Laziness is the mother of inventions. At least, it seems to have been an important reason why John K Joice filed a patent for an automatic razor in 1906. It was made specifically so that people with no skill could shave. To qoute:
The object of my invention is to provide a razor which may be used without special skill on the part of the person who is shaving himself, in other words, a razor of the safety type.
From US patent 899,870
Perhaps I am a little hard with Mr Joice. Any safety razor can be described as letting people with no skill shave. And while novel when patented, being a safety razor is not the outstanding part of his invention.
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