2024-11-22T23:34:58-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/124446819/amazon-s-new-dash-button-and-the-value-of-running-out-of-toilet-paper Nicholas Korody 2015-04-03T18:35:00-04:00 >2024-01-23T19:16:08-05:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/b0/b0f99045efc3dc0e8b3e164b0a59fdfb?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>Dash fits squarely into the current age of smart-home technology... It is not simply a matter of practical efficiency but of a proactive, pre&euml;mptive way of living, in which inefficiency is the worst kind of waste. The way we manage our chores is a measure of our worthiness. No one wants to live in a stupid home... And only a chump would ever run out of toilet paper. But what if there is actual value in running out of things?</p></em><br /><br /><p>Amazon released their new Dash devices yesterday and many people thought it was an April Fool's joke, partly "&nbsp;the idea seemed to poke fun at Amazon&rsquo;s omnipresence, making it visibly manifest with little plastic one-click shopping buttons adhered to surfaces all over your home." But the device, which would enable you to re-stock a certain product with the push of a little button, is real and coming. The video is below &ndash;&ndash; it's a bit unsettling.</p><p>In his New Yorker piece, Ian Crouch notes the imminent arrival of products that will be able to reorder supplies, ie. a washing machine that will sense when the detergent is low and order more. Crouch darkly imagines "a washing machine, haywire and alone in a basement somewhere,&nbsp;constantly reordering supplies for itself long after we&rsquo;ve all been wiped off the Earth." He suggests that being bothered to have to stop may actually be important, in part in making us feel bad about the way we consume and the amount we waste.</p><p>Crouch's article seems to ...</p>