431–440 of 583 posts
The cargo container: it has changed the entire planet culturally, economically and geopolitically. It would be hard to count the percentage of every day objects most people use world wide that owe their availability or existence to that standardized metal box.
Pads and tampons. Some argue these are environmentally unfriendly and produce too much waste, but you have to think, not everyone is privileged enough to own a washing machine in their own home, particularly those in 2nd and 3rd world countries. I genuinely believed pads and tampons allowed women to be more productive in the work force and eventually lead to more equality, just hearing my mom and grandma's story of h…
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I think if you spend close to an hour to wash dishes every morning, it's actually a good proof of how much time it could save you. Being able to use that hour productively with other means while you do it (e.g. listening to the news or podcasts in your case) is somewhat a separate topic. Loading and unloading the dishwasher for the same amount of dishes every day will probably take less than 30 minutes. I would estim…
> you could have a savings of 30 minutes every day Maybe I'm unique in this (I don't think I am), but if anything the curse of modern life is that we're absolutely awash in free time. What would I do with an extra 30 minutes? Probably check Hacker News or Facebook more than I already do. The actual washing of the dishes really doesn't take that long. Most of it is gathering everything up, rescuing the sink from the d…
I don't mean to be gatekeepery here, but aren't "mindful" and "letting the mind wander" pretty much opposites?
"Wash every bowl, every dish as if you are bathing a baby - breathing in, feeling joy; breathing out, smiling. Every minute can be a holy, sacred minute. Where do you seek the spiritual? You seek the spiritual in every ordinary thing that you do every day. Sweeping the floor, watering the vegetables, and washing the dishes become holy and sacred if mindfulness is there. With mindfulness and concentration, everything becomes spiritual." - Thich Nhat Hanh, in "How to Eat".
"Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes." - Alan Watts.
It sounds more like the modern "productivity" hype train than the mindfulness one; "do two things at once, and distract yourself from life, if your eyes are busy, fill your ears, fill all your senses all the time".
> the disaster that my wife leaves it in (i.e. How hard is it to actually nest the dishes instead of building them into some precarious tower?),
mindfully criticising your wife in public for a cheap laugh. :eyes:
The humble ball point pen. People forget how cumbersome and/or expensive it was to write before cheap ball point pens became a thing. You had to use fountain pens. The cheap ones leaked and were an absolute mess to carry around. The ones that didn't leak were expensive. I can now buy more pens for $100 than I'll ever use in years and just stash them everywhere I want
> I can now buy more pens for $100 than I'll ever use in years I just checked and you can get a pack of 60 Bic Ballpoint pens for $4.50.
The innovations with respect to tools - either support or serve that basic need.
All hygiene tools - Nail cutters, Contact Lenses, tooth pick, soap, tooth brush, shaving blade may fall in this category.
If we step little outside - I feel bicycle is one of the biggest innovation which triggered modern day - self serve - without depending on/troubling animals.
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How do you learn writing? In Germany, as far as I know, everyone learns writing with foundation pens. You can search for images with „Schreiblernfüller“ to get an idea how they look.
In the US ive never used or even seen anyone use a fountain pen, although ive heard of enthusiasts for them here.
The humble ball point pen. People forget how cumbersome and/or expensive it was to write before cheap ball point pens became a thing. You had to use fountain pens. The cheap ones leaked and were an absolute mess to carry around. The ones that didn't leak were expensive. I can now buy more pens for $100 than I'll ever use in years and just stash them everywhere I want
Instead of leaking everywhere we now have a new problem: ink dries up before it's used and now they're landfill.
The surface plate. Modern precision all stems from the concept of a flat reference. However, the technique to make a surface as flat as possible (which is based on simple geometry) was first discussed in the early 19th c. In terms of profound impact on modernity, the metal screw-cutting lathe.
Since you've allowed modern to include the Industrial Revolution, I would submit the invention that started it: the flying shuttle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_shuttle (How did this cause the Industrial Revolution? It made weaving so much faster, that the spinning industry had to come up with machines to supply the weaving industry.)
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And now you can get a cheap fountain pen that won't leak and writes delightfully. Financially, you're probably better off with hundreds of cheap Bics, but fountain pen ink lasts a long time.
> and writes delightfully If you're right handed. Fountain pens simply don't work for lefties, without writing in a completely unnatural way.
Edit: Just wrote some test lines, forward and backward. My whole hand is multiple lines down in the notebook. Writing in a way so as to get my pen-hand on the same line I'm writing feels incredibly weird to me. I think it just goes to show that whatever you get used to feels natural.