Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Dash Button

amazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 703 posts

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#571

Post by taurath »

jkaunisv1 wrote: post #367
nthj wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about saving time, it's about avoiding context switches. Also I'm really bad at remembering that I'm out of something even 5 seconds later, much less when I'm at the store racking my brain for what I'm running low on.

I solved this problem with a notepad in my back pocket. Write it down as soon as I realize I need it, and refer to it next time I'm at the store. Not saying it invalidates this Amazon offering, just a suggestion if this is a real problem you're struggling with.

Same here, but just a notes app on my phone. If I think of a thing, I put it in there, and I get to forget about it. I then pull it up when I go to the store.

Is this like, what society wants though? Are we all here to be waited on hand and foot, have our every need taken care of? Do we end up being able to solve more real problems this way, or do we end in a dearth of imagination? Interesting implications - we either end up with a higher percentage of people being self-actualized or an idiotistopia a la wall-e and idiocracy.

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#572

Post by zikzak »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #570
Swizec wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish my errands were that eventful, but they just feel like chores. Keep in mind the excerpt you just read was written by a professional writer. A good one at that. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's got a quality where even if nobody told you it was written by a writer, you could just tell. No flowery prose. Just simple description. But highlighting many little things and quirks that most people leave o…

This is why Vonnegut is my favorite writer. I would read a 500 page novel about paint drying on a wall if he had written it. I'm sure every sentence would be entertaining. There was an interview or podcast (some sort of video) with Ira Glass about this same idea. He describes a man waking up and getting coffee, the most mundane activities, with incredible suspense. You really have to appreciate that sort of ability.…

Here is another good example of that in a different medium: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/adayinthelife.html

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#573

Post by leavinit »

shanselman wrote: post #565
tedks wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having copious free time has always been a privileged position. The extent to which you can waste time is a direct expressino of privilege.

"expressino"

Its the fundamental sub-particle of privledge; might not have any mass but it still smells and looks like overpriced coffee and arrogance.

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#574

Post by knd775 »

DickingAround wrote: post #525
mturmon wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a neat quote. I read it in Harper's back in 1996 and it has really stuck with me. I feel like it describes some of my days pretty well. But another part of me thinks he's writing from a very privileged position, and doesn't (want to) recognize it.

Indeed. The implication that everyone could be 'farting around' and still have an internet-using, nuclear-war-avoiding, space-traveling society is inaccurate. That's not to say everyone always has to do difficult work. But sometimes some people do and they should be celebrated for doing that hard part.

But, what about Dicking Around?

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#575

Post by jkyle »

DickingAround wrote: post #525
mturmon wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a neat quote. I read it in Harper's back in 1996 and it has really stuck with me. I feel like it describes some of my days pretty well. But another part of me thinks he's writing from a very privileged position, and doesn't (want to) recognize it.

Indeed. The implication that everyone could be 'farting around' and still have an internet-using, nuclear-war-avoiding, space-traveling society is inaccurate. That's not to say everyone always has to do difficult work. But sometimes some people do and they should be celebrated for doing that hard part.

Only some people can fart around all of the time, but everyone can fart around some of the time.

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#576

Post by RodericDay »

tedks wrote: post #557
mmustapic wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I miss some huge event when going out to buy an enveloped is being in a privileged position?

Having copious free time has always been a privileged position. The extent to which you can waste time is a direct expressino of privilege.

>> One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk. We are asked to imagine the journeyman artisan in a cold, damp garret, rising even before the sun, laboring by candlelight late into the night.

>> These images are backward projections of modern work patterns. And they are false. Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that working hours in the mid-nineteenth century constitute the most prodigious work effort in the entire history of humankind.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_w...

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#577

Post by na85 »

raldi wrote: post #439
na85 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Do you order groceries online or something? If so, what happens when, say, your apples come bruised?

You tell them, and they refund you, and they look into their operations and figure out how they let bruised apples slip into a customer's order so the problem can be remedied.

But you're still left with bruised apples.

Had you gone to the market you would not have bruised apples.

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#578

Post by na85 »

gravity13 wrote: post #391
na85 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think that ordering something online from the comfort of your couch, in your underwear, is so inconvenient that you need a magic button to press when you run out of laundry detergent? You buy the big jug of high-efficiency stuff that's good for something like 100 loads, that means you need new detergent what, 5 times a year? Or are you just being hyperbolic? I don't know about you, but I make a trip to…

The future is gonna happen whether you're a part of it or not.

So are marketing gimmicks that masquerade as conveniences.

What's your point? Neither of us knows which products are here to stay and which aren't.

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#579

Post by na85 »

dingaling wrote: post #412
na85 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Do you order groceries online or something? If so, what happens when, say, your apples come bruised?

> If so, what happens when, say, your apples come bruised? Me: these apples are bruised Tesco man: sorry sir, let me refund that straight away. And keep the apples, you could make a pie with them. Though in five years of online grocery shopping I've only returned a couple of items. The apples have made it all the way unbruised from New Zealand after all, four more miles is nothing.

So in other words, if your apples show up bruised, you're still stuck with bruised apples? And then you have to wait for the new unbruised ones to arrive?

That sounds like a much worse experience than simply going to the market and picking out unbruised apples.

Re: Amazon Dash Button

#580

Post by raldi »

na85 wrote: post #577
raldi wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tell them, and they refund you, and they look into their operations and figure out how they let bruised apples slip into a customer's order so the problem can be remedied.

But you're still left with bruised apples. Had you gone to the market you would not have bruised apples.

And yet somehow, FreshDirect's managed to stay in business since 2002.
Post reply on HN