Inventions ele.indd

Inventions their creators regret

1 Key words

Match the key words to the definitions.

abandoned

blind

crossbreed

inventor

monstrous

assault rifle

ruin

success

1. someone who creates things that did not exist before

2. good results

3. to spoil or severely damage something

4. terrible or morally wrong

5. an animal that is a mixture of two different sorts of the same type of animal

6. left alone and not looked after

7. unable to see

8. a semi- or fully automatic firearm behaviour

peaceful protesters

privacy

cubicle

horrified

punishment

tag

responsible

9. to be the cause of something

10. a piece of equipment that someone, especially a criminal, has to wear, that checks where they go

11. the way that someone acts

12. very shocked

13. the act of making someone pay for or suffer for something bad they have done

14. people who show, in a non-violent way, that they are against something

15. the freedom to do things without other people watching you

16. a small area in a room, separated from the rest of the room by thin walls

2 Flappy Bird, the labradoodle and other inventions their creators regret

The inventor of the mobile game Flappy Bird removed it from app stores because its success ruined his simple life. Hes not the first to be sorry he invented somethingEmine Saner First published in The Guardian, 11/02/141 Flappy Bird

Dong Nguyen, the inventor of the mobile game Flappy Bird, removed it from app stores. It was downloaded more than 50 million times and was making him around 30,000 each day.

He said its success ruined his simple life. On

Twitter, he said: I cannot live like this anymore.

Nguyen is the latest inventor who wishes he hadnt created a monster:

2 The labradoodle

The labradoodle isnt a monster its lovely. But whats monstrous is the way people sell crossbreed dogs since the labradoodles inventor, Wally Conron, first created the dog in the 1980s. Ive created a lot of problems, he said. There are a lot of unhealthy and abandoned dogs now. Conron invented the labradoodle when he was working for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia. He invented it as a dog for a blind woman. Her husband was allergic to dog hair. He didnt know that the labradoodle would become so popular.

3 The AK-47

Six months before his death in December 2013, Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the assault rifle, wrote to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and asked: If my rifle killed people, am I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, 93 years old, the son of a poor farmer, Christian and Orthodox, responsible for peoples deaths, even if they were enemies?

4 Electronic tagging

The electronic tag was first made in the 1960s to check if ex-prisoners went to school or work, and to reward them for good behaviour. Its inventors, Bob Gable and his brother Kirkland, were later horrified that the tag became a form of control and punishment. Its not pleasant, Kirkland Gable said in 2010, but Im not in control of the universe. I have to realize there are some things out of my control.

5 Pepper spray

After police sprayed peaceful protesters with pepper spray at a University of California campus in 2011, Kamran Loghman, one of the scientists who helped develop the spray in the 80s said, I have never seen such an inappropriate use of chemicals.

6 The office cubicle

In the late 60s, a new kind of office was made to give workers privacy and increase how well and how quickly people work by giving more work space. But the cubicle became a way for companies to put employees into smaller spaces. The inventor, Bob Propst, said, in 1997, the use of cubicles in modern companies is crazy.

3 True or false?

Are these statements are true (T) or false (F) according to the article? Correct the false statements.

1. The inventor of Flappy Bird removed it from the app store because it wasnt making any money.

2. The inventor of the labradoodle hoped it would help blind people.

3.Other crossbreed dogs that were made after the labradoodle were unhealthy and people didnt want to keep them.

4. The AK-47 is a weapon that was invented by a Russian orthodox priest.

5. Electronic tags were invented to give prisoners more freedom, not less freedom.

6. One of the inventors of the electronic tag wants to control the universe.

7. The inventor of pepper spray was shocked when it was used against peaceful protestors.

8. People who work in office cubicles have more space and less privacy.

4 Discussion

Can you think of other things that inventors might be sorry they invented? (E.g. dynamite, sun beds, plastic shopping bags) Say why they might be sorry.

What are the greatest inventions of all time? How have they helped people? Have they also been used in any bad ways?

Background and themes

Humans have been inventing since the earliest breakthroughs in understanding and application, such as the first use of tools and the discovery of fire. It is natural for humans to want to solve problems and find new ways of making life easier. The inventors may have lived centuries apart but they are united by their common goal of turning their ideas into reality and building upon the knowledge and experiences of the previous generations. Changes in technology and the invention of new machines do not happen in isolation. It must points out the effects important innovations have had upon society and history. The invention of the steam engine, for example, marked the beginning of the industrial revolution in Europe. Society was irrevocably changed by the revolution: class boundaries blurred, traditional womens roles almost disappeared and the shape of Europes towns and cities changed for ever. The social and historical effects of the other inventions are no less revolutionary. Risk and danger is a recurring theme in the history of inventions. Time after time, individual inventors faced poverty, failure and even death in order to push the levels of human understanding one step further.