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What's the greatest invention of your lifetime?

Asked by Jane Belanger

March 9, 2011

Photo of Leticia Flores

Leticia Flores

From Chula Vista (Health Information Coordinator)

Cell phone. [My kids] don’t know what it’s like to live without a cell phone. They don’t remember the rotary phones or what it’s like just not being able to reach someone for a day or two. The greatest invention has to be the cell phone. Especially when you have kids, you know? “Mom, come pick me up now!”

Photo of Kezia Flores

Kezia Flores

From Chula Vista (Student)

I was in seventh grade when we got cell phones. We had to be responsible to get them. We got the cheapie ones first. If we got better grades, we got better phones!

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Queency Mateo

From Downtown (Entrepreneur)

This is funny! I actually made and patented underwear liners for men, called Manty Liners. I’ve had women in sharksuits — lawyers — on the floor, laughing. It’s so taboo! But my real market is for the kids. After pull-ups, they don’t have any transitional products, so I also patented my main product, called Skidz. The price of a diaper or pull-up is way expensive. For the price of a pantyliner you can just rip it off, and women don’t have to deal with the crap! Proceeds from the invention go to an educational fund for parents who’ve had to deal with crap their entire lives.

Photo of Alexander M.

Alexander M.

From North Park (Unemployed)

I would have to say the use of cyberspace, the modern era, even though I’m not linked up to it. The fact that it’s available and that I can use it anytime — that’s definitely key.

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Kent McGaig

From North Park (Unemployed)

Definitely not the cell phone. If you think about all the people that get in crashes just from cell phones alone, it’s enough to not even make them legal. The thing is, everybody’s a robot now, which is the main problem. It’s unfortunate...but it’s fortunate at the same time. It’s unfortunate because everyone’s trying to make a dime off of us. There are technologies that have been out for 40 years, and now they want to drop those on us? They want to charge us full pop on something’s that been around. All they want to do is make money on it. In my 28-year span, everything’s changed too much.

Photo of Devon McDonald

Devon McDonald

From National City (Navy)

The internet — mainstream, commercialized internet.

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