History Main / InventionalWisdom

* In ''Fanfic/ThisBites'', after a near-miss with a self-destruct lever whilst trying to show off the now-operational weather control system to the denizens of Karakuri Island, Franky demands to know what Vegapunk's deal was when it came to just randomly scattering self-destruct switches all over the place, proclaiming this to be the third he's found since moving in.

--->'''The Delightful Children from Down the Lane'': A HEATER!? Who puts a HEATER in an ICE CREAM FACTORY?!

* All of the vehicles in ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' have features that no sane person would ever include in acar, such as the Compact Pussycat's automatic personal grooming facilities. But, then again, no one ever accused the Wacky Racers of being sane.

** When Sector V infiltrate an ice cream factory, Numbuh Three gets cold and cranks the first thermostat she can find as high as possible. This heats up not just the working spaces but the ''entire factory'' so much that [[MonsterOfTheWeek a giant monster made of ice cream]] [[ImMeltings melts after a few minutes]].

* When Takarada of ''Anime/KillLaKill'' tries to fight using crab-like PoweredArmor, Sanegayama beats him by shoving his [[WoodenKatanasAreEvenBetter shinai]] up a hole on the back that seems to not only go straight to the unprotected cockpit, but ''[[AssShove straight up Takarada's ass]]''. What purpose such a structure could have served is never even asked.

* Some examples from ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'':

** In another episode, the ice cream MonsterOfTheWeek is defeated when Numbuh Three [[ImMelting turns on the heater in the ice cream factory]]. Quote The Delightful Children from Down the Lane:
--->'''DCFDL''': A HEATER!? Who puts a HEATER in an ICE CREAM FACTORY?!

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' has a fondness for these, with players often ending up with levers that serve no purpose but to flood parts of their own fortress with lava. This is particularly pronounced in games when [[SuccessionGame players swap out between years]] so that no-one knows what the lever actually ''does'' and building around it. For example, Blog/{{Boatmurdered}} had a lever that, when pulled, flooded a siege workshop. It turned out it had originally been put in [[spoiler:to irrigate the farms]] and became hilariously useless later [[spoiler:when someone built a siege workshop on them]].

** In ''[[WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovieAcrossThe2ndDimension Across the 2nd Dimension]]'' Doofenshmirtz mentions he once deployed an army of robots and hid the self-destruct buttons on their feet. Guess how the robots were defeated.

* ''WebAnimation/TeamNeighborhood'': The main plot of ''Cable Calamity'' is kicked off when a drunk [[VideoGame/JC Denton]], on a mission to destroy the internet, mistakenly hits the button labelled "Destroy Only The BLU Team’s Internet".

* ''WebAnimation/TeamNeighboorhood'': The main plot of ''Cable Calamity'' is kicked off when a drunk [[VideoGame/JC Denton]], on a mission to destroy the internet, mistakenly hits the button labelled "Destroy Only The BLU Team’s Internet".

When the MadScientist or GadgeteerGenius creates a machine of diabolical nature, some function gets thrown into the mix that wasn't quite planned, doesn't really serve any practical purpose, and may even be an AchillesHeel--a lever for flooding the cockpit of the HumongousMecha with its fuel reserves, for instance.

** Up to this day, keyboards, especially compact keyboards, utilize all this pesky unused space above the arrow keys by placing power control buttons... [[DamnYouMuscleMemory where Print Screen, Insert or Delete button would usually go]]. Constantly shutting the computer off (often losing unsaved files in the process) gets frustrating enough that some users ''tear out those keys''.

* Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment - Every program attempts to expand [its features] until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.