Has anyone ever written about the single greatest labour-saving modern convenience of all time? I’m talking about the automatic washer and dryer. I am old enough to remember watching my mother wash our clothes with an old-fashioned ringer washer (look it up), then hanging them up to dry, a process which would take hours to accomplish. With a family of eight (six kids) she would have to have done this at least twice a week. Because it was “women’s work” it’s probably been ignored as a ground-breaking innovation but I can’t think of any other modern convenience that’s had as much of an impact.

I'm sure it is addressed in the book, but the other thing I think about a lot is that every digital-age "convenience" comes with a catch, or an ask; usually data collection, privacy erosion, and the like.

For me I get a daily satisfaction in winding and setting my mechanical watch. It's small, but for about two minutes I get to reconnect with something manual, something that clicks and uses gears and springs to tell the time.

The biggest change for me was my local grocery store. A few years ago they installed some self checkouts and immediately I started using them. And then I realized that I missed the connection with the staff, the small banter about the weather ("too hot" "too cold" "too much rain" "not enough rain" etc etc etc), the community gossip, the observations on my purchases and a recommendation on what to do with fennel.

A couple months ago, I purchased some eye gel patches and as they were scanned I saw the price and said something like "wow, more than I thought!" The woman looked me in the eye and said, "you deserve some self care." Honestly, it made my day. Most of our time is made up of the small stuff. It matters.

Cannot remember where I bumped into this but it’s so true

Author Kurt Vonnegut on telling his wife he's going out to buy an envelope:
"Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?
And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know.

The moral of the story is — we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it's like we're not supposed to dance anymore."