[Closed] Best (worst) labour saving device.

electric pepper mills (with light to see where you are peppering).

Eject buttons on CD player remote controls.....

Tony Blair.

I have to disagree with eject on remote controls, it provides hours of endless fun if you have cats.

I had a remote for my car stereo. only worked exactly in front of the head unit, about three inches away. could have easily been replaced by extending a finger fully. £29.99. Worth every penny IMO

Food proccessors of any kind on the basis that the time and effort they save preparing food is outweighed by the hours/days it takes to clean them afterwards.

A wind-up torch with a built in radio. Or was it a wind-up radio with a built in torch?

my parents got me a time rthat lifts your tea bag out of the mug shaped as a penguin.

Pointless & rubbish in every possible way.

the hours/days it takes to clean them afterwards

😆

Weeks, months...

Gordon Brown. Oh....

Loads of these are poor examples.

remote car stereo controller - people in teh back having control to save the driver being distracted?
Wardrobe doors - people in wheelchairs? The elderly?

The Internet

i have a remote for my car stereo.
i thought it was pointless, but having unloaded the car of bikes, and closed the boot, i dont have to walk around to the drivers side to turn the choons off, i just zap acdc into off mode and ride off, same applies when you get back.

also useful this weekend at the dyfi, sitting in the boot (estate) and controlling audio entertainment.

Wardrobe doors - people in wheelchairs?

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Not sure he needs help opening the doors.

The elderly?

So what do they do in the kitchen - just stare longingly at the cupboard doors thinking of all the loveliness hidden behind them? 😉

I thought car stereo remotes were for when you are chillin on the beach, say, with the doors wide open annoying everyone. You can ramp up the volume to annoy the old people without having to get up.

Also useful for stupidly large American SUVs because in some of them you have to loosen your seatbelt and scootch forward in the seat to then stretch out and operate the stereo. Seriously. At least, in the one I went in.

the garlic press.

just flatten it with the side of a knife, then chop it up a bit, easy.

Not sure he needs help opening the doors.

She might tho:

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I reckon I'd feel pretty cool if my wardrobe opened as I approached it. It wouldn't save effort, but it would boost my self esteem measurably. And I have plenty of time and energy, but not really a lot of self-esteem. Although there's a risk that the wardrobe door opening wouldn't alwaysmake me feel any better about myself, because I'd know I wasn't [i]really[/i] a big enough cheese to have an automated wardrobe, so then I'd feel like a fraud and be terrified of people finding out that I was faking my life as a crutch to stop me toppling into a howling void of mediocrity and despair. Hmm. Not convinced. 🙂

sharkbait - as molgrips said. But we could start removing all the automatic doors from buildings as wheelchair people can cope quite happily obviously 🙂

suvs

Garlic presses are rubbish. They take far longer to clean than the time they save from chopping.

She might tho:

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But how does she reach the hangers to take clothes off?

CK: Powercut = no clothes? 😉

Is the intelligent wardrobe such a silly idea? I'll have to ask my valet.

Maybe some kind of jukebox style fully automatic wardrobe would work? Select the item you want from images on a touchscreen, there's a few whirrs and it pops out the front. Lovely. But expensive 🙂

But how does she reach the hangers to take clothes off?

Presumably hangers are at suitable height?

CK: Powercut = no clothes?

😀 ah the old "its automatic therefore it cant have a manual override" thought 😉

Garlic presses are rubbish. They take far longer to clean than the time they save from chopping.

But you can scrub and scrub for ages if you chopped, but your fingers still reak of garlic for days.

Teasmaid?

My grandad had one and I was never really sure why. I find it just as easy to get downstairs and take the dogs out for their morning wee whilst the kettle is boiling. Two birds with one stone and all that.

Or an apple corer. apple core are not shaped like a cylinder, so you either leave some core in if the core is bigger than the corer, or remove too much apple.

Maybe some kind of jukebox style fully automatic wardrobe would work? Select the item you want from images on a touchscreen, there's a few whirrs and it pops out the front. Lovely. But expensive

I saw a prog (MTV cribs?) where someone had exactly that!
It also told her where & when she had worn each outfit, do avoid any embarassing "I've seen those shoes before" moments 🙄

Car stereo remotes are ace.

Back in the day when I worked in Halfords, we told one of the lads that the new voice activated stereos were in and fitted to the audio board. We had some fun watching him saying "Volume: up, up, up" and "Volume: down, down, down" to the stereos as we zapped it from over the next shelf.

He once tried to sell the feature to a customer too.

One of those electric vibro things that girls sometimes use - saves me some effort I suppose.

Willard - teasmaids are therefore quite useful if you don't have dogs or young kids?

My parents used to have one and keeping it clean and de-scaled was a such a problem they ended up using a tiny kettle instead on the bedside table and brewed it normally.

We had a car stero remote in the camper and it meant you could turn the radio on or off from bed. awesome...esp in the winter (or summer in scotland) when its cold and you dont want to get out from under the duvet, that was until we lost it! we still live in hope that it will turn up...

The crappy old juicer I have (despite paying £200 for it), by the time I'm done chopping stuff up small enough to fit in the feeder and have cleaned everything afterwards it would be far less hassle to actually eat the fruit in it's natural state :p

I think my favourite, and I have a photo of it, is the humour in the local carpark disabled access door that says "Automatic door, press button or push to open". Now I know in all seriousness that pressing the button activates a motor that moves it for you, but still doesn't quite come down as automatic somehow!

ah the old "its automatic therefore it cant have a manual override" thought

Does a manual overide = a door handle? 🙂

😀 yup. But imagine how clean and sleek it would look without one!

Computers and mobile phones

Supposed to give us 4 day working weeks and increase productivity - free us from our desks and drudgery. All they do is make the whole world your office and you're expected to be in touch all the time - and everyone wants a reply to their e-mail INSTANTLY.

Not what they were supposed to be.

Come off it TooTall. Computers have revolutionised the working environment beyond recognition in the last 40 years.

My mum used to be a filing clerk. So if someone wanted a record, you had to put in a request, she'd walk through the document store, fish it out and take it up to you. Now you just click. Likewise if I want to send money round the world etc etc etc etc etc etc

I vote for the Electric spaghetti fork

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Come off it TooTall. Computers have revolutionised the working environment beyond recognition in the last 40 years.

My mum used to be a filing clerk. So if someone wanted a record, you had to put in a request, she'd walk through the document store, fish it out and take it up to you. Now you just click. Likewise if I want to send money round the world etc etc etc etc etc etc

..... or if you want to waste half your day hanging around on internet forums.

[i]Computers have revolutionised the working environment[/i]

This is true. But they have revolutionised it by allowing people to do vastly more work in ever more time.

The plan was that they were going to allow us to do the same amount of work in vastly less time, so that we could spend all that time saved drinking cocktails and being amusing. 🙂

The wife!! Has me doing all kindsa stuff that I thought would be her job once we got wed! 🙂

Wireless remote control for the shower so you don't get splashed with cold water when you step inside the shower and turn it on.

It's got to be the bicycle hasn't it?
Riding a bike for 70 miles is waaaaaaaaay easier than walking it.