7 Inventors You Didn't Know You Wanted to Punch In the Face
Throughout the course of an average day, you're probably faced with 10 to 20 different things that make you say, "Man, if I knew who came up with that idea, I'd punch them clean in the face." But where do you place that absolutely understandable rage? You place it on these people. With your fist, if possible.
#7.
Mitch Bainwol, Head of the RIAA
The Man
Mitch Bainwol is the current CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Christ, do we even need to finish this entry? You've probably heard all you need to hear.
The Crime
The following scenario is brought to you by Mitch Bainwol:
After receiving an email from that unofficial Miley Cyrus fanclub message board that you're way too old to be signed up for, you find out that her new album has leaked to the Internet a month early. You can barely sit still as you joyfully count the seconds away to torrent download completion and pure unadulterated teen-pop magic. A few days later, you get another email that goes something like this:
Dear Anonymous Internet User,
Please give us $3,000 for that Miley Cyrus album you downloaded or we will end your shit.
XOXOXO,
The RIAA
Prior to 2003, the RIAA was still not winning any popularity awards among the American public. However their hate crimes against music and teenagers had been limited to dismantling Internet file-sharing services and creating copy-protected CDs that nobody could use. Then in 2003, the board of directors decided to fuck Public Relations all together and summoned Mitch Bainwol from the deepest pits of Litigation Hell.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh M'tch B'nwol R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
Bainwol (equipped with his legions of lawyer minions) set to work in ravaging the bank accounts of their own customers who were, in many cases, downloading a couple of tracks from an album to see if they wanted to buy it. His victims of choice include any student with a college fund, any parent with a school kid and any house with a computer. Usually, defendants pay a settlement fee (that ranges anywhere from $3,000-$12,000) but in the instances where the cases went to court... let's just say Christmas came early at the Bainwol household. In the case against Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the RIAA was awarded $80,000 per song, or $1.92 million after she was found guilty of sharing the most embarrassing 24 song playlist imaginable with countless Internet users.
Moments before a SWAT team busted in.
Of course if Bainwol had stopped there, he probably wouldn't have made this list. But, feeling that the RIAA coffers weren't filled quite enough with gold and tears, his lawyers later claimed that you are violating copyright law if you rip a CD you own to your own computer.
They claim this to be because the user is transferring the music into a medium "not of the artist's choosing." By that logic, even singing in the shower could be considered a felony as you are using an unauthorized medium of atmospheric vibrations.
#6.
John Langley, Inventor of Reality TV
The Man
John Langley is an American television director. Among his credits are documentaries like American Vice: The Doping of a Nation, Who Murdered J.F.K. and Terrorism: Target U.S.A. Oh, he's also the creator of the FOX television mainstay Cops, which lit the fuse on the Reality Television turd bomb.
The Crime
During the infamous Writers Guild Strike of 1988, television networks suddenly found themselves at a loss for badly-thought out teleplays. Without the writers to tell them exactly when to bring coma patients back to life, soap operas suffered immensely. The season finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation was composed almost entirely of footage from previous episodes. To this day, just the thought of that debacle sends fanboys into nerdtastic convulsions.
Above: Seething nerd rage
Meanwhile, inspired by the natural eloquence of the stoners he filmed being locked up on his documentary American Vice, Langley approached FOX with the idea for an unscripted reality show where the cameras just follow a bunch of cops around and watch them arrest people and chase them through alleys. Realizing he had just pitched a show where they would not have to pay writers or actors, the network jumped at the proposal and Cops, America's first reality TV show, was born.
With the creation of Cops, Langley earned himself a whole new title: "The Father of Reality TV." Yeah, MTV took the format to dastardly new heights with The Real World, but the fact remains, when it comes to shit you could sit on your front porch and see (depending on your neighborhood) being passed off as good television, Cops did it first.
We promise, we don't put the lyrics down h- BAD BOYS BAD BOYS WHATCHA GONNA DO!
And now, you get to spend your Tuesday nights watching obese people cry about how their mommies never loved them and dudes with washboard abs trying to pick a future ex-wife from a bevy of fake breasted skanks, all thanks to one guy who figured out that you don't need to spend a bunch of money on creative people because, after all, the viewers will watch anything.
#5.
Ronald A. Katz, Inventor of the Automated Call Center
The Man
Ronald A. Katz is an innovator in the field of automated call center technology. That sentence alone should be hint enough that he's worthy of a shot to the grill, but we'll go on. His inventions are varied, ranging from moderately useful (toll free numbers, computer telephone integration units) to mostly ineffective (voice recognition systems).
"Since we can't legally show you a photo of Katz,
we've had an artist create this rough depiction of how he might look today."
But he also invented something else, something so nefarious that, if he happened to be in the room while you were using it, you'd very likely throttle his windpipe without so much as a second thought about the possible consequences.
The Crime
Do these words sound familiar to you?
"Hello, you've reached the Asshole Company That Doesn't Give a Shit About You customer helpline. For assistance in paying bills, press one; to receive product information, press two; if you have a problem with our product, press three; if none of these options apply, press four and your call will be disconnected leaving you to aimlessly wander around our website in a desperate last ditch effort to resolve your issue..."
By the looks of the blood rushing to your ears, we're guessing you've already been acquainted with automated customer service representatives. When it comes to those lifeless, automated agents of uselessness and frustration, Katz is their god. During his years spent transforming your life into an automated Hell on Earth, Katz has obtained more than 50 U.S. patents. With an estimated 150 companies having purchased licenses to use his patience eroding creations, Ronald Katz is estimated to be the wealthiest patent holder ever. Meanwhile, the check you're trying to write for a 12 pack of Steel Reserve won't go through because Katz's other invention, Telecredit, verified that your account just happens to be $206.38 in the hole. Just one more reason to let one fly on this dude's dome.
#4.
Alvin Eicoff, Inventor of the Infomercial
The Man
In the field of advertising, Alvin Eicoff is a legend. In fact, he's so much of a legend that he was elected to the Direct Marketing Association (yes, that really exists). Hell, it was his idea to use toll free phone numbers for television orders. Without this dude, that Snuggie you bought would have included long distance charges. Why would you possibly want to punch this guy in the face?
The Crime
Along with the 800-number thing, Alvin Eicoff also came up with Direct Response Television. What's that, we just pretended you asked? Think "Billy Mays."
Yes, Direct Response Television is that heinous method of product pitching that centers around beating the same message into the bleary eyed customer's subconscious until the only words remaining in their vocabulary are "call now." The products are mostly useless, they pressurize you with time bound offers and the actors pretend to wet themselves with excitement over an orange peeler.
And you fall for that shit because, yeah, now that they mention it some 75 times in 30 seconds, maybe they're right. You do need a carrot juicer! And while you're on the horn, you might as well pick up an Awesome Auger and a pair of scissors that will cut through a penny. That deal only lasts for 10 minutes!
If not for Alvin Eicoff, Mr. T would have never gotten to spread the good news about the FlavorWave.
Every time Billy Mays worked himself into a cocaine fueled lather and screamed at you about the miracle of Magic Putty, he was doing Alvin Eicoff's dirty work. Eicoff later compounded this already dastardly deed by demanding that every ad must end with the words "or your money back." If it hadn't taken you 78 days to get around to using that Showtime Rotisserie that came with the 30 day money back guarantee, you'd maybe be able to thank him for that. But it did, so you can't. Also, he's totally dead. That's what you get for not acting now!
Sure, stealing music is immoral, but the RIAA should go after those who profit from it; taking an ordinary person to court and screwing them (or attempting to screw them) out of millions of dollars is, what's the word...absurd...stupid...silly?
ReplyHelp me out.
Evil.
Since radio stations don't play all of the music EVERYONE likes, nor does it give variety; and since most people can't decide to spend the kind of paychecks they earn (compared to the paychecks musicians earn) when all they've heard is a snippet of a song, I see no problem with downloading music. That's right I said it :p From there people should decide which music is actually worthy of earning an income and which artists are pure excrement (those are the artists that use the auto tune). I say make the artists EARN the big numbers they're crying for... They're not the ones living in tiny little apartments like many other hard working citizens.
ReplyYeah, music piracy is a problem, definitely, but I'm quite certain there are a hell of a lot better ways to handle the issue than what the RIAA has been doing in recent years.
ReplyMy dad used to watch "Cops" all the time. They also played the theme song at one of my school dances once. Why? I don't know.
And yes, the "Press *Insert number here* for x service" thing needs to just die.
Theft of music may be wrong, but it is here to stay. I suggest a modified honor system: release music for free, and those of us who are truly impressed can donate via paypal or some such nonsense.
ReplyDirectly to the artists! The record industry should have no problem with that.
In reference to the invention of auto tune, don't blame the inventor or even the machine. Auto-tune was an inevitable outcome considering the heavy trend of recording and editing music via computer pre-dating Cher's "Believe". In reality it isn't that different than any other purely electronic instrument or editing tool. In fact, the reason you hate what people have done with it is because auto-tune is still going through some groing pains and with any form of art, but especially music, part of learning a new instrument is finding out how not to use it (see new wave,80's). Give it some time and a decade or two from now you'll probably like some music with a moderate amount of auto-tune, and if you don't it's probably because you're too hung up on identifying yourself as not part of the stupid mainstream that's willing to try new ideas, like auto-tune.
ReplyI would totally buy a pair of scissors that could cut through a penny.
ReplyMitch Bainwol is now at the top of my hitlist
ReplyI'd like to thank the writer for NOT including Alan Turing, because besides coming up with the priciple behind those goddamn Captchas, he invented modern computer science and used his hacker skillz to fight Nazis. Even though I'm as annoyed as most people at having to pass a Turing Test to spend five minutes on the internet, the man is a personal hero of mine.
ReplyNever occurred to me he might be placed on such a list. If anyone tried to insult him like that I would punch them.
where is edison? the man who dedicated his life to f*****g with the greatest inventor of all time, Tesla (u see Tesla's name has a capitol and edison's dosen't) and for that is currently being arse raped by all the Great Old Ones who Tesla commands!
Replyalso i need a time machine, im gona cause so many miscarages...
This article was about inventors you DIDN"T know you wanted to punch in the face.
How'd you know I'm wearing a Snuggie?
ReplyNew names to add to my hate-list
ReplyI was hoping the head of the... just lost the name... those guys who censor movies... would make this list. I hate every, freaking, one of them. (before you question my unquestionable hatred, I'm aspiring film maker. I HERE THE STORIES!)
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI HERE THE STORIES TO!!
Motion Picture Association of America. It's not a law that movies have to be rated by the MPAA (thus "Unrated" movies) but most studios won't produce a film that plans to skip the rating process. Also, legislation is under way to make all visual media presented to the public to go through a censorship process. Yay democracy! For those of you who have never paid attention to the attrocities of the MPAA, check out the documentary "This Film is Not Yet Rated."
@Plagmoid Thank you for reminding me of the name. Much appreciated sir/madam! And I know its not mandatory, however, if you want your film to be seen by an audience outside of people (such as myself) who watch indie films, you have to pass it through the MPAA. That's why they're my enemy's. And thank you for the film recommendation, I plan on checking it out as soon as I possibly can.
Jeb not to play devil's advocate her, because I too hate censorship and am also trying to create cinema orgasms (not porn), but try not to worry about what is rated for the masses and what doesn't get rated condeming it to the obscere or eletist. Not everyone watches indie movies but the people who don't watch them and are not concerned with censorship would not keep up with cinema that carries real integrety. These people are not worried about integrety. They just want to be entertained and let's just say that that's not hard to do with or without censorship, but with it creates much less hate mail. The truth is that society is not a level playing field and those more interested in a specific art will always take issue with it being dumbed down for those not educated in it. Try explaining a complex and/or brilliant scientific idea to a five year old in front of the scientist who pioneered it. He will roll his eyes and constantly try and correct your over simplifications. The fact that there is a corporate or municiple entity that prostates the ability to know what we or our children should or should not be watching is a crime that insults the intelligence of every person it effects. That in mind most people aren't worried about that insult.
Well, this is nice. I was just about to type up a hit list, only to find that Cracked has already done it for me. Now I can skip straight to the killing.
ReplyBurn the call center a*****e at the stake.
ReplyI second this. Call centres are one of the few times I'd RATHER talk to a machine than to one of those smug, arsehole call cetre jerkoffs. They're rude, they're unhelpful, and they can't even speak english. And YES, I"M TALKING ABOUT YOU, VODAFONE.
Fucck you, Vodafone. I hope you all die.
Hello my name is Peggy.
I dunno about auto-tune, I mean that if you have Techno music or something it good or just using it for effects I can understand, otherwise you just don't make money off of it, it's like cheating but anybody can get it so who cares, only hippies.
Reply Hide All See All 4 Repliesthe idea of it is to make you sound like every other pop star in existence at the time
I was gonna agree with you, but then I realize by your grammar that you're a complete retard.
But yeah, auto-tune can be used for good. See James Blake.
I care, but that's because I've been a vocalist nearly my whole life. It's a bit insulting to us who can actually sing. Not a hippie though :)
Baycrum, you do sound, or at least type, like an idiot, but you do have a valid point. Not to toot my own horn here but i think I described that more fully above.
OhMercyMe1, you on the other hand can ignore those thumbs up you have because you're twice as bad. You sound like an idiot AND you're close minded. "Every pop star in existence" is a very broad generalization, even for pop stars. Rather than figuring out why you don't like something maybe you should figure out how it can be better.
And Molls. Come on. Have you ever confused an auto-tuned voice with an unaffected one. There a lots of ways vocalists feign sounding good without auto-tune and they've been doing it since "The Monkees" if not earlier. Being insulted by the auto-tuner is like being offended because you built a badass battleship but everybody is getting into the canoe fad.
Gary Thuerk needs more than a punch to the face. He needs darts thrown into his eyes or something.
ReplyCan I skip the throwing part? I might miss if I throw them, and I just... really need to get some darts in that guy's eyeballs.
The autotune guy deserves a shot to the brain pan for being partly responsible for unleashing Ke$ha upon the world.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesAnd his mangled corpse needs to be ran over by a steamroller.
Not to say he should be forgiven entirely, but he did do a lot for science before letting loose an assault on our ears.
Yeah I remember Hitler did that kinda pretty painting that one time, but do we forgive him for killing millions of people? No, because his crime far outweighed any good he ever did.
even if you did run him over with a steamroller, he would just reinflate himself and send his weasles after you.
We need to blame Cher. That dude made it on a bet. That b***h Cher made it popular.
7 should easily be #1
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesNo... #7 shouldn't even be on the list. Not only is pirating straight up illegal/wrong, but it scares teh s**t out of producers to the point that they keep pumping out worse and worse shit. That really awesome/creative/innovative game/movie/artist? Yeah those are the people/media that get screwed. Transformers 4, 5, 6 7, etc is what we get instead. (along with more MW map packs, and damned auto-tuned popmusice).
Think about it- they know this stuff (while artistically dead/crappy) will turn a buck, but the unknown/creative might flop/people aren't sure of it. They figure even if its good most of the people will just pirate it out of curiousity. Sure a lot more people will pirate their mainstream crap, but even mroe people will be dumb enough to buy it.
Did you not read the last part of the entry they arent paladins of the music industry theyre doing it to get money out of people on technicalities.
I Am responding to Niddhoger: It's not the pirating that's inspiring hatered (at least from me) Going so far as to say you rip off songs from a CD you bought?! Give me a breke! Before the inter net you could record songs off the radio.I Old enough to rember that vaguely atleast. Being able to make back up copies of my musik is fundamentle!
"ravaging the bank accounts of their own customers who were, in many cases, downloading a couple of tracks from an album to see if they wanted to buy it."
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesYeah, not only is that not what the majority of people are doing, it's still f*****g illegal.
And if you do actual research, you'll find that hardly any cases settled out of court pay in the $3,000+ range. The lawsuits against individuals are largely a scare tactic. ISPs and P2P sharing companies foot the real bills.
Let the downvoting commence.
And those scare-tactics are working peachy dandy moon-pie well, aren't they.
People aren't going to stop making music just because they can't make millions doing it. It's illegal to run over a trout with a car in Colorado. Sometimes laws are made by idiots.
Just because you called that your comment was going to be downvoted doesn't make your comment any better.
The RIAA may once have been founded by people that genuinely cared about struggling artists being robbed by pirates.
ReplyThen those sweet innocent founders were replaced by Mitch Bainwol, who is so evil demons SELL souls to him and other Supervillians are horrified by his evil.
Seriously, $84,000 for a song is like if someone got a speeding ticket for 1,000 times the value of their car. I'd say shoot Mitch, but he likely has horcruxes just in case.
I think one of the Horcruxes might be contained in Ke$ha's first single. Let's find them all!