Great Britain once had a number where you can report rogue traffic cones. Britain launched a hotline in 1992 to improve public services. However, this policy was mocked for being pointless and a waste of government funds.
100 Mind-Blowing Pointless Facts
The person who proved the existence of radio waves thought they were completely pointless. Between 1886 and 1889, Heinrich Hertz did a series of intricate tests that proved the existence of a previously theoretical form of wave – electromagnetic waves. When asked about the practical uses, he responded, “It’s of no use whatsoever[…] this is just an experiment that proves Maestro Maxwell was right—we just have these mysterious electromagnetic waves that we cannot see with the naked eye. But they are there.” Hertz’s name is now used to indicate the various degrees of electromagnetic frequency despite calling them pointless.
Bizarre though it may sound 13.3% of the latest Linux kernel is made up of …blank lines. Pointless? Hardly: blank lines are part of the strict coding style that keeps the kernel tidy, efficient and ordered.