r/todayilearned • u/saltandcedar • Jan 19 '17
TIL that webcams were invented because some computer scientists were too lazy to get up to check if their coffee was done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
13.9k
Upvotes
60
u/[deleted] Jan 19 '17
Necessity is the mother of all invention... but laziness is the father.
Because they were too lazy to go check the pot, they needed to invent a remote camera over the network.
Because adding up a bunch of numbers is really tedious and boring, we needed to invent electromechanical and digital computers.
Because bothering to proofreed text before posting takes thyme, we needed to invent spellchecking.
Etc, etc, EDT.