No ridiculous TwitterPeek in their worst five, but it’d sure be on mine. What would be on yours? Check out Time’s great walk-through of its 50 top inventions at: [TIME]

Time’s Five Worst Inventions:
1. Draconian electronic “Smile Checks” for Japanese railway workers who get alerted if they’re not perky enough.
2. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Coming soon as a graphic novel, apparently.
3. Snuggies for Dogs. Screw that, how about all Snuggies in general.
4. The Gas-Mask Bra. It’s real and one of the award-winning inventions from this year’s quirky Ig Novel Awards.
5. Computers being used in the UK to automatically mark student’s essays. Yeah that one sucked.

The 2011 Nissan Leaf: It’s going to be the first “mass-market” pure-electric car. It’s not the first electric-car period, but the “mass-market” qualifier makes it OK. I guess. And the 160km range. And it’ll be about $30,000 before a $7500 tax break, so you can afford it. And we love Nissans. [Popsci]

The Sikorsky X2 Helicopter: It’s going to be the fastest chopper in existence based on the fact that there are counter-rotating rotors and a backwards-facing propeller that pushes the whole thing forward. It may not look like a helicopter you’re familiar with, but it’s pure sweetness. [Popsci]

Diamond Interchange: This new traffic intersection type can “reduce clogging by as much as 60 per cent”, which bodes well for drivers everywhere. You don’t need to know how it works, you just need to know that it does, and convince your local MP to change over to this style. [Popsci]

Powergenix Rechargeable AA Batteries: These are supposed to be, thanks to better Nickel-Zinc technology, as good as disposables — but can last up to 1000 charges. They’re not too expensive either, comparatively, at $US15 for four. [Popsci]

Sennheiser HD800 headphones: Sennheiser’s HD series are expensive (boldly expensive), but very much worth it. The 800 is just another reason why you should be taking night classes in order to get a better job to pay for these. $US1400 isn’t something you throw down casually, but if you’re talking sound quality AND comfort (others can do one or the other), you’ll have a hard time beating Sennheiser. [Popsci]

X-Flex Blast Protection Wallpaper: These sticky, rollable, self-adhesive sheets can be applied to any wall that you think will be the subject of explosions. In turn, the walls stay vertical and the occupants inside the building say alive. Popsci says these things kept a wrecking ball from going through pure brick, so it’ll definitely keep your angry teenage kid from putting his fist through your drywall. [Popsci]

Filigent Limited BioMask: A face mask — like the kind everyone wears in Japan when they’re sick — that kills 99.9 per cent of flu viruses in less than a minute. And 100 per cent after 10. A regular mask still holds 50,000 bugs (on average). If you want one of these you’ll have to import it from Hong Kong or Europe, where it’s more acceptable to wear one of these on the street. I should really stock up on these for CES next year; not because it’s going to be a mass of diseased bodies in a confined space, but because Adam Frucci is really disgusting. [Popsci]

Xela Innovations Purleve Hygienic Door Handle: The door handle is actually a sleeve dispenser, so instead of touching poopy metal, you touch a removable plastic sleeve whenever you have to get out from the can. It’s genius, even if it is slightly wasteful to refill sleeves all the time. But if we have no problem protecting our arses from public toilets with disposable toilet rings, this should sell just as well. [Popsci]

Microsoft’s Project Natal: If there’s one game development we’re looking forward to, it’s Natal. Imagine combining the fun of being at home with the fun of moving around in your living room and having a machine know exactly what you’re doing. Perhaps we should phrase it another way: Whenever Mark and I play any game, he says “imagine how great this would be with NATAL!!!!” He actually pronounces those exclamation points out loud over Xbox Live so I get how serious he is. [Popsci]

Bosch Full Force Technology Nail Gun: You might not use nail guns every day, but when you do, you really want to savour the experience. In this case, Bosch uses a secondary air blast that follows the first nail-ejection one in order to return the piston into firing position. So the nail gun literally goes pew-pew with each shot. As a result, the gun is 20 per cent smaller and 10 per cent more powerful than anything else. With one of these, everything you own becomes a board. [Popsci]

While the tools were invented that day, it took until October 25, 1985 for Doc Brown to put together all the parts for a time-travelling automobile. Then finally at 1.21am on that fateful autumn day, he successfully pulled off the first first temporal displacement.

It was a great inventing process that began all those years ago, so let’s take a moment to think of our fondest memories of Doc Brown, his Delorean DMC-12 and his time-travelling companion, Martin McFly. [Wired]

I just saw a selection of 30 dumb inventions in Life, and I couldn’t resist picking my favourite 10. These things are so damn stupid they became obsolete before even becoming real products. It was hard to choose. After all, how could I leave out Scientology nutcase L. Ron Hubbard and his Hubbard Electrometer, which in 1968, made him reach the conclusion that tomatoes “scream when sliced”? See? Really hard.

Then I thought that these all looked weirdly familiar. I searched in Gizmodo, and instantly found their modern counterparts. Some of them make sense now, with current technology. Others, as you will see in the gallery, seem equally goofy. All of them, however, we can live without. Enjoy:

Just look at this metal wing angel. His name was Leo Valentin, and he probably read too much Buck Rogers. He became a real angel after his Birdman Suit failed in a jump from an aeroplane in 1956. Fusion Man Yves Rossy actually got it right in 2007.

The good thing about the 1966 external turkey roaster was that you could cook a turkey and anyone around at the same time. They weren’t too crazy: Some people used infra-red lamps to cook pizza in this instant pizza vending machine. It probably tastes the same.

In 1961, Goodyear thought illuminated tyres—made of synthetic rubber and plain bulbs—were going to be all the rage. It wasn’t until the 21st century when some other idiots had the same naff idea.

Back in 1963, some crazy Japanese inventor thought that a pulsating breast, with a built-in heartbeat, will make young children sleep. Even if it had no body attached to it. In 2008, a crazy German inventor thought that a pulsating body would make everyone sleep and feel loved. Even if it had no breasts. Someone is really missing the point.

This robot could pick up the phone but not answer it. Apparently, Claus Scholz of Vienna didn’t get the concept of the answering machine quite right. As much as Anna Jane Grossman likes her real answering machine, I’m sure she won’t miss this one.

Also in 1963, another Japanese inventor thought that his Cat-Mew machine—capable of meowing and lighting its eyes every 10 minutes—was the answer to mice plagues. They need three million of these in Bangladesh. Nowadays, electric cats are equally harmless.

The M3. A deadly sub-machine gun designed to fire around corners with its curved barrel, without even aiming. It’s not 1953 anymore, so some smart minds kept the deadly sub-machine part, and came up with a solution to actually aim and fire around corners.

In 1970 someone thought a shower hood was great. You know, so you can get out of bed and get a shower without having to get rid of your makeup and dirty smoky hair from yesterday’s night out. Nowadays, you only get to do something like this if you have no hair at all.

This is the laryngaphone. Invented in 1929, it was designed to cancel the ambient noise and make you sound like Darth Vader: instead of using a microphone, a mechanism transmitted the vibrations from the vocal chords. Now, vibration-conducting headsets won’t make you sound like Darth Vader. They will just make you look like a douche.

Who could be so stupid as to put a live weapon in the hands of a robot? Apparently, in 1960, they thought it was a-OK. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, there are plenty of equally stupid people.

Clearly, humans are the only animals that trip twice over the same stone.

It’s usually heartening to see a great mind recognise an error in judgement, or a personal accomplishment gone awry — it’s humility, and we love it in our heroes. Sometimes, though, it’s just depressing. Anyhoo! Here are eight inventors, technologians and scientists who’ve come to terms with what they’ve wrought. Or who’ve at least tried.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and those stupid slashes: The man largely credited with devising the World Wide Web as we know it today is sorry:

Really, if you think about it, it doesn’t need the //. I could have designed it not to have the //

We laugh, sure, because it’s just a couple characters, and for those of us who were weaned on older browsers typing them out is second nature. But the sheer on-the-phone-with-mum inconvenience caused by this oversight is impossible to quantify.

Bill Gates, and, uh, “Windows”: OK, so this one feels like a bit of a gotcha, but it’s a classic. Back in 2008 we asked Bill what Microsoft product could have used a little more polish before release. He answered kind of frankly!:

Ah, ask me after we ship the next version of Windows. (Laughs.) Then I’ll be more open to give you a blunt answer.

That was blunt enough for us. Windows 7, among other things, earns this one a pass.

Vincent Connare, and Comic Sans: Font of choice for kitschy restaurant menus, passive-aggressive office notices and the worst websites on the internet, Comic Sans is merely a lame font, made evil by its endless, widespread use. From the WSJ, the creator on his most maligned creation, which was originally intended for use exclusively in Microsoft Bob:

He cringes at the most improbable manifestations of his Frankenstein’s monster font and rarely uses it himself, but he says he tries to be polite when he meets people excited to be in the presence of the creator.

Connare’s penance has already been paid: Microsoft owns the font, so he couldn’t earn any royalties from its viral—and I mean that in the worst way possible—spread.

Thomas Midgley, and the destruction of earth: This one’s more sad than regrettable: A brilliant scientist, Midgley solved the engineering problems of the day spectacularly well. Car engine making knocking sounds? Have some leaded fuel! Wish you could refrigerate things without huge blocks of ice? Here’s a bucket of Freon! Midgley died well before it became clear just how dangerous leaded fuel and chlorofluorocarbon were, so the lamentation was left to others. According to J.R. McNeill,

he had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history.

Well, you know, it happens. Image via HowStuffWorks

Robert Propst, and the cubicle: Everyone has learned the pained, tragicomic lore of the cubicle farm in one way or another, but to those of you reading this from a box right now, there’s nothing to smile about. The man who designed the first cubicle shuddered at the thought:

Before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called “monolithic insanity.”

Granted, his design was a box, which you’d assume to be a safe move.

Oppenheimer, and the atomic bomb: As director of the Manhattan project, J. Robert Oppenheimer headed up one of the most spectacular scientific undertakings of the 20th century. Then a lot of innocent people died. This made him sad:

I have no remorse about the making of the bomb and Trinity [the first test of an a-bomb]. That was done right. As for how we used it, I understand why it happened and appreciate with what nobility those men with whom I’d worked made their decision. But I do not have the feeling that it was done right. The ultimatum to Japan [the Potsdam Proclamation demanding Japan's surrender] was full of pious platitudes … our government should have acted with more foresight and clarity in telling the world and Japan what the bomb meant.

This is less an issue of an stray invention than it is the unavoidable, unintended consequences of technological progress, but still. Wow.

Lou Montulli, and this: He’s the name associated with the BLINK tag that played no small part in ruining broad (and admittedly low-rent) swaths of the internet, but he didn’t write any code for it:

The blink tag will probably be remembered as the most hated of all HTML tags. I would like to publicly state that at no time did I actually write code or even seriously advocate for the tag. It is true that I put forth the initial inspiration, but it really was merely a thought experiment.

A thought experiment which invariably ends with a theoretical group of web designers, sitting in a theoretical room, theoretically consoling one another while they theoretically cry tears of blood? Interestingly, he will bear this burden himself, because he is a Man of Honour:

I am not going to name any names of the people who coded the dastardly deed, if they wish to step forward, they will need to do it themselves.

Yeah, that’s probably for the best.

Doc Brown, and his DeLorean: Because it didn’t just cause some serious awkwardness for Marty McFly; it resulted in two sequels that we probably could’ve done without. The Doc:

I wish I’d never invented that infernal time machine. It’s caused nothing but disaster.

For this I forgive him, mainly because he isn’t real.

It took them a while to get there, but once they crossed paths, Boyle and Smith quickly got to work on our beloved CCD image sensors, changing our digital photographs forever. And one day, as the rest of the world had their eyes on the moon in 1969, they finalised their device, which would let us capture images of it.

Williard Boyle had a brief teaching career after his stint in the Royal British Navy, earning his BSc, MSc and PhD from McGill University. He then moved on to join Bell Labs, working up to being director of the Space Science and Exploratory Studies department where he provided “support for the Apollo space program and help[ed] to select lunar landing sites”. After some time away from that, he “returned to Bell Labs in 1964, working on the development of integrated circuits”. All the while it was remarked that he truly was a modest and “self-effacing” man, almost a stereotype of the quiet genius.

While we don’t know whether he was cocky or modest, George E. Smith followed a vaguely similar path: he served in the US Navy, then earned a BSc from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD from the University of Chicago, where he did in fact write a three-page-long dissertation. He also joined Bell Labs and began to research lasers and semiconductor devices.

Yes, with their beginnings in space exploration and lasers, it seems almost obvious that these two were bound to come up with something incredible, but I doubt that they even dreamed about inventing something that we would use or see results of on a daily basis.

Dearest Williard, beloved George: Today we thank you for your inventions and congratulate you on your Nobel prize. After all, without you, our porn wouldn’t be the high-quality digital video we so enjoy. [Digital Photography Review and Wikipedia and Wikipedia]

Invented by Vermonter Jason Starr, surf skiing was invented because of “Starr’s belief that surfing and skiing share a bond as originals in the world of action sports, both rooted in rich cultures and ancient histories, and both fuelled by timeless sources of peace and power-the ocean and the mountains. They co-exist harmoniously on the snow, and the relationship now extends to the surf.” Sure. They kind of remind me of those street skis that old guys use to practice cross-country skiing in the summertime.

And I’ll bet these are pretty fun, I assume if you bring these out to a serious surfing spot you’re just asking to get your face punched. [Stoke Report]

Way up. The answer? They were all the direct result of NASA products and research initially conducted for space travel.

The drill, for instance, was created in 1971, when NASA tapped Black & Decker to build a cordless, battery-power tool for lunar voyages and space walks. The smoker detector, on the other hand, was installed on Skylab in the 1970s to warn astronauts of mission- and life-ending fire. Finally, the LZR, long an antagonist to anyone racing against Michael Phelps in an Olympic pool, was created using materials developed by NASA to fight chafing on space walks and certain high g-force situations.

Radar magazine has a cool list of eleven more where that came from, including braces, swipe cards and even a rose-scented perfume. When you wear underwear for a month straight, things get stinky. [Radar via Neatorama]

“Honey, I’m amazed that we never have any un-popped kernels. How do you do it each and every time?!” “Well, it’s simple, honey, really. I just use this special bowl I made a few weeks ago. And your vibrator.”

At which point “honey” throws up and walks out on me. Again. Nevertheless, one 2-hour movie and a full stomach later, I’m sleeping like a baby, content with the knowledge that no un-popped kernels have infiltrated my digestive system, thereby ruining my evening.

More seriously though, dear readers, the guys at Stupid Inventions claim the vibrator is merely the motor unit from a massage pillow. Sure it is, fellas. Try using that line on your next date. [YouTube via Nowhere Else - Thanks, Zachary]