We all know about vestigial organs in living creatures, such as the useless vermiform appendix that gives many people a bad time. These were useful in earlier releases of our body plan, but are now just along for the ride.
So here is a sighting of a similarly useless historical remnant in a Bosch power drill.
I refer to the rubber part affixed to the power cord near the drill’s grip. This well-designed part was very handy in the drills of our youth…
The intent was to keep the chuck key from getting lost, of course… you could stick it into the hole and the rubber flaps would keep it in place when it wasn’t being used to tighten the chuck. These keys were all too easy to misplace, so this was an excellent solution – as the vermiform appendix used to be when we were all eating leaves before we became humans and learned about chocolate and other delights.
The thing is, my drill came with the now common keyless chuck… so the key holder is totally unnecessary. At least it isn’t prone to inflammation…
Now actually, the change is minimal and mostly unimportant, as you can see in the photo of the old can (at left) and the new. They have a slightly modified graphic design, but it’s the same good ol’ coffee we’re all addicted to. But there is one change that caught my eye: the new can is noticeably taller. Since both contain 200g of the same powder, you’d think it was also thinner; and in a sense it is, but not at the base; in fact the bottom and top are of identical diameter. The new can, however, has a “waist” in the middle.
So what? So, canned goods have to be stored, transported, and stocked. They therefore need to be packed close together; ideally you’d want them hexagonal, as the bees had discovered long ago. But even with round cans, you need to try and minimize wasted space. In the home this means minimizing shelf footprint, or base area; you want to be able to put as many of these on a shelf as possible. For shipping and storehouse space you also care about height, of course. But what you really don’t want is to have this sexy curvaceous can that maintains the same footprint but adds height by wasting unusable empty space in the middle.
But the most amazing device is one I snapped in a restaurant today: a nylon bag filled with water, hanging from the rafters (I’ve also seen them hanging from tree branches occasionally). And this traditional system is in use not only in Israel – as I discovered in Google, 
