Occasionally I’ll be doing something here in the bright and shiny future, and suddenly realize everything is incredibly overcomplicated in the name of technology…
For example, this morning I was pulling my laundry out of the washer and tossing it into the dryer, and then navigating the bazillion settings the dryer has to get to “Speed Dry” where I set the dryer for medium heat and 40 minutes.
Back in ’88 I bought my first washer and dryer set, which was basically the same thing my mom had from the 70’s but in white instead of ‘avocado’. The washer was a tub that filled with water and then beat the crap out of your clothing for however long you set the mechanical timer for. And it had three settings; gentle, wash, and heavy duty – which all corresponded to various gears in the belt-drive transmission located under the tub.
About 99.99% of the time you would set the machine for “wash” and about 40 minutes on the timer.
The dryer was similar; three settings which enabled various numbers of cal-rods for heat and a mechanical timer. And like the washer, it was “medium” heat (because “high” would light things on fire) and about 40 minutes on the timer.
The washer / dryer set I have now is a pretty fancy LG set with touch screens and computers and like a hundred various settings you can chose which result in various songs it plays when starting and stopping… But after three years of using them I’ve settled on “wash” for about 40 minutes, and “medium” for about 40 minutes.
The difference is how much effort it takes to get to those basic settings now, because there are a couple hundred ‘features’ that I never use to get through before I can just ‘wash’ or ‘dry’… I’m guessing nobody uses most of the settings, but they look good on the sales poster at Best Buy. 🙂
Listening to "Magic Power" by Triumph