Engineering

Why do we choose, as a people, to spend so much time engineering some products and relatively little time on others? In the last 100 years (especially the last 10 it seems) we have engineered toothbrushes (which this elephant could use) way past the point of sanity. Seriously, what more could we possbily need from a toothbrush than a plastic handle with a brush on the end. Now they're made at just such and such an angle in varying degrees of stiffness (even though we're only supposed to use soft) with all kinds of "gum stimulators" and flexible heads. All of this and they have managed to take away that little pointy nipple from the end of the handle that I loved so much when I was a kid. Of course, razors are the same way with Schick just introducing a new line of razors based on Roman numerals. The only question is whether we'll get to super bowl XLV before we get a 45 blade razor. What is ultimately troubling about spending so much time on toothbrushes and razors is that there is so much in our world that doesn't work worth squat, and yet we go about our daily lives collectively pretending like they do. I mean what's with the thing they put around your neck at the barber shop? Why do we pretend this is going to keep the hair from going straight down your shirt? We all know it doesn't work at all, which is why we all go home and take showers after getting a haircut. So why bother wrapping a piece of gauze around our neck before putting the apron on us? It seems the height of technology in this area has been the advent of multiple snaps on the apron to adjust the neck circumfrence (genius!). This just doesn't make any sense to me. And don't even get me started about fitted sheets. So tell me, what things in your life do you think the engineers have overlooked?