7 Inventors You Didn't Know You Wanted to Punch In the Face
#3.
John Law, the Guy Who Crashed the World's Economy From the Grave
The Man
John Law was a Scottish economist. When we say "economist," we mean that in the loosest terms possible. Prior to being tasked with running the national bank of France back in the 1700s, you wouldn't have taken him for the kind of guy you would even trust with a child's piggy bank. Possibly because of that unfortunate murder charge that kept him from leaving the country.
But put him in charge they did, and what he did with this newfound power has a whole lot to do with why you're quite possibly living in a trailer park right now.
A Polish cartoon from 1720 that mocks John Law's policies.
(We have no idea what's actually going on in this cartoon, but it's kind of hot.)
The Crime
You've heard of sub-prime lending, right? You know, that's the system where American bankers believed that they could turn a bunch of really bad hobo debts into a class of AAA securities by using nothing more than the power of wishful thinking. Well, turns out, they weren't the first to try the miracles of this practice. Your boy John Law introduced the system in France during the early 18th century with (surprise!) the same disastrous consequences.
As Controller General of Finance, Law convinced the French royals to pay off their government debts by exchanging them for shares in the Mississippi Company, which held exclusive trading rights to France. One small problem: the company wasn't making profits, the shares were worth shit and nobody wanted them. To overcome this setback, Law repackaged a bunch of these sub-prime debts as marketable securities and voila--the shares became hotter than a Parisian hooker in a lace corset.
Law's plan worked for awhile--that is, before it crashed and burned. The French economy, along with a lot of Europe, plummeted into deep recession and economic crisis. Meanwhile, the French peasants, thrown into poverty and destitution, were subjected to the 18th century version of Suze Orman. This understandably set the stage for the French Revolution. It also led to the United States trying the exact same shit hundreds of years later which, in turn, led to the Cracked offices being relocated to an abandoned Carl's Jr. on the outskirts of Butte, Montana. Thanks, France!
#2.
Andy Hindelbrand, Inventor of Auto-Tune
The Man
Andy Hindelbrand had worked for years interpreting seismic data for the oil industry. Using a mathematical formula called autocorrelation, Hindelbrand would send sound waves into the ground and record their reflections, providing an accccccccccccca;sdlk... whoa, we fell asleep for a second there! An accurate map of potential drill sites. That's what that boring shit he was doing was all about.
Now if you're thinking that's one dull dead-end job, don't... his technique saved the oil companies millions and allowed him to retire at 40. That's reason enough to blast him in the facepiece, but there's more.
The Crime
After 13 years of playing music for rocks, Hindelbrand figured he needed to party and unwind. During a retirement dinner party, a guest challenged him to a most interesting, um, challenge. She wanted him to invent a box that would allow her to sing in tune. After presumably consulting with Satan himself, Hindelbrand took up the challenge and created Auto-Tune.
Because of Satan.
Though Hindelbrand designed the device to be used primarily for pitch correction, Cher promptly employed it to sound like a drowning R2-D2 on her comeback hit "Believe," giving the public their first encounter with Auto-Tune. Hindelbrand hadn't realized that basic human nature towards a new technological toy would be to blatantly misuse it or turn it into a method of mass torture. This is something we at Cracked could have easily predicted. Afterall, give a kid a GTA console and he'll spend the first 10 minutes killing pedestrians in the most creative ways possible.
Now Auto-Tune has become an indispensable part of the music industry, acting as a sort of Photoshop for the human voice. From Britney Spears to obscure Bollywood soundtracks, every singer now presumes that you'll just run their voice through the box.
It gets worse. Since literally anyone can sing with its help, the maker's of Auto-Tune have now teamed up with T-Pain to release a $99 version of the device along with iPhone applications for home musicians.
#1.
Gary Thuerk, Inventor of Spam Emails
The Man
Gary Thuerk has had Internet access since most of the people reading this were just swimmers in their fathers' hairy sack. We'll give you a second to meditate on that, kids. Cool, moving on. Back in 1973, when the Internet was still called Arpanet, Thuerk was working as the marketing manager for the creatively named Digital Equipment Corporation and was looking for a fast and easy way to let people know about his company's products.
Early Carrier-Pigeon Spam wasn't annoying enough.
What he came up with would have repercussions that last to this very day. Repercussions that, if they are to be believed, will increase your penis size by 500 percent and allow you to refinance your home in a way that will actually end up making you money.
The Crime
Thuerk's idea for promoting his product was to send an unsolicited email to some 600 Arpanet users. That's right, Gary Thuerk is the dickface who first thought up the concept of spam email.
If you're thinking 600 is a small number compared to spammers today, keep in mind that this was in 1973, and there were only a total of about several thousand users of Arpanet at the time.
When the email users checked their inboxes, the foreign looking message with a cc list longer than Sarah Jessica Parker's face was a strange and unusual sight. Some, ignorant of the trend of Viagra messages the notification would spark, found it interesting. Others cursed Thuerk when their computer crashed. The Defense Communication Agency was furious and forbid Thuerk from ever sending unsolicited mails again.
But the seeds of a national menace had been formed. Today, a managed email security firm based in New York says spam now makes up more than 80 percent of all email being sent around the world.
These days, Thuerk says people have one of three reactions when they meet him: some are excited to meet someone with such an unusual claim to fame; some avoid him like the plague; and others, us for example, just want to deliver a fist of fury to his piehole. Can you blame us?
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For more people that deserve face beatings, check out 7 Obnoxious Assholes Who Show Up At Every Concert and 8 Customers Everyone Hates.
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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!