Little Toy Robot

The Big Bento Box Of Unuseless Japanese Inventions sounds like a delightful book that no card-carrying absurdist should be without.

In Japan Kenji Kawakami is famous for his tireless promotion of Chindogu: the art of the unuseless idea. Meant to solve problems of modern life, these bizarre and logic-defying gadgets and gizmos are actually entirely impractical.

Addicts of the unuseless will love this collection of 200 Chindogu, including the Drymobile (your laundry dries as you drive), the Solar-Powered Torch (never runs low on batteries), Duster Slippers for Cats (now the most boring job around the house becomes hours of fun…for your cat!), Walk ‘n’ Wash Ankle-attachable Laundry Tanks (a perfect solution for the problems of inadequate exercise and hygiene), and many, many more…

[via LHB]

Related:

• Rube Goldberg, the cartoonist with an engineering background who stretched usefulness to its limit.
• The Center for the Public Domain has a little page called Patently Absurd, which shows what happens when inventions and their patents go wrong…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2005 at 11:55 pm and is filed under general.