the ground was suddenly struck by bombs. That man was sent to a hospital and received a gift. A memento to remember his hard work and experience. This gift got pride of place on shelves and got passed around the family homes more times than a delinquent nephew. One family member used it as a doorstop for a number of years, whilst others kept it on the living room shelf next to paint cans. And you've got to kind of question what sort of family displays empty paint cans on a shelf in the living room. But, I mean, that's a lot of questions, but we won't get into that. This item seemed to be the bad gift of the family. The gift that purposely gets re-gifted every few years is a little private joke for the family. The second to last time it changed hands. It was given as a housewarming present to a newlywed couple from the same family. Not like a couple from the same family. I know there's a lot of rooms about the south-westerner, but that's not what I mean. There's no evidence that these pair were actually related and that's not what I'm getting at. There's just a new married couple and one of them was from the family. Unfortunately, the last time it exchanged hands it was the Royal Navy removing it from the family home, because this object was an incendiary device from a German bombing raid. So let us recap. The man lying in hospital after helping his community was handed one of the very bombs which caused his injuries, a pressure-activated explosive. An uncle kept it as a doorstop and it's pressure-activated so he's lucky it didn't fucking burn his house down, not fucking set his leg on fire or burn his dog. And everyone's got a weird uncle in it. That's something to remember as well. Everyone does have a weird uncle, but most weird uncles are sort of, "Oh, you don't even need to spy by marriage." Come on, come in the bathroom. You're going to fucking, I don't know what the purview uncles do. Come in and let me lick your toes and they show you me. I don't know. Luckily never had the purview uncle. I'm not that I can remember anyway. I'm trying to say hell of a thing. It's safe to assume that they never had many arguments in the family though in it, because they obviously weren't slamming the door, or at least no one threw tantrums, because if it did get caught in a door slam, that would have been severely detrimental to the family's health and well-being. Could also suggest that the parents who gifted this to their child and partner wasn't very approving of the wedding. And it, I've got a picture of it there and it's just like a rusted tube. If you can imagine a rusted tube, that's what an incendiary device looks like. Next section is called open wide and sey arse. An obvious avenue to explore. It'd be perverts, more specifically though, experimental perverts. Now, it comes as no surprise that people the world over insert foreign objects into their anal cavity for enjoyment. What will come as a surprise is the wide spectrum of things that have been used for such endeavours. It'd be easy to show and explain how these individuals have found alternative uses for jam jars, children's toys, stationery, glassware, household appliances, camping accessories, kitchen utensils and even small animals, Richard Gitt. It would also be easy to pad out these pages with cheap jokes and make fun of these brave members of society. But that'd be too obvious. Instead, either the top five things that doctors have removed from people's arseholes. In five. Battery operated torch. There are many reasons to use a torch in dark areas, but it seems sexual experimentation is one of the main ones. In four. Light bulbs. It takes a certain level of bravery and our self-loathing to shove a very thin glass vessel inside of an area full of muscles and blood vessels. In three. Mobile phones. Whether it's the vibrations that get the user off or the potential word play that excites them is unclear. In two. Unopened source bottle. It had a condom on it and this is by far the most upsetting if you let your imagination run free because it implies he was planning on using it later as a source for his meal at some point. Drum roll please. A material with many, many uses. Epoxy resin. And I've used epoxy resin for things as arseholes. I've never put it in my arsehole but I've put arseholes in epoxy resin. More specifically though. 300 milliliters of epoxy acrylic resin with uses primarily in building. It's by far the most creative anal endeavor. There's only one written record of epoxy resin being used rectally. And it isn't very smart in fact it's particularly stupid and not a good idea at all. However it could be seen as genius because nobody else had ever done this before. The medical paper accompanying the story states that in 1887 presented a patient who was voluntarily given a concrete enema that was introduced by his sexual partner. This is the only similar case I could find at the time but the intention was slightly different as a second person was involved. A final byproduct of this activity was a perfectly accurate cast of the patient's anal cavity. It shown there was no damage or illness within this part of his body. So that was a benefit. However even though there was no damage to the area and due to the resin cast in his tube so perfectly for a 16 centimetre length. There was no natural or slightly manipulative methods to remove the item. The surgeons had to remove the result to a laparotonomy which means that they cut it open to remove it and a colostomy was added to aid healing. Fortunately the patient made a full recovery and refused to have psychiatric counselling insinuating that there were no mind to stop experimenting. Next section is called sentimental material. Some people use items for as long as they will still fulfil their specific purpose. Then they'll throw them away or sell them. The individuals that then buy these items usually want to upcycle. Upcycling is given an old product, a new lease of life. Such as wooden pallets often turned into cost effective garden furniture or cheap fencing. Pallets are also used to display potential small garden designs including how to adapt into a small garden. They can also be used to add height to existing furniture. None of these functions are their original purpose but it's not exactly creative is it? Sticking without door spaces though, some people get pleasure from not throwing things away. These people may get influence from exhibitions such as the Tatton Flower Show and is at these shows where both amateurs and professional passionate gardeners display their designs and creations. It is not unusual to witness upcycling at these shows such as old leather suit cases, Wellington boots and wheelbarrows. Some reasons people may upcycle is to express themselves or feel part of a wider community which has influenced their design. They may have a special connection or memory with the original item so to have the product grow with them may give the person a certain pleasure. Due to these multiple reasons for upcycling, there are countless uses for the way the products are used. For example, one person may decide to use an old fridge as a waterproof cupboard whereas another person may turn it into an egg incubator which there was a little call back in my university career because I tried to turn an old fridge phrase that I took from someone's front garden. Someone left a fridge in the front garden so I took it in a big fucking thing and carried it back to uni and tried to turn it into an egg incubator. I actually shorted out the electricity for the floor of the building. Pretty sure I almost sent myself to hospital as well. If I had been touching anything there was a hell of a fucking bang and a snapping noise. All the lights went off, all the plugs went off. Fucking, it freaked me out to be honest. Not much has ever really scared me but that did. Anyway, so a little call back in there as well. I thought the teachers would appreciate it. Any item could be used for anything else within reason. As a designer, it is not impossible to comprehend one woman turning 30 chef knives into a reflective wall installation and then sticking all the handles together to create a bespoke tabletop. Whereas a different woman may reuse these knives by welding the blades together into a box using the handles as a lid. These ideas are purely speculation, even though well informed. Even if the use of these products is simply feeling pleasure from the activity, that is enough. Some products that are widely upcycled would never provide pleasure without an accompanying product or experience. The ways in which people reuse objects help anthropologists study expressive culture. To refer back to the old leather suitcases, these alone cannot give pleasure. We were a box designed to be easily carried around to transport clothes whilst the user went on holiday or visited a friend previously. The pleasure was received from the activity accompanying the item. It could be argued that the activity of upcycling will be what gives pleasure and not the suitcase, but it is a safer assumption that the creator may look back at their work and feel at least a certain level of satisfaction from the work. And then we've got a picture of a load of suitcases piled up that someone's planted up with plants. Let's have a song. This is something a little bit different. This is Kevin's journal by Redz. You know what I mean? Just a little quick little advert for myself. If you're enjoying this fucking, join the Patreon meet if you can. For a little as a quid, two quid, three quid, tenor. Whatever you want to throw on there, you get the same stuff either way. Obviously it's nice if you put like three quid on rather than a quid. Because I'll only get like 75p out of the quid, but still it's 75p more than what I'm getting now. It's just you get access to video versions of these discounts for canvases and maybe some of the little bits of my website. And you get access to the PDF versions. That's the digital download versions of my books. And I'll let you get back on to the issue. And this next bit is called Keep it Clean or Wrap It Up. Remarketing a product is very important, but taking a sideways view it can be quite interesting. Nowadays a lot of products are used for things that just make sense, but quite a lot of time that comes about through trial and error. Or because people experimented with an already existing product. Let's take aluminium foil or tin foil as we recall it. Nowadays it's used, it's very clear what it's used for and it's usually packaged with its use on the packaging. With a lovely photograph you know of like a roast turkey and nut. Now tin foil is usually used to keep food fresh. This was not what it was originally intended for though. It was originally sold as a means of banding your racing pigeons legs. So for our modern day use of wrapping food up, it could be seen as a stroke of genius. Besides if you were to band the racing pigeons leg now, a plastic ring would be used. However, the use of an aluminium ring in a race may give your bird the winning edge. It is easy to understand why aluminium foil is now marketed towards the general public because it means the producers of it make more money. Even though there is a lot of money in racing pigeons and you can be looking at a few thousand pounds for an established racing pigeon. So although it could be sold for more money to breed as a pacerine, it would be sold in smaller quantities to them. So it would have to be purchased more and more by these people. You'd have to then market racing pigeons as well to be able to make more money out of tin foil basically. Whereas if you advertise food more you sell more tin foil. It just makes more money you know. And you know if one person bought one roll of tin foil, I guess you could look after generations of racing pigeons. A whole racing pigeon club could probably survive off one fifty meter roll of tin foil. Do you know what I mean? It wouldn't be something you could then sell. You'd have to really charge a lot of money for it or make the rolls a lot smaller. As compared to the reasonably priced tin foil that you can buy now that everybody uses to wrap up sandwiches and old food. I don't think there's something they're going to do, they're not going to charge a lot for pigeon roll. But this isn't all going to be about tin foil, I mean a page on tin foil. Probably be very dull, although if you were to actually read tin foil it could be quite enlightening. So with this widely known thing of tin foil, let's stick with something that's widely known as well. Play-domey, now Play-dome apparently started out as a wallpaper cleaner, but a couple of factors came into play. Vinyl wallpapers and people allowing their children to play with the substance all it took was some rebranding by the developer's son Joseph McVickers, who added its colours and twenty years later and the general public were putty in his hands mate. Children the world over now play with Play-dome encouraged activity amongst children possibly leading to the world's future designers and engineers. One design that would have the potential to ruin the McVickers initial business investment is what is now known as bubble wrap. The sheet of sealed air pockets that are widely used across the globe to package goods was originally designed in 1957 as a 3D plastic wallpaper. It only took a few years for this idea to fizzle out and it was then used as a packaging material it is still used at its day because it's cost effective and reusable. And I use it when people buy stuff from www.worldaroundyou.com, things like bad taxidermy and nothing with fossils and shields and mystery boxes. The bubble wrap it on, it fucked the environment, it used bubble wrap to keep the McVickers in business. Whereas a wallpaper removed from a wall can't be used again as a wallpaper and you would struggle to be successful packaging products because the bubbles would have popped. Then it's just wrapping it in cling film really like saggy cling film. It could also be used as a plastic sheet whilst you redecorate those horrid looking walls I guess if you were to really push it if you were going to reuse the wallpaper. But who's going to do that because that means you've got to then put a sheet down to pull the wallpaper down to put the wallpaper down as a sheet. And it's silly you've already got the sheet there and the decorating sheet. Whilst these last three products haven't been invented recently nor have the newfound use has been discovered in the recent past, it's worth mentioning as it brings questions up. What will be discovered about modern inventions? More importantly will people use this very dissertation of something other than kindling? Some questions are easier to answer than others. The conclusion, so called, what was the point of this? A conclusion of sorts, maybe it's a summary, it is definitely an amalgamation of the writer's thoughts. Is any of this next section based on facts? Is it more while speculation? Is this truly a dissertation? Will you the reader be any more knowledgeable after reading this? Is the CIA repeating its operation northwards tactics but directing them at Syria? Finally, some questions that is actually in there as well, so there we go. I knew there'd be a bit of conspiracy in there guys, I'm actually smiling. If anyone follows the page or you could probably see me smiling now, I've forgotten all about this. Finally, some questions, but we'll never know the answers until it's too late, so allow me to answer them all with a shrug of the shoulders and a mumble, maybe. Like I sat there like leaving a butcher shop you're about to be left feeling disappointed with a shoddy wrap up, so conclusion. The Oxford dictionary defines useless as serving no purpose. Philosophically, one could argue what is purpose, the products that have been featured within these pages and have been given content to this book, which in turn will provide a percentage of marks towards my degree. Maybe that was the purpose of these items, maybe the designs featured in reviews, reviews and revival, are yet to reach their full potential. Nothing is truly useless, and that is what this dissertation has taught me. Things can be fucking truly awful, but nothing is ever useless. Even if something doesn't do what it was originally intended to do, it eventually serves some purpose later on. I've found this out when I wrote, you can't put that there. Everything I wrote about had an original purpose, but someone had single-handedly defined each of their uses. What is the main purpose of an object, the main directive, the main aim of anybody creating anything? I think it's just to make money. By researching reviews, reviews and revival, and reading through hundreds of reviews for a boiled egg peeler, it's clear to me that people are making money from this nonsense. They may be turned in a profit, but I would hope these aren't the only things that they've made. The objects have a clear purpose, and this purpose appeals to people who've struggled with a very particular problem. These people obviously have so much difficulty slicing watermelons or unblocking sinks that they don't have the time to read even a single review. The products in reviews, reviews and revival may yet reach their full potential and later find the purpose which in hindsight will seem an obvious as bubble wrap making the terrible wallpaper, but being the perfect packaging material. Until that day comes though, they are useless in the sense they cannot be used for what they're supposed to do. Some of the items may only require a little tweak to make them usable. The sink snake hair drain removal tool plumbers quality, for example. I think if this was made to a slightly higher quality, it would most likely get the hair out of the drains, even if the only improvement was attaching the hook and eye pad to the wire with a stronger adhesive it would harvest some human hair. Another example of a product just being poor quality is the shoe store box under bed shoes organised a storage tidy 12 pairs pockets. Who knows though, maybe this just needs a catchier name and it'd be more useful, it'd certainly be more palatable. I'd call it the slipper shoe away, it's aimed at storing under a bed slipper, it's perfect. Now it has a bit of context as well with that name and it seems like it has had some level of thought go into it immediately better. Now it has more marketable name, all it needs is some support in the walls separating the compartments and it may be worth buying, although it's got no real place in the home, it isn't truly useless as you could keep things in there, even shoes. A useless bum dropped with the intention of striking fear and maybe killing people was repurposed as a gift, then it became a family heirloom and eventually a door stop. The Germans never intended an incendiary device to bring joy unless in the sense of Chardon Freuder in the eyes of the pilot or commanders, but it did bring joy. Sure it failed its initial job but it went on to live a life, a good life, next to some paint cans and holding a door open for people. I think it's incredible that somebody would keep an unexploded bum and allow it to rest on an elevated surface and that it took repeated impacts from a door. That shows how truly useless it was as a bum, I think the owners of it probably considered it but decided if it was going to explode and burn their house down, it probably would have done so by now. Not all innovations are positive as I witnessed with the anally inserted items in open wide and say arse. These all resulted in visits to A&E and who knows if the users of these objects managed to achieve their goals, they certainly wanted to put things up the bottoms and by golly they got things up their bottoms. It would probably be more of a success for these twisted individuals if they'd been able to recover the items afterwards, maybe even use the items for their original purpose to illuminate a room or contact the friend, but life is a constant learning curve. Unfortunately, some curves are steeper than others and I fear that may have been what caused the objects to get lodged in the first place, and unsure if health professionals could ethically hand their belongings back to them after all they are their possessions, but the doctors and nurses have got to know that the patients aren't going to stop adventuring. Of course, I haven't asked the doctor, they're very important people and they don't need some idiot asking them questions. If deep down that they know these people haven't learnt their lesson, it just seems adamantly clear to me that a man accidentally seals up his back passage and then declines the offer of psychiatric counselling. It shows that he hasn't learnt anything whilst sealing up the only exit is never a good idea, it is a very innovative way to use an object. Innovations bring me back to rebranding items as an important way of giving a useless or outdated product a use, playdoll wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Joseph seeing it as a way of entertaining young children. The children's toy market is huge mate and is easy to reference in day to day life. Everyone at some point will have a conversation about the toys they remember from the childhood, talking about the wallpaper clean as you remember, but it's a totally different conversation. It's the sort of discussion that marks the end of a dinner party just like a malleable wallpaper clean, it's not going anywhere. Seeing as nobody is coming over for any more dinner parties, you may as well upcycle that old table and dining setting on that. An upcycling is more personal experience than rebranding, as I said earlier, it allows a person to express themselves and it won't necessarily be to make money, unlike its industrial counterpart rebranding. Maybe it's just a piece of furniture with sentimental value that the owner can't bear to get rid of, the owner will go to the extremes of their crafting capabilities to make sure it'll still fit into their redecorated home. Meaning both the owner and item will achieve things that may never have been achieved before. Products like the watermelon slicer lend themselves well to upcycling as I think it'd make a pleasant stationary sort of if it was covered with some fancy wallpaper or fabric, or maybe as the top of a homemade mobile for the new baby in the family, obviously now thinking back you'd want to dull them blades, because you're just putting like fucking twelve knives over the baby's crib. But, there is a deep link here between both concepts. The stationary sort of being used to separate the rubbish sharpeners and pencils on a desk whilst the mobile separates a baby from the realms of consciousness. Just in the same way the original concept was to separate the watermelon from itself. You know, we're getting deep, eh? Very deep. I believe nothing is useless. This can be applied to all aspects of life, but it isn't a very interesting way to show what I've learned, so let's get deeper and wrap this all up with a little story to illustrate my point. A metaphor, if you will. Imagine an homeless man, Steve. Now, Steve is addicted to heroin. He steals from everywhere he goes, attacks people in the street to fund this fix, and he's never had a job, nor has he ever wanted one. To society, he serves no purpose over them to perpetuate the stereotypes surrounding homeless people, but within his community. He's a rock. Everyone can rely on Steve. One day a local child becomes homeless, and Steve takes it upon himself to make sure that child is as safe as possible and always feeds that child before himself. Steve's no longer seen as useless, at least not to the child. In the child's eyes, he's a saviour. Steve is a hero, and that's the end of the dissertation. Obviously, this page is a reference is behind it at the end, but that's how it ends, guys, with Steve as a hero. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in a bit. I think we've got a bit of HDR later, and Jim will mix it. I'll be back tomorrow with Jimi for truth's sake, and it's seven, and I'll fucking see you in a bit, guys. Hi, Steve. Thanks for listening, man. I won't take up too much of the time, because it sits over, and hopefully you're listening to all of these one after the other. Or on repeat, maybe the same episode on repeat. But fucking, leave us a review if you can, mate. Fucking share it with a mate, send it to your nano. I don't mind where you send it to, but if you get more people listening to it, thank you. If you did enjoy it, though, fucking join the Patreon mate, www.patreon.com/worldaroundyou. There'll be a link in one of the links in the description, I would imagine, of the one you're listening to. You can join for a quid-fiver, you know, and you get access to all the video versions of these. You will normally end up about four or five episodes ahead as well through Patreon, and you get access to some of my books as well. And a little discount code for some of the canvases as well. But even if you don't join that fucking, thanks for listening to it, mate. I hope you enjoyed it. Hopefully, here's the next one.
