IF MOUSETRAP TECH is still the paradigm of Yankee ingenuity, it's surprising how sluggish murine-assassination R&D is. The avant-garde "no touch, no see" black-box traps that electrocute mice may seem impressive, but in my experience they only work once-and they're nearly $20 apiece. The trap that still tops best-of lists is roughly the same as the one patented by James Henry Atkinson in 1899: a cheap quick-release spring that's triggered by a naive rodent, and instantly snaps its neck. But three other household tools have improved, and vastly, since Victorian times: humidifiers, glue, and eyelash enhancers. All this ebullient disruption has taken place in the vapor, adhesive, and eyelash "spaces" without incubators, accelerators, fortresses of secrecy in Palo Alto, investor decks, NDAs, or glossy magazine stories about the genius of a bright-eyed, extravagantly capitalized but ultimately fraudulent unicorn. Improvements in ordinary things may be no Blue Origin, but that's because they're better: more useful, less hubristic, and far, far cheaper. Just how Americans should want our secular miracles.
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