Boring but Practical/Real Life

"In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that?"
 * Humans are often praised for their high intelligence compared to any other animals. However, this is only the second best superpower humans possess. Even more important and providing humans with an advantage over almost any other animals of the plain was the ability... to walk! And keep walking for hours. Many animals are a lot faster than humans but also tire much faster. Humans can travel over very long distances with relatively short amounts of rest and their ability to carry water with them extended this even more. To capture a horse alive, you just had to follow them until they were too exhausted to take a single more step.
 * One of the few other animals with a similar ability to travel over long distances is the trusty dog. The beginning of a wonderful partnership.
 * Shields. Rocks, pieces of wood, animal hide, a convenient wall, and metal shields are damn useful. Modern day shields can be bulletproof so that a gun is rendered silly before them. It functions well with armor and strap shields can be used with any one handed weapon. If you need a smaller one to have an open hand, you can use a buckler. Someone trained with a shield can easily defeat someone without one. Or with one, really.
 * The "Wash" method of shuffling cards. It's not pretty, it's slower than other techniques, looks decidely amatuerish and is the natural shuffling technique of people who can't otherwise shuffle cards (including small children), but when it comes right down to it, spreading the cards around on the table with the palms of your hands is simply the best way to achieve truly random results, so-much-so that proffesional dealers will typically "Wash" a brand-new deck of cards (which will, of course, start-off ordered by suit and by number) in order to properly randomise them before flashier and faster but less random shuffling techniques such as the Riffle take over.
 * Healthy food. While eating a variety of foods and spices will probably be the best way to get all your nutrients, plain food can keep you reasonably healthy (providing you don't leave out any important food group.)
 * Regular, comfortable clothes. Spend a few months rehearsing/acting in a corset, hoop-skirt and high heels if you don't believe me.
 * The humble spear. Basically the next step of weapons development after inventing the knife (or sharpened rock), and has been in use for thousands of years by almost every single culture that has ever existed. It has equipped entire armies, and even now exists in the form of a bayonet attachment for guns.
 * So practical, that it coined the name of an entire nation. The germanic word for spear is "ger". So a spearman is a "german".
 * Roman equipment:
 * The humble short sword and shield of the Roman legions. Compared to the massive swords and axes of their opponents, these seemed sadly undersized but, combined with Roman tactics, it easily carried the day in thousands of engagements. There's a reason it's known as "the sword that conquered the world".
 * Though technically they did not acquire the short sword until they found it in Spain during the Punic Wars. In other words it was the Roman soldier that conquered the world and he happened to pick up a taste for the gladius along the way.
 * The roman shovel, even more boring, but even more practical as the Tool that conquered the world. The Roman legions were trained even more rigorously with their shovels than with their swords. Why? With their shovels, they could construct earthworks around their camps, making them much harder to assault while at rest. They could dig latrines for sanitation. They could build roads so that the legions that would follow them could arrive faster. They could dig underneath walls during sieges, then collapse the tunnels, causing the walls to weaken and fall. You can also improvise a shovel as a polearm or a club. The average roman soldier would use, over a lifetime, his shovel nearly a thousand times more than his sword. After all, you could only use a sword to fight, but you can use a shovel for ANYTHING.
 * To this very day, many armies train their soldiers in the use of shovels (or Entrenching Tools, shortened to E-tools) as weapons. Specific examples include the Green Berets, who are trained in using their E-Tools as hacking and stabbing weapons, and the Spetsnaz who are trained in how to throw them like hatchets.
 * The Spetsnaz Combat Shovel also makes a decent frying pan.
 * Discipline : sure, being a huge fellow with a large sword that can shout loud is impressive. Sure, being the maverick hero who doesn't answer to anyone and save the day by going against everyone's expectation looks cool. But in the end, these expectations exists because following order in a disciplined fashion is just goddamned efficient.
 * How about the bow and arrow? The first truly effective projectile weapon (after the primitive sling). Used and improved upon for thousands of years and only finally outclassed by gunpowder weapons.
 * In fact, the English longbow was arguably the most effective weapon on the battlefield and definitely more effective than guns/cannons for years after their appearance. It simply required LOTS more training (about a lifetime's worth) than a gun or even crossbow.
 * The training is the reason that gunpowder weapons replaced bows and crossbows on the battlefield. You could train a recruit to use the early smooth-bore black powder guns acceptably in a few weeks, but it would take at least 10 years to get a longbowman up to standard. Crossbows were more difficult to learn than early guns, but much easier than longbows.
 * During the feudal era of Japan, arrows took the lives of far more soldiers than any other type of weapon, roughly 70% of the casualties of any major battle, even after the introduction of firearms into the Japanese arsenal. Why? Japan never used metal armor during this time period, the most advanced armors were instead made of lacquered wood, meaning that against a steel-headed arrow coming down from above, they had roughly the same deflective power as tissue paper. Yeah, katanas are cool and all, but they're not much use against a weapon that can kill you before you come within 50 ft of your attacker.
 * By the way—that "primitive" sling? A weapon of terror. Ammo is basically infinite, you can use either specially-made shot or anything small and hard. The Romans dreaded sling-masters because they could kill armored soldiers through concussions. Reloading is extremely quick and trained sling wielders only needed one swing to get to full power. The slingshot is actually a step backwards in lethality. The Spanish armies included slingers until the 16th century - they could easily kill an unarmoured Moslem horseman at distance. Slings were considered so deadly there was a time where their use could be considered a war crime.
 * The late Norm Borlaug is quite possibly the exemplar of this trope in Real Life. He saved about 10 times more people from death than died in World War Two. He spent decades interbreeding plants in a process even he admits damn near drove him insane with tedium. However, the result was the Green Revolution which, increased crop yields to such an extent as to save more than a billion people from dying of starvation.
 * During the Second World War the de Havilland Mosquito was made of wood and canvas, old fashioned and low tech for the time. However whereas repairing a Spitfire took time and effort, a Mosquito could often be patched up by glue and canvas. To quote the Reichsmarschall:


 * I wouldn't call the Mosquito 'boring', given its high performance and usefulness, and its innovative construction (it wasn't 'old fashioned', as it used old materials in a new way). I think it's more properly defined as interesting and practical!
 * More like Awesome but Practical. It was at the time the fastest plane ever built. But it was also large enough to carry bombs and take heavier weapons. The brits often sent them in to bomb Berlin during the day. By the time the Germans had scrambled their planes it was already over the canal. But what if they ended up in a dogfight? Well you're just facing a fighter plane with heavier weapons than you. Oh and it's also a lot faster. And since it used wood and canvas they were easy to repair and really cheap to produce. That meant that you had lots of planes that were in short awesome at everything.
 * Production had the advantage that, being made of wood, canvas, and glues, there was much less pressure on the supplies of raw materials from other war production, making it much easier to get raw materials. Because it was made of materials not being used in most other war production, it was also easier to get people already skilled in their use (it was pretty easy for cabinet makers and carpenters to learn to make parts, for instance, since cutting and shaping wood is cutting and shaping wood). It was also generally easier to train people in woodworking than metalworking needed for metal designs. In combat, the fact that the thing was made of composited wood and canvas held together with adhesives made it a LOT tougher than it looked like it should be.
 * The Hawker Hurricane is a better fit, tube-stell body and wooden wings, with the whole thing covered in canvas. A bit slow and unmanouverable for the bad, but it'd take hundreds of rounds easily, and often survived because the canvas wasn't tough enough to trigger explosive rounds. Also, the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber, underpowered, underarmed, and wouldn't look out of place in WW 1, yet 20 of these claimed 1 battleship sunk and 2 damaged at Taranto.
 * The mighty Bismarck. Sank the H.M.S Hood in only a few minutes with nearly every hand aboard. One of the most high tech, powerful naval vessels around. Brought down by a torpedo launched from a Swordfish.
 * Swordfishes were later fitted with radar and used for anti-submarine warfare. Once that happened, the North Atlantic wasn't safe for any German ship or submarine.
 * I-16 by Polikarpov, aka "Fly" (for the Spanish Republicans) aka "Rat" (for the Spanish Nationalists) aka "Donkey" (for the Russian-speaking). When introduced, it was the first low wing cantilever monoplane with a retractable undercarriage used by any military in the world - and thus quite "hot stuff", yes. And the only thing that gave a serious trouble to SM.79 over Spain. But: it wasn't written off until 1943, and there were good reasons for this.
 * It had two rivals falling under the same description - compare photo. I-14 (ANT-31) was actually more maneuverable and did beat I-16 in mock fights, though was inconvenient for production and had even worse mechanization. IP-1 had better mechanization (raising ski undercarriage, not only wheel variant) and better cockpit, among other things, and actually got into small series. How I-16 won? In spin behavior. I-14 was much worse at this, and IP-1 actually crashed in one test when the pilot failed to stop spinning. I-16 failed to enter some spin modes and stabilized easily. When others finally worked out the kinks, I-16 got already mass-produced and polished, and it was the time to develop the next generation.
 * When the more powerful fighters appeared, it was clear that I-16 is hard to boost much even with better engines. But its relatively large wing area still meant good maneuverability - and ability to carry a better loadout, so it was used as a fighter-bomber. I-16 wasn't such a cutting edge as a plane in 1939, but that's when it got air-to-air rockets and fought like this against the Japanese, with convincing results. Later it was used in "Project Zveno" where it carried 2x 250 kg bombs - it couldn't lift off with this weight on its own - for precise bombing, again with spectacular results.
 * The Gruman F4F Wildcat and Brewster F2A Buffalo also deserve honerable mention. The Wildcat couldn't beat a Mitsubishi A6M Zero in a dogfight, but with proper tactics was tough enough to fight them to a standstill. Unlike the Allied fighters that outclassed their Japanese counterparts, an F4F could operate from an escort carrier. The F2A was less capable the the F4F and, the 44 that the Finns got their hands on were the backbone of the Finnish Air Force until they got Messerschmitt Bf109s. The Finnish Buffalos shot down roughly twice as many Soviet aircraft than the Finns lost during the entire war.
 * The old Chinook transport helicopters are easily discernable by their unique shape with two large rotors and no tail, but are otherwise not much to look at. However they have a very large storage compartment and can even lift field artillery right to their employment location, while also being able to operate at altitudes where most other helicopters can no longer generate enough lift to keep rising. In addition, when escorted by Apache combat helicopters, the Chinooks have to slow down as the Apaches can't keep up. It's actually suprising that's its an American design and not made by Russia.
 * Speaking of Russian helicopter designs, there is the Mi-8. It's an ugly thing to be sure, with a rail-thin tail and a huge bulbous body. But it is also nearly endlessly customizable, carries twenty fully-armed combat troops and can take a beating. It's been in service with the Russian military for over fifty years, and while the Ka-60 was intended to replace it, it's looking like the "Hip" is going to be around for quite a while longer.
 * Another WW 2 example is tank warfare on the Eastern Front. The Nazis wasted resources coming up with bigger and better tanks, while the Soviets simply mass-produced their existing T-34. The T-34 was so simple and practical with a decent sized gun, sloped armor and an efficient diesel engine that almost never quit, that it would've made much more sense for the Nazis to copy it. Instead they wasted time and resources overdesigning and building expensive monster tanks with huge guns, thick vertical armor, and underpowered gasoline hungry engines that were prone to breakdown, but were made specifically to take the T-34 down - but they simply could not pump out the numbers to make it worthwhile. The T-34 itself does have its own awesome aspects, mainly due to being Made of Iron and The Determinator.
 * Funniest fact with the T-34 is the poor quality control due to parts being produced at hundreds of factories with varying standards, which exacerbated the fair share of problems the unpolished design had as is. As a result, Soviet tank corps had to deal with steering and braking levers which stuck and could only be released with a hammer, rubberless treads, poor transmission design derived from an abandoned American project (Which still, however, proved to be more reliable than elaborate layered disk treads of Panthers and Tigers). Most T-34s lacked radios. Compared to any Pz-IV or Panther it was a mule against a thoroughbred. But it could still pack the same firepower or even greater, hold its ground with thick sloped armor and most important, it could be churned out by tens of thousands. You can forget any faults when there are a few hundreds of them charging at you, guns blazing.
 * It also came as standard with a 76 mm main gun (later upgraded to 85mm), an aluminium engine block, and tracks that didn't bog down so badly in rough Russian terrain.
 * The Sherman also fit this category. Against a Tiger or a Panther one on one a Sherman would get its turret handed to it. But the allies used its superior speed and production to overwhelm the enemy in large groups. While they shot at one or two Shermans the rest got behind and started blasting away at the weaker backside.
 * In any case tanks aren't mainly for fighting other tanks as if they were battleships. Tanks are for digging a hole through the enemy lines, and getting through and destroying supply lines. Do the math. A good tank is only worth two or three poor tanks at best. It is worth any amount of trucks. That is what people forget when they compare Tigers to Shermans; they are thinking of heroic duels. But having more and faster tanks means they can dominate the roads while the Tigers simply run out of gas. In other words the real use of tanks is if not boring but practical, at least possibly more boring and definitely more practical then having great battles between Tigers and Shermans as if Shermans were meant to fight Tigers in the first place.
 * General Dwight D. Eisenhower once said that the "equipment ... most vital to our success in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2 1/2 ton truck, and the C-47 airplane. Curiously enough, none of these is designed for combat." The point being that the preparations prior to battle are just as important as actually fighting them. Even though the Germans' best weapons were technologically far better than that of the Americans, Brits, and arguably the Soviets, they 1) couldn't get enough of them to the front, and 2) couldn't keep them fueled and maintained for long enough for them to be useful.
 * There is a school of thought that says the C-47 cargo plane was the single most important vehicle that helped win the war for the allies.
 * The civilian version of the C-47, the Douglas DC-3, was very successful in its own right. Several hundred of them are still flying today in active commercial service around the world, simply because nobody ever really designed an aircraft better suited to rugged conditions. The common saying among pilots is that "the only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3."
 * While the U.S. provided the Soviet Union with a number of tanks, bazookas and planes as part of the lend-lease act, many Soviet commanders were most grateful for the thousands of Jeeps that came with the deal since the Soviet union's main method of having its infantry keep up with the tanks was riding them (and you can only fit so many guys on top of a T-34 before the first AT shell blows them to pieces). Tens of thousands local copies of the Jeep would be made during and after the war and were much beloved by their owners.
 * trucks were also exceedingly popular with the Red Army. They were satisfied with their own tanks, they just needed more of them. With someone else making their trucks there was more space at the factory. And Russia is a big place and needs lots of trucks.
 * One more quirky but interesting item on the Russian order list was landlines. Russians never liked the fear of eavesdropers and wanted to keep radio silence as often as possible. Certainly the vanguard would have to cut loose as you can't fight a maneuver war without doing so. But the main body can be coming at a deliberate enough pace to rig landlines. Russians however didn't make good ones and they had to be flawlessly protected to stand the weather as one leak is equiv to cutting it. The Western Allies could and did.
 * Napoleon once said an army fights on its stomach. All forms of cargo transportation in essence is the evolution of this. The most practical and boring thing in wars are the supply lines. Well, boring until they are attacked.
 * It was Julius Caesar who said an army marches on its' stomach. Napoleon said "The outcome of the battle is incidental to the decisive question of supply." He lost his campaign in Egypt, for instance, because the British Navy destroyed the French fleet that was providing Napoleon's army with supplies. The supplies on hand allowed him to operate for a time, but he left before things inevitably went south on him.
 * "Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics."
 * Late in WWII the US stopped painting their aircraft. Why? Several reasons: The Americans were building aircraft faster than they could be shot down; The Axis couldn't keep up with the losses the Allies were inflicting; radar made camoflage useless; and the Americans didn't care if they were intercepted.
 * The D-day stripes painted on aircraft? It's also this trope because it reduced damage from friendly ground fire.
 * Bruce Lee pretty much loved this trope, up to the point where he developed his own fighting style based entirely around it called Jeet Kun Do (way of the intercepting fist). However, in practice, everything he did off-screen pretty much ended up falling under Awesome Yet Practical, anyway.
 * Lee developed his ideas after observing the stop hit of fencing, which can best be described as follows: when your opponent winds up for something big, stick your sword in him. The rules are a bit more technical.
 * Regular, ordinary cars. They lack the ruggedness of an SUV or pickup or the power and sleekness of a sports car, but are more efficient with gasoline, are usually the cheapest new cars you can find, and they won't make your insurance rates sky rocket. Newer such cars also come with various safety features that will raise your chances of surviving an accident more than a sports car will, as sports cars sacrifice safety features and other luxuries in order to achieve optimum performance. Unfortunately, some people will hate you for choosing practicality over style...
 * The 2011 Mediocrity.
 * This is Toyota through and through, not the best in any field, except maybe reliability.
 * On that note: Older cars amongst regular cars are generally cheaper and still have a good amount of efficiency, even if they have over 100,000 miles on the engine. All it really takes to maintain this car is a decent understanding of mechanics and keeping an eye on your car's fluids.
 * On that note, even the ordinary pick-up truck qualifies. While some you have your "crucks" and your "Oversized pickups for fashion and compensation", the majority of them are massed produced utility vehicles designed take a decent amount of cargo and one or two people and move them from one place to another. The basic design of the pick-up truck hasn't changed in over half a century. It's safer then many other vehicles in most types of common collisions because Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest SOB on the road. It's so damn utilitarian that if an ordinary pick-up truck is properly maintained and driven normally you can even get more mileage and years of usage out of a good truck then a car and have average to better than average gas mileage.
 * The Sturmey Archer AW internal gear hub: Originally designed in the 1930s as a mix of parts from their other hubs to provide a low-cost seller, the hub became the standard gear system for bicycles up until the 10 speed fad of 1970s. Unbelievable reliability has kept it in production for over seventy-five years.
 * Walking. The simplest and most reliable way to close a short distance. Your own two feet can work in any weather, can't be stolen (easily), costs nothing, doesn't need (much) maintenance, can take short cuts cars and bikes can't, never have to worry about running someone over, needs no garage to store, helps you get fit and still work reasonably well if you're drunk.
 * The basis of Collegiate wrestling. Most common takedowns? High Crotches or Double Legs (Because you can't go wrong with basically spear tackling a guy and trying to throw him off to the side.) First taught and commonly used Escape? The stand-up. Pin? Half nelson. All of these moves are some of the first taught to new wrestlers and seasons.
 * The jerry can (or jerrican). Its simplicity betrays a sophisticated nature. It was designed to be operable without pump or funnels, and the multiple handles mean it can be easily carried together. And that 'X' mark you see on the side? That's not just for show. It reinforces the sides, and it allows the content to expand without warping the container. It's one of the first German technology adopted by the British in World War I. Even now, the jerry can design has been used in more civilian goods, like liquid detergent.
 * The AK-47 rifle is the most widely used rifle in the world, it ain't flashy but, while its reliability has been greatly exaggerated.
 * Not to mention you can make one in your backyard with some metal scrap and a barbecue if you know what you're doing.
 * Bringing the two rifles up on a shooting forum is pure Flame Bait, but the AR-15 family is arguably even more boring and practical. The bullets aren't as big, but it's lighter, has about three times the range, extremely accurate and modular enough for the same rifle to be used for any mission or competition. The reliability of modern models is also highly underrated.
 * Topped by the even older SKS and Sten, weapons which can and were built in people's sheds.
 * Somewhat coupled with the M3 "Grease Gun", made by General Motors (yes, that General Motors).
 * Also the M-1911. It is often times called an American masterpiece of firearm design, and was only replaced by the American Army after Vietnam. With very few to no changes the design is still popular today among police officers and civilians, at least in the country of origin. It's also used in the Marines (See the MEU(SOC) Pistol) and by many American Special Forces groups, who prefer it to the M9 for the .45's excellent stopping power and the gun's world-class reliability. A near-100 year old gun is still the beloved favorite of soldiers generally considered to be at the cudding edge of modern warfare.
 * This trope applies to a whole lot of guns. There may be incredibly complex and detailed Fabrique Nationale pistols, but really a Colt .45 still does the same job it did 100 years ago. There are bullpup auto shotguns which only have an advantage of using more ammo more quickly, and there are assault rifles that are almost sophisticated enough to look like a HUD from Halo, but as mentioned above, the AK-47 still pretty much does the job.
 * Most assault rifles fall under this class. They aren't as big and powerfull as sniper rifles, as small as pistols, as as dakka...y as machine guns, or as cheap as submachine guns. But they can mow down a group of hostiles, and you can stow most in a backpack. Although since the AK 47 tends to be more Awesome Yet Practical, being lightweight, powerful, and reliable, such as the H&K G36 or the FN SCAR-L
 * Glock pistols fit this. A very plain looking black pistol, sometimes ridiculed by old timers as a "plastic gun," it's nevertheless one of the most reliable firearms in the world, easily on par with the AK-47's famed reliability and tolerance of abuse and neglect. And to top it off, it has very simple mechanics, lacks a traditional safety, is very simple to clean, and costs about half what most 1911 clones or high end revolvers cost. There's a reason why nearly every police department in the US has adopted this as standard issue.
 * Revolvers in general. They don't carry as much ammo or look as flashy as automatics, but they're compact, deadly, and almost impossible to jam.
 * While we're still on the subject of firearms, how about the lowly .22 Long Rifle cartridge? It's rimfire, meaning it's low-pressure and awfully weak compared to other ammunition, and thus is not recommended for striking down anything larger than a rabbit. Then again, the proven design is older than any human alive, has less shock than a pellet rifle, and is so ubiquitous that you can buy hundreds of rounds for a few bucks. It's what competitors use in the Olympics. And yes, it can kill someone.
 * Also, being a "weak" rimfire, it escapes most restrictions on what types of guns you can buy in urban America, meaning you can legally possess an "assault weapon" even in gun-phobic states like California, as long as it is chambered for a .22LR
 * How about ridiculously commonplace 12 guage pump action shotgun? Reliable, Accurate, relatively lightweight, Conserves ammo while still being rather fast-shooting. Most models are pretty much the build-a-bear workshop of guns- you can pick any type of stock, any capacity(through extenders), any barrel length, and any sighting arrangement. Not to mention the fact that the ammo comes in dozens and dozens of variations, from Jack of All Stats buckshot to more specialized ammunition like slugs, flechettes, and even crazy things like Dragon's Breath. All of this is for less than a quality handgun.
 * Heck, you can put guns in general under this trope. Sure, a lot of them have complex features with a lot of parts, but they all function around the same simple principle: accelerating a chunk of metal to a speed at which it can hurt someone or something.
 * True castles, as compared to palaces or houses "Inspired By" castle architecture. Being built for defense and protection means that they're usually cold, dark, and not very nice to look at. But hey, it withstands a siege really well!
 * Trenches. Bad guys have guns? Big guns? Artillery? Dig a ditch and use it for cover. Foxholes are an even simpler version, literally just being a big hole you dig up and hide in. You can even put a smaller deeper hole in the middle of it in case the bad guys chuck a grenade at you. Just kick the grenade into the hole and your chances of surviving just went up considerably.
 * The cargo container has radically transformed shipping over the last 200 years. Instead of moving dozens of boxes or barrels one at a time, you just put them into a single cargo container and move that. Standardize the size of cargo containers and you can have trucks, ships, and traincars specifically designed to carry them, and infrastructure to transfer them from one to another. Simple, boring, and so useful that it is difficult to imagine doing it another way.
 * Pencils and paper. Incredibly simple, lightweight, and almost 100% reliable in all conditions as long as it's not wet. And a lot cheaper than those i- and e- items.
 * A book. Although it may or may not be about to be replaced by e-readers, for the last few thousand years there has been no more economical and efficient means of containing information.
 * The comparison to e-readers is particularly appropriate... the book may not be electronic or have an internet connection, but it never runs out of batteries, doesn't have problems with funny formats or DRM, doesn't break when dropped, doesn't cost $200 to replace, and if your friend borrows a book, you can still read your other books. E-readers have a lot of advantages, but books definitely fit this trope.
 * To quote Carl Sagan: "For the price of a modest meal you can get the history of Rome".
 * Rice. Not counting flavored, spiced, salted, egg, or with a curry/sauce. Just plain rice. For its size it is incredibly rich in nutrition and energy.
 * They happen to be an excellent flavor buffer for a lot of saucy foods. That or they just go good with saucy foods (or with sauce in general).
 * Noodles. Just like rice, they go well with a whole host of sauces or seasonings. Anyone for spaghetti and meatballs?
 * Potatoes, as well. They don't look like much, but they did save Europe from continous famine for quite some time.
 * Potatoes also grow in a lot of places where cereals won't. This allowed massive population expansion in countries like Ireland where a lot of land isn't suitable for cereals but potatoes like it just fine. (Until you hit the problems of monoculture agriculture in a pre-chemical environment...)
 * Tap water. Doesn't look very fancy and tastes pretty bland. But it's far less expensive than juice, far healthier than alcohol or soft drinks, and is far better at keeping you hydrated. And is readily available at home whenever you want it.
 * And if you live somewhere where there is no reliable source of clean water, the old fashioned beer takes that place. Since it gets boiled during production, it's usually much cleaner than any unfiltered water. Calories and carbs in tasty, drinkable, preserved form. Staff of life, potable water, and recreation all in one.
 * Depending on one's opinion, this could make beer Awesome Yet Practical instead.
 * Tea and coffee also serve(d) the same purpose, although they have neither calories nor carbs in quantity unless you add sugar. In fact, if you're drinking good enough coffee, you don't even need condiments to make it taste good.
 * In the same vein, boiled water. Boiling water clears away most (but not all) of the bad stuff in any local sources by killing it through extreme heat. It can cook food for you while making sure that (provided you drink the resulting broth) very little of the nutrients are lost. And all you need for it is to make a campfire and gather some water.
 * The vibrate option on cellphones. Sure, it doesn't let you show off your personalized ringtone that everyone is dying to hear, but it's very useful in noisy environments and, in places that demand reduced noise levels such as libraries and inside smaller stores, it'll notify you of a call or new message without pissing off everybody around you.
 * Not only that, but if you put the cellphone on the right surface, it can be suitably loud enough to get your attention.
 * For all the focus most writers and the general public place on bold high-risk operations, the majority of useful intelligence has been and probably will continue to be gathered through open sources. To quote General Anthony Charles Zinni, USMC (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command (CINCENT): "80% of what I needed to know as CINCENT I got from open sources rather than classified reporting. And within the remaining 20%, if I knew what to look for, I found another 16%. At the end of it all, classified intelligence provided me, at best, with 4% of my command knowledge."
 * Boring old tactile keyboards over cooler, more "advanced" touch screen keyboards. Why? Because you can navigate a tactile keyboard solely by feel while keeping an eye on the display. Touch screens are, well, flat and more time goes into looking at finger placement than would on a tactile keyboard.
 * While we're on it, boring old PCs over flashy tablets, for similar reasons. Marketing for certain tablets can go on and on about how it's the "post-PC" era, but their relative cheapness, mass producability, and tactile input means that they'll likely stick around for a long time.
 * Don't forget computing power. Even a basic laptop will outperform a tablet, to say nothing of a high-end gaming desktop.
 * Plus, just try writing a term paper, essay or novel with a tablet sometime. Yes, you can buy a keyboard for your tablet, but at that point you just have a laptop that costs more and does less than a regular one.
 * Until the day comes that someone creates something that can replace the tactile input of a PC, we really won't be in the post-PC era for awhile.
 * Microsoft PowerPoint and its clones allow for fancy presentations involving colorful backgrounds and exciting text effects and slide transitions. However, the best way to get your point across tends to be a simple, plain background with few (if any) text and transitonal effects and tasteful use of images and clipart, rather than something out of a typical Myspace page. Unfortunately, many students up to high school (and in many cases, even in university or even after schooling) don't get the hint...
 * For hobby-grade r/c boats, constructing the hull out of wood rather than fiberglass or carbon fiber. Wood does not carry the same cachet of a hull made of high-tech composites, and are often sold in kit form, requiring you to build it yourself (Glass hulls are almost always sold ready to accept their hardware.) However, wood is cheap, and, if built correctly, just as strong as fiberglass (though not carbon fiber, although its use is largely limited to large scale boats.)
 * For gas r/c boats, the humble Homelite and Zenoah engines. Converted Homelites (they are typically used for yard equipment) powered the first gas r/c boats, while Zenoah released the first dedicated marine engine, the G23. Its successor, the G 260 PUM, is the most popular engine in the hobby. Stock, they will reliably power most hulls at a respectable speed. When modified by a skilled engine builder, the G260 can chuck out about 6 hp (increased displacement and/or aftermarket top ends can further increase that,) up from a claimed 3.2 hp, and can push the fastest hulls up to 100 mph, depending on setup, hull, and conditions. The Zenoah is so ubiquitous, that every other brand of gas r/c engine is designed to fit in the same footprint, and parts commonality is, well, common. The only realistic challenger to the Zenoahs crown are the RCMK engines, which are sold for not much more than a stock G260, but can develop 5 hp, in addition to far better after-sale support.
 * The humble .csv (comma separated value) file. It is a plain text file, with rows of data, and each value separated by a comma. Doesn't have fancy formatting, tabs, or other genuinely useful tools that an Excel file can have, but is loved by IT Admins and programmers everywhere for how easy it is to have a script read. In addition, there are a variety of programs specifically designed for editing .csv's, for those who don't like working with plaintext, and spreadsheet applications like Excel and OpenOffice Calc have .csv support.
 * By extension, any and all utilitarian IT standards. ASCII text, f'rinstance, doesn't come with fonts, or nifty accents, but every Goddamn computer in the world can read it. Dial-up internet access is slow and inconvenient, but everybody who has a phone can use it for low cost.
 * This article on The Daily WTF argues that application programming in general is made of this trope when done properly.
 * The knife. Sure, it's probably mankind's oldest tool, but it has that title for a reason. It's a tool you can use to cut, make new tools, and can be used as a weapon, which is probably the only melee combat weapon still widely used by a modern military
 * Really, a knife is this in spades. It almost falls into Awesome but Practical territory when you take into account the sheer versatility of a good knife. It has literally countless uses, even around the average home (Cutting open packaging, use as an impromptu screwdriver or hammer with the butt, use in place of scissors, and thats saying nothing of it's culinary applications), and if you ever ask a survivalist what three things to take into any survival type situation, they'll list off "Knife, fire or way to make fire, and clean water" in that order. If your stuck in the woods with just a knife, with a little thought you have it made—a knife can net you all the tools you need to make fire, get food, and get the resources to make clean, drinkable water. Saying nothing of it's self defense applications, a knife is probably the single most versatile tool ever created.
 * Not to mention a knife handle is an easy place to put secondary tools or decoration.
 * Skis and the slightly more awesome dog sled for moving across snow. One of the reasons Amundsen won the race to the South Pole (and, you know, survived) was the use of these two simple methods of transport. Scott on the other hand wanted to use high tech mechanical crawlers that soon broke down due to the extreme conditions. There have been claims that Scott and his men didn't even know how to ski, usually with the implication that they would have survived had they known.
 * Penicillin. It kills most bacterial infections and saves lives. There's a reason it used to be considered a military secret.
 * While we're on the topic of medicine: modest exercise, a good diet, rest, avoiding alcohol in excess, tobacco altogether, buckling your seat belt, reading the directions of every medication you take, sanitation, hygiene, basic screening tests, and vaccination. This sounds as sexy as saw dust and yet if followed rigorously by a population would dramatically reduce the burden of disease. Even the half-assed implementation in the modern world has lengthened life expectancy by many years.
 * The Times typeface.
 * Courier and Courier New as well. Clean fixed-width fonts used by many programmers and those who work with documents where positions of characters matter greatly.
 * Verdana is also a common and effective typeface for Net text.
 * This site uses Trebuchet.
 * The humble sandwich. It makes any foods taste good together, in a portable, no-silverware package that can often be an entire meal that fits in your pocket. It can be made for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and is almost always one of the healthiest things you can eat.
 * Medieval alchemists spent a great deal of time looking for a "universal solvent," capable of, well, dissolving anything. It took a very long time before anyone realized that you'd have trouble finding a more versatile solvent than plain old water.
 * In the days when the Cool Train was hauled by steam, the most common and useful steam locomotive was the 0-6-0 goods engine (think Donald and Douglas from The Railway Series). The long boiler allowed the locomotive to build up a lot of steam and conserve it, so the locomotive would not need to be cold-started every time it needed to move. As all the wheels were driving wheels, the locomotive had a lot of tractive effort for its weight. It had more adhesion than the 0-4-0, but could go more places than the 0-8-0. The 0-6-0 was not fast, but it was a powerful little machine, and pretty much every country that used steam locomotives used the 0-6-0. Examples would be the New South Wales Z19, the Prussian G 3, the Caledonian 812, the LMS Fowler 4F, the GWR Dean Goods, the North Eastern 1001 class, the North British C Class, and the USRA 0-6-0.
 * In North America another example is the 4-4-0. It wasn't as flashy or fast as later engines but it handled rough terrain well and was very simple mechanically, making repairs easy.
 * Ground-based Anti-Aircraft systems are pretty boring compared to sleek and sophisticated jet fighters going missile-to-missile, but planes are expensive to manufacture and pilots are expensive to train and difficult to replace, especially the best ones. A well-utilized Surface-To-Air missile network and anti-aircraft artillery is a very cost-effective way to establish air dominance, as both the Vietnam War and the Yom-Kipour War proved. This is primarily the reason why stealth aircraft are becoming popular, because many nations are shrinking their Air Forces and widening the use of their ground-to-air systems.
 * The Infantry. As noted by Robert Heinlein, while technology may evolve to include incredibly dangerous tanks, bombs, aircraft carriers, missiles, nuclear weapons, and everything else that can conceivably kill a thousand people inside a nanosecond, there has only ever been one branch of Armed Forces remarkable in it's consistency; a man, trained or untrained, between fourteen and fifty years of age, and a weapon in his hand. This man, or in recent times this woman, has endured the scorching jungles of Tenochtitlan, and the unbearable hell of Stalingrad. When a Tank rolls across his path, he puts a bit of fuel in a bottle, sets a light, and throws it underneath. When a plane flies overhead, he finds a ridge and hides under it. When poison gas lands near him, he pisses on his handkerchief and covers his mouth. He can fight in damn near any conditions, run on, in comparison to other forms of warfare, miniscule amounts of fuel, cross any terrain, in time, and defeat any foe given enough of him. He is the Duckfoot, the Mehmet, the Tommy, the average infantry soldier. He is the most boring arm of any Armed Force, to the point that many of it's members are forced to be there. But, boy, is he the most practical
 * "You can bomb it, you can strafe it, you can cover it with poison, you can turn it into glass, but you don't own it unless your infantry's on it and the other guy's isn't."
 * While we are at that, the musket. Bows are a product of years of craftsmanship used by archers who spend just as long learning it. While not as effective one for one, you can "mass produce" musketeers because any poor dude miserable enough to take the job can load and fire twice a minute which means there are as many soldiers as there are people and money to pay them. If one side has ten thousand archers that can get off six rounds a minute it has the equiv of sixty thousand men teleporting in and departing. If however the other side has thirty thousand musketeers getting off two a minute the effect is the same. Except there will always be more musketeers.
 * This is one of the reasons why Western martial arts have been downplayed or ignored in most media compared to Eastern martial arts. The latter is known for being exotic, with often thematic naming of forms and styles and some level of mysticism fused with the styles themselves—making them excellent for flashy media depictions. European martial arts, however, had more straightforward names of both schools and techniques, and as such don't seem quite as impressive-sounding for media depictions.
 * Some Eastern Martial Arts get the same treatment as well. About ten or fifteen years ago, people were more likely to have heard of Karate and Kung-Fu (which are often used as umbrella terms for a variety of Japanese and Chinese Martial Arts) than Judo or Muay Thai. However, with the popularity of positional battles or the attacks, counters, etc. being used; so while one combatant may be dangerously close to getting their arm broken or being choked unconscious, most of the audience sits there wondering when the action is going to start. Watch a match or two on YouTube and you'll see what I mean.
 * The French art of Savate at least historically. It developed from harbor brawling.
 * Similarly the rapier, the supposed mark of the gentleman duelist used to be a thug's weapon. In fact the term swashbuckler came because town toughs would swagger around making as much noise as possible with the buckler hanging on their belt and "swashing".
 * Most fighting styles that are considered glamorous are simply fossilized versions of rather dirty looking system used by dirty fighters that has been placed in a specialized niche(usually sport or dueling) when the kids of the dirty fighters become dandies. For the matter of that sport fills the practical use of having fun, dueling fills the use of quarantining violence, and both fill the use of preening before the other sex like peacocks.
 * The medical dressing. In use for thousands of years, incredibly straightforward to apply, easily capable of saving wounded people from various horrible deaths, cheap to make, quickly obtained from clothing or other nearby items, it's perhaps one of the most enduring elements of medical technology ever. Now it exists in thousands of different variants, from the humble Band-Aid to Awesome Yet Practical complex and fancy dressings intended for severe trauma victims, but it certainly seems like it's not going anywhere soon.
 * Soviet/Russian military clothing is an example. This was especially apparent in World War II where the rougher-looking, more utilitarian gear of the Soviets was contrasted with the snazzy Hugo Boss-made uniforms of the Nazis. Soviet winter clothing was considerably warmer during winter than German clothing, even their winter gear, and it was common for German troops to loot such clothing from slain or captured Soviets. This even extends to today as attempts to phase out the old greatcoat in the military with newer more body-fitting modern winter gear was stymied by the fact that the new gear just wasn't that good during the really cold spots, resulting in cases of hypothermia and frostbite.
 * They were also so thick, they could be considered a form of low-grade body armor. The WW 2-era Commando knife's seal of quality was it's capability to pierce a Soviet-issue greatcoat. U.S troops in Korea also reported that their M1 carbine's .30 Carbine round could not reliably penetrate the thick winter greatcoats of Chinese troops which were identical to those used by the Soviets.
 * Despite having an arsenal of high-tech weaponry, the ability to call down airstrikes at the ready, the very latest in military vehicle technology and the best equipment available to a soldier, U.S Special Operations forces in the early part of the Afghan war found the best way to get around in isolated, mountainous country was the same one that the Afghans had used for centuries; the horse.
 * This is one interpretation of the drumming style of Ringo Starr. Some Beatles fans find his drumming tedious, uninteresting and bland. Others feel that this is his greatest strength - when the other three band members were pulling in different styles and directions, he was always able to adapt to a reasonable level, no matter what style they were playing in. John Lennon in particular would only work with Ringo for a long time after the break-up of the band because he was able to give Lennon exactly what he asked for.
 * Office workers. Those niggling behind-the-scenes clerical tasks you either don't know or care about or might not want to come within a century of? These guys are the little jar of oil that keeps the department running like clockwork. Think of them as real-life Worker Units.
 * Maintenance workers are almost the exact same thing, except that they take care of the grounds on which we earn our living.
 * The Lab Rat.
 * Rope. Yup, it's almost as old as a stick - and it's funny how many jobs friction (and occasionally gravity) can do for you. Tying many common knots is simpler than the proverbial ability of fastening shoelaces. Remember, with little practice most of these can be - and were - used efficiently despite bad lighting and severe rocking, by The Drunken Sailor who pays more attention to not being blown overboard. Blackwall hitch is barely enough to be called a knot at all, yet has its uses - e.g. to hold a sack closed tight under its own weight, yet accessible immediately by lifting off the hook. Bowline can be tied in a few seconds with one hand. Constrictor (holding so well that people used to simply cut it), transom knot, miller's knot (can hold a sack mouth tight when immobile, but easy to weaken and untie), cleat hitch (a common way of mooring) and rolling hitch all differ from the trivial clove hitch only by one extra slip or wrap of the rope. Only a few, like "Monkey’s Fist" and Masthead knot are somewhat complex - and they have many uses, too.
 * A large part of tactics and operational art is essentially traffic direction. The general who most efficiently makes large columns of men move about the way he wants them-and herds the enemy into doing whatever he wants them to do, wins.
 * While long out-paced in fire-rate, bolt action firearms have high reliability and first shot accuracy compared to more advanced semi and full automatic weapons.
 * The Mosin-Nagant rifle: A design over a hundred years old (and you might get a rifle that physically is) and outdated for a large portion of its service life, but it's cheap, built to withstand the Russian winter, simple enough for a conscript to use, takes cheap ammo (As not only was enough made for the rifles, it is still in common use today), has all the power of a full power cartridge, and is fairly accurate.
 * There's no shortage of fancy muzzle devices for sale for the AR15 platform with cool spikes or dragons attached to them, yet it turns out the best for hiding flash is the plain looking, dirt cheap (often free with barrels), standard issue for US rifles A2 Birdcage. While the A2 is a poor compensator (it was never intended to be one) one of the best devices for all around performance in all areas for judging a muzzle device (recoil, muzzle climb, flash hiding) is also a cheap, standard issue, simple looking muzzle device.
 * The club. It is one of the simplest weapons and anyone can acquire one. Some like a police nightstick have more subtle uses like thrusting or neckholds, or as a belaying pin in a tourniquet(or ad hoc handcuffs).