Things We Know Don't Work (#1)

I looked this up for The Fat Guy who was just ranting about it. From Fit to be tied? It's tough finding the right laces by Jeff Bailey (The Wall Street Journal):

It's time to acknowledge it: The nation can't keep its shoes tied. Shoemakers all over have been switching from flat laces, which stay tied but look twisted, to round ones that look cool but come undone. Making matters worse, cotton is now being supplanted by polyester and other slippery synthetics.

"We never worried about the lace not staying tied," concedes Joel Singer, chief of research and development at Etonic, in Chicopee, Mass.

Steven W. Keating, president of Mitchellace Inc., a Portsmouth, Ohio, lace maker, chimes in: "It's strictly economics. Polyester is a lot cheaper than cotton."

... in the New York Marathon, Kenyan John Kagwe had the laces on his Nike Air Streak Vengeance running-shoes come untied three times. Twice, he stopped to retie, and then went into a sprint to catch up to the leaders. The third time, he just kept running, with one lace flapping, and he won the race.

"Did we screw up?" Kirk Richardson, running-shoe chief at the Beaverton, Ore., sneaker giant, asks himself. "Yes, we did." Nike Inc. decided to give Mr. Kagwe, who is paid to wear the brand, the extra $10,000 he was to receive if he broke the record.

Nike says the new round laces can be tugged harder, especially through the company's increasingly weird eyelets.

... "I'm sick and tired of hearing about it," says Angel Martinez, president and chief executive officer of Rockport Co.

Send me ideas of other things you know don't work and we can brood about them together.

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