Absolutely useless as a weapon of war, it gave humankind the
       wondrous ability to destroy all life on this planet. Augmenting a
       fission type bomb with neutron souces and tritium greatly increased
       the explosive yield of the device and advanced the state of the art
       to the point that presently even a terrorist gang can manufacture
       its own nuclear bomb.

       The precurson to the modern battleship, it set off the first of
       the Twentieth Century's arms races and became one of the driving
       factors in the weapons buildup leading to WWI.

       First used at the Battle of Ypres, April 1915, this terror weapon was
       shunned by all the combatants in the Second World War. Saddam Hussein
       revived its use in the Iran-Iraq war in the '80's.

       This nifty little gadget, a variant of the antipersonnel mine,
       had a small powder charge that popped it out of the ground, waist
       high, before the primary load detonated, usually amputating the
       unfortunate victim's cojones in the process.
 

      The engine and disseminator of "pop culture" in the modern age,
      this infernal machine has spawned mass illiteracy, lowered the
      intelligence and destroyed the attention span of two generations.

      This fiendish device makes its owner accessible to everyone all
      the time. If you have no need for privacy or "quiet time",
      then you absolutely must enslave yourself to one of these.

      An added bonus is that with the built-in digital camera these
      thingies now come with, you can transmit to others or upload to the
      Web fascinatingly embarrassing photos of complete strangers, not to
      mention "upskirt" photos taken without the knowledge or consent
      of the subjects from dressing rooms and public restrooms.

      Spawning a generation of computer illiterates, this abomination
      has an especially deadly appeal to those whose minds have been
      burned out by excessive TV watching.

      One of those totally useless and unnecessary inventions that has caused
      more than its share of anguish for generations of cursing motorists.

      Expensive, needlessly complex, failure-prone, difficult to set to the
      desired water temperature, and impossible to turn on without changing
      the previous setting. There is no reason for their existence, except to
      let plumbing fixture manufacturers make an extra buck off you, and to
      give you one more reason to cuss in the shower.
 

       One of those annoying "conveniences" that you wish would just go away.

       After descending through 20 levels of menus, you are pulling your hair
       out and screaming curses.

       The high road to bankruptcy. Charles Dickens would have loved it.

       Based on the premise that it is better to be dead than red-faced.