And the number one best invention from a jail cell is ...

The toothbrush.

William Addis of England is credited with creating the first mass-produced toothbrush in 1780. In 1770 he had been placed in jail for causing a riot. While in prison, he decided that the method for teeth brushing of the time – rubbing a rag on one's teeth with soot and salt – could be improved. So he took a small animal bone, drilled small holes in it, obtained some bristles from a guard, tied them in tufts, then passed the bristles through the holes on the bone and glued them. He soon became very wealthy. He died in the year 1808 and left the business to his eldest son, William II.

From Wikipedia

Pocket lint

I've blogged in the past about the supernal human invention of the book. Five hundred years from now, a book of my day found in some dusty attic will still be readable, albeit perhaps with the help of a translator. By contrast, a CD-rom in that same attic would probably be absolutely useless, an utter mystery.

"Look, Bill -- I think I found some ancient earrings!"

"From what, Homer? Bigfoot's girlfriend?"

Now allow me to pontificate on another common item that people have tried to improve: the hum-drum little door-key.

I have good, old-fashioned metal keys in my pocket that have lasted a decade or more. My grandparents have keys to their house and outbuildings that are more than 50 years old.

In contrast, somewhere, hopefully not in the wrong hands by now, is a damnable little plastic lump that was given to me when I accepted my current job barely three years ago. It serves, or served, the purpose of a key, by some technological miracle of silent communication with a computer in the building when I held it in front of the door.

But being mere plastic, it succumbed to the rough and tumble of life in my pocket and eventually broke its plastic hinge, falling away somewhere. I'm amazed that it perished thusly, not in the washing machine where my wallet and cell phone periodically go swimming.

Which means now that in 98-degree East Coast heat and 1000 percent humidity, I have to walk all the way to the front of the building, not the employee door, and wait for the secretary to buzz me inside. This unpleasant ritual will continue for some time, as our overworked facilities guy averages about a year to replace things like this.