#sony walkman beans

[natsumipocket]

SONY Beans WM-EQ3 WALKMAN

⟡

[thisisrealy2kok]

Sony Walkman WM-EQ2 "Beans" (1995,97) Packaging

Pictures from Atlantis Blue Project Foundation, Gary Oak Boarding and Trading

[53v3nfrn5]

SONY: Beans Walkman (1995)

[eightiesfan]

Sony “Beans” Walkman (1988)

[shesbugginout]

SONY.ᐟ: Beans Walkman (1995).ᐟ★

FunFacc : Sony released the ”Beans” Walkman in 1995. They were designed by Rie Isono to appeal to young women, then Japan’s tech trendsetters. Given how closely Jobs & Ives studied Sony, I wonder if the jellybean colors inspired the translucent iMacs, which came out three years later..

B$꩜.ᐟ★

[formlab]

Sony Walkman WM-EQ2 “Beans”

[dankolara]

SONY WM-EQ23 Beans Walkman, 1995

[infernetgirl]

Sony Beans Walkman (1996)

[imtooscaredforthis]

Antagonist

Chapter Five: Homesick

Mentions of: Crying, Stalking, Obsessive Behavior, Knives, etc.

A/N: Here’s another chapter! Hope I didn’t make you guys wait too long, lol

Tags: @prettycutebunny @autisticpickle @dead-bxxxtch-walking @moonshineinasippycup @froegis

Letting out a long sigh, you walked back from yet another trial. You keep on thinking that you can’t face another new killer, but it honestly seemed like there was an endless amount of them, all sacrificing or moriying you in different brutal ways.

But at least you can get a break and relax. Unfortunately, you don’t have a specific place to relax in or anything, since your cabin hasn’t arrived yet. And you feel guilty about always going to Kate’s place, kinda ke you’re mooching off of her, so, you try to stay away from it as much as you can.

But things change when you see Ace walking over to the fire, with something shiny in his hand. “Check it out. This is a pretty nice necklace. I could probably be able to pawn this baby for a thousand or so. It’s a shame I can’t.”

“Hey, wait a second, that’s mine!” You said, recognizing it, and jumping up to your feet. Ace stared at you, seemingly hesitating, so you walked over to him, snatching it from his hand.

Unhooking it, you slipped the necklace around your neck, putting it on, and fiddled with the silver heart on the end of it, that had your initials engraved on it. “Where’d you get this?”

“Over there, there’s a bunch of stuff just laying in that box.” Ace gestured over his shoulder to a spot behind him, where a few other survivors were standing.

Brushing past him, you walked over to where all the survivors were, finding a cardboard moving box, which had all your belongings in it. “Looks like you finally got a cabin.”

Kate remarked, and you picked the box up, holding it in your arms, going over to the cabins. You stopped at the cabin on the far end, one that was right next to the woods. There’s a small, dented mailbox in front of it that has your last name on the side of it.

It looks just like the mailbox on the outside of your old house. Opening the door, you step inside, finding your old room, in your small, cramped apartment.

You smiled to yourself, looking around at your surroundings. It was all the same as you remembered it. The same rickety old bed, with the faded pink comforter, and your record player, and the wooden desk that would give you a splinter the second you touched it with all the old bills scattered across it. You even had your shitty bean bag chair too.

While you have more memories in your original home, the memories of this apartment are much better, and you appreciate that The Entity is letting you stay here.

You lay back on your bed, letting out a long groan, feeling your body sink into the mattress. You almost fell asleep, if it wasn’t for the nagging feeling of curiosity to see what was in the box.

There are a few sets of your old clothes, including pajamas, which is strangely convenient. You also found your old Sony Walkman, and some cassette tapes to go with it. There are a few records too, for your player, and you pulled it out and laid them on your bed.

You searched the bottom of the box, feeling around for something, but finding nothing until your fingers brushed against a small scrap of paper. You pulled it out of the box, flipped it over, and realizing what it was almost immediately.

Pictures of you and your sister in a photo booth. You sighed, staring at the stub in reminiscence. You remembered that day, when you two went to the carnival together and spent almost all night there, going on rides and playing games. The two of you were there so late that you had to be kicked out.

You miss her, so so much. There’s not a day that goes by where she doesn’t cross your mind. She’s always there, and it hurts.

You bit your lip, trying to hold back the tears, but you couldn’t stop them. You clutched the paper tightly, fiddling with your necklace with your other hand. Soft sobs escaped your lips, and you sat there for a while, crying and crying until you managed to take a shaky breath and calm down.

After putting the records in the box, and the picture on the table behind you, you grabbed a cassette tape, popping it into the player. You slipped the headphones on, laid back in bed, shut your eyes, and listened as the music played.

And if you don’t love me now,

You will never love me again,

I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain

Slowly, you closed your eyes, letting yourself drift off to sleep.

–

Curiosity truly has eaten away at Frank, and he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why he feels the compulsive need to know more about you. He doesn’t know why he feels the compulsive need to see you. To hurt you. All he does know is that need is starting to drive him crazy.

So, he gave into it.

The next thing he knew, he was at the killer's boundaries, watching the campfire. He scanned over the other survivors, unable to find you. That meant you were either in a trial or in your cabin.

Going with the latter, he made his way over to the cabins. He found yours at the very edge of the woods, and the light in your window was on. It must’ve been his lucky day.

Frank went up closer and closer to your Cabin until he could touch your windows and peer through. Now, killers are allowed to touch the outer edges of cabins, but they can’t go near the path leading to them, or inside.

The Entity also lets killers scratch and knock at the walls or windows. He supposed it was her way of keeping the survivor from getting too comfortable.

Pulling his knife from his pocket, he dragged it along your walls and windows, making small scratches and a light screeching sound on the glass, one that sounded similar to nails on a chalkboard.

But there wasn’t a sound, not even a peep from inside. Peering through the window, he found you laying on your bed, fast asleep, with a Walkman on, clutching the tapes close to you.

The sight made his heart pound in his chest, and he found himself licking his lips, like a predator preparing to eat their prey. How cute, you laying there, all helpless, it would be easy for him to just-

Julie then slipped into his mind, making him stop and feel a sudden clarity. What the hell is he doing? He can’t be doing this. He has Julie, and that’s all he needs, not this little obsession/killing fling on the side. He should leave.

And with that realization, he slowly crept away from your cabin, going back into the woods.

[softgrungeprophet]

assigning the coffee bean gang (in my au where they start college in 2005) actual phones instead of vaguely describing random phones for 2004-2006 stuff

(also laptops) (unnecessarily in-depth)

considering i'm on 2007 now in terms of plot i prob should have done 2007 instead but peter's going to be using his (prepaid/for emergencies) Nokia until the heat death of the universe probably (or at least until it can no longer connect to networks) (unless... he IS getting a BS in engineering...) (no jk i'm sure the fantastic four will hook him up when they give him a suit in 2016) so that's really nbd.

peter's Nokia is obviously an affordable phone designed to be no-frills, durable, and also designed for use with prepaid cards apparently (at least according to wikipedia) so i figured that would fit. it's not the notoriously indestructible 3310 but it's close enough considering most of their phones, including this one, have a reputation for durability, so, also important for a man like peter lol

i picked flash's cause it looked cute and seemed affordable... Like yeah I can see a jocky little closeted queer in 2004 getting that... I just think it looks nice and i can see him using it for a bit. also cause i wanted him to have a flip phone.

MJ's is FLASHY and when i saw it i was like she HAS to have this—the cover is customizable too so it's like. okay. girl. yes. it seems like it comes in other colors, though it was unclear to me which were available in the US, but the white and blue seems like the most common/popular color option and also the other options were all either black/navy/boring or else... blue and red... and as funny as it would be to give MJ a spider-man colored phone i didn't want to do that XD though the white and blue gives me huge johnny storm/fantastic four vibes.

i didn't mean to give all the poor kids Nokias but it turns out that there were not a whole lot of companies making cellphones in the mid 2000s and nokia has a lot of entry-level/affordable phones lol

harry gets the high end sony phone: a fancy camera phone (k700) that he then replaces with that nifty-looking sony walkman swivel phone in the beginning of 2006. plus the white and orange color scheme suits him imo and he seems like he (and mj) would be the most hip to music.

i also didn't intend to give gwen and harry both the same brand of phone but when i saw the z500a i was like... that's JUST "what if gwen was turned into a phone" lmao like the round shapes... the blue color... there she is. and it seems reasonably priced but not cheapo which seems about right for gwen.

i also decided that in the end of 2005 Norman is either gifted (you know, like corporate networking gifts between CEOs) or buys himself a Samsung, Bang & Olufsen Serene phone, which is a very strange, square, business-oriented fashion phone indeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serene_(phone)

also it's $1275 which. For a regular clamshell camera phone... IS insane. But it is form over function and he doesn't exactly use it for texting or photos. It's only for calls. Also it's European.

idk if it was ever available in the states but he's norman osborn, he can do whatever the fuck he wants

As far as computers, BOY it was HARD to figure out which laptops were available at what price points in the mid 2000s cause basically everything prior to 2006 on the wayback machine was just not archived all the way or redirected to errors 💀 i spent way too long trying to find a good laptop for flash than is reasonable for something that gets mentioned only every once in a while.

Peter doesn't have a laptop yet, I'm still figuring out when I want him to get one. He's taking some programming classes, but his focus is on materials science and shit like thermodynamics so honestly I think he can scrape by using the school computers and computer labs. I was thinking possibly 2010, especially since he actually has a job then (well, it's part time, but it's more stable than the Bugle stuff on its own) Peter's only source of money from 2005-2009 is like... student loans and Bugle freelance so I'm like, eh.

but for Flash I decided he would have an Acer Aspire, NOT because I have one, because I fucking hate this thing, but because it was the cheapest one I could find scouring the wayback machine mostly fruitlessly. Like. I THINK it's a <$700 laptop. but also. I'm really not sure.

so Flash's dad gets him a 15" Acer Aspire 3000 for his birthday a few months before the gang starts college, so that's the computer Peter is using half of freshman year since Flash lets him borrow it. It's ugly but that's not the point. My main goal for Flash's laptop was "cheap as fuck" cause it may be a birthday present but there's no way his dad paid out the ass for a laptop for his idiot son

Gwen gets a 12" Apple iBook G4 (late 2004). So it's just like. white. The compact size and stuff seems like it would suit her, though the internet says the ibooks had a lot of... problems. I considered giving her a more sciencey laptop but this was a christmas present she got in senior year of high school and her original plan IS a nursing degree so I figure she would just use whatever mid-to-high end computer and she just seems like an apple girlie to me

this was, by the way, apparently Apple's "budget" laptop. But the thing about budget laptops in 2005 was that apparently they were all still $1000. lmao, sorry, "$999."

anyway

Harry gets something EXPENSIVE. And I know what you're thinking—he's a macbook boy right? Well, no, because those didn't exist in 2005. And he's got this GOAL right? He wants to impress his dad, he wants to be Smart like Gwen and Peter, he wants to be the STEM Student with a STEM Student Computer.

So Harry gets a 14" IBM ThinkPad T43.

Which also happened to cost over $2000.

I know that's like, well shouldn't PETER, the ENGINEERING student have that but Peter is poor. Peter is not buying a $2000+ business laptop with a *checks notes* built-in fingerprint reader.

Later on after macbooks are invented (in 2006) and harry is out of college (in 2009) he's definitely going to be the type of person who owns a macbook, and when they introduce rose gold (in 2016) you know he'll be all over that. the ThinkPad is just not very stylish or his speed at all. he's an artist at heart being pushed into a STEM box.

Also at home, he DOES have an iMac. Specifically a PowerMac G5.

Why did I pick that one? Simple: it was the most expensive one i could see on apple's website in the wayback machine.

god apple keyboards are so fucking tiny.

MJ also doesn't have a laptop for similar reasons as Peter (they're fucking expensive and she's poor) but I'm considering giving her one of those compact mini computers in 2006, like, oh you have two phones? No it's actually a PSP—sorry I mean a pocket computer based on PSP technology lmao

talkin about the Sony Mylo COM-1:

LOOK AT IT. It's too groovy not to give her.

also it's cheaper than a laptop by at LEAST $400, and doesn't need a phone plan or anything so it seems like it would be of use to her for instant messaging and stuff. she still has a phone though. she just also has a not-phone-technically-computer that looks exactly like a phone. actually idk if this thing can send calls... did they have wifi calling in 2006? i think so... well either way.

ah, clearly time well spent today.

still don't know when or what kind of computer peter gets. i think i'll just have him build a PC or something later on, when he's in grad school, or maybe a netbook

update: harry is going to buy a macbook air in 2008 and give his thinkpad to peter who will use it until it breaks (and (free?) upgrade it to windows 7 but still be using office 2003 in 2010, as well as having a linux stick cause he's that kind of nerd, and probably openoffice.org) -

BUT I'm still having him build a compact PC in 2010 with hobie's help that should cost <$400 and will run Ubuntu (because he's THAT kind of fucking nerd) (and because Ubuntu is free, otherwise this would not be a <$400 pc) that he mostly uses for homework in his masters program, watching porn—i mean movies, and light stuff, though possibly also may have some kind of CAD software as well... cannot run games but peter isn't a gamer anyway. he's not even much of a programmer or 3d modeler tbh (though he DOES do these things intermittently for spidey stuff)... but being able to do homework at home instead of the library has its upsides (plus he can still use the laptop harry gave him when he's out of the house so he doesn't need to rely on library or computer lab for word processing etc.)

(also he does analog film photography but being able to edit scans of his photos at home is a nice luxury)

[kaijous]

make some noise my fellow sony walkman bean heads

[natsumipocket]

Sony Walkman Beans series (1995)

src

[jamilaoliva8-blog]

Acai Berry Weight Loss - the Specifics

Remove one unhealthy thing from doing it .. If you are new to dieting, you really should take it slow. Cut out one unhealthy thing from your YooSlim Diet, like soft drinks. Substitute the unhealthy thing for something healthy. More frequently than not, note surprisingly dramatic results for the one, simple substitution. garcinia weight loss Though you can do now find Cambogia Garcinia in vitamin stores and department stores you likely will not want to purchase it right now there. You may acquire a better deal if you buy Garcinia Cambogia Extract online and also plus it really can most probably get a money-back generate. Acai Slim Plus also includes Acai Berry, which recently been used sony walkman throughout the Brazilian jungles as a great all-natural energy supplement which is understood to boost energy. This natural product extracted through rind small pumpkin-like fruit. This fruit regularly referred to as tamarind. However, tamarind is excellent species than Garcinia. Be ready has endured for too much time and is situated in parts of South-east Eastern medicine. Not so competent. And considering the health problems of drinking coffee (increased blood pressure, increased cholesterol, increased heart rate, rapid, irregular heartbeat), it's not merely a fair trade-off. Spirulina: Every person unicellular blue-green algae. It contents essential amino acid and Gamma Linoleic Acid (GLA). GLA could promote loss of body fat but however there will not be research in order to Garcinia Cambogia the role of spirulina and YooSlim weigh reduce. Were there any complaint? Yes. One user ate less but was bursting with energy before bed. That's because he took dinner at 9pm but headed for bed by 11pm. The second he changed his the evening meal to 7pm, his problem went separated. That's why he continued invest in Hoodia Gordonii Plus and used it for hunger suppression. For example, products such as the currently popular Raspberry Ketones, Garcinia Cambogia, or Green Beans Extract, or even cases is able to only "help" a particular weight loss program by the side of. They are not the actual program.

[snailmosque1]

So You Need To Start Your Office Based Business

It can be difficult for an experienced engraver to detect the products of gifts before the cutting sets out. An item associated with a poor metal alloy covered having a gold plating will feel and feel real nice auto glass . the engraving starts the plating separates from the beds base metal along with the item is ruined. Unless the knowledgeable within subject, it is a choice to select an engraver before purchase your record. The engraver can advise you before buy as about what to give preference to and regardless whether they would definitely be willing carry out the 9 to 5. They may be capable of to refer you together with reputable dealer that discover trust, or talk on the dealer you are considering to create sure that the resulting product as you expect it end up being.

Now lets talk in regards to mp3 showcase. Sony has a good slice of market tell you their Walkman Series but there is however no denying that Apple dominates forex trading with the ipod and iphone. It's hard to see this change before i write again. But as industry is now Sony may be the only brand that can challenge Apple's iPod. Because they have the expertise, title and the artists to make a very good and competitive product. The saying, "You to be able to NFT on OpenSea spend money to earn money," generally holds true for Any organization! An Internet-based business is just not exception,whether you're promoting personalized products or someone else's. You enter your favorite restaurant. You sit down, look along with the menu on your few moments while your server gets your creations. Your server returns, asks you what will you like. You request a rib-eye steak with baked potato and also a salad. Your server says that item surely available as part of their "Meat Package". The "Meat Package" includes not only your rib-eye, baked potato and salad, but additionally sirloin strip, T-bone, chicken fried steak, beef ribs, pork ribs, ham, sausage, fries, green beans, cabbage, corn, rolls, and a biscuit. "Whoa", you tell your forum! " What is Robotic Process Automation don't need the only thing! I just want to know a rib-eye, baked potato Minecraft Tv collectively with a salad!" "Sorry", your waiter says. "It's part within the Meat Platform. You have to go on it all or nothing". You ain't ever gonna get rich selling $20 items. Seriously, include some higher priced goods and services with your marketing. You're going to get less sales, but more profits. You will know if they sell before you try! But don't fall in the trap of promoting any old thing a person get a premier commission. Integrity is important, too. Quantum Computing The saying, "You in order to be spend money to earn money," generally holds true for Any organization! An Internet-based business is no exception,whether your are promoting your own products or someone else's. They easy to to use with any existing tweezing and waxing methods method (excluding depilatories). They reduce including stop growth of hir. They could work look into the. Results: After 3 to six months, significant reduction in hair growth, in a few cases, constant.

[agent-ches]

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 DELIVERED...

hell yea so here are my thoughts it’s really spoilery because the show came out here yesterday and i watched it just now (at night) so i may be incoherent bear with me!! 

- starting from the ending, ADAM WARLOCK WILL BE IN THE SERIES. so fans speculated he’d show up in this movie because of the after credits scene in the last Guardians movie depicting a broken cocoon. that was a good guess but it was incorrect. he didn’t show up in the movie at all he actually came up in the post credits scene! ‘She’ (or Ayesha) supposedly created him and decided to give ‘He’ the name Adam aka Warlock. 

- in the comics Warlock is given the Soul Stone and currently that’s the last Infinity Stone so it’s going to be amazing to see whether or not he comes into owning it (theories are that Heimdall possesses the last stone, it’s going to be interesting!!) 

- i hate Peter’s dad. screw him HOW DARE HE PUT A TUMOR INTO PETER’S MUM’S HEAD WTH????? die you prick die (though Peter with the cool energy thing from being half celestial was rather amazing, pretty sad he doesn’t have that power source anymore unless the marvel creators decide on a new source) also Ego (his dad) having thousands of children just to find a compatible one to rule the universe (aka destroy it) with him is just awful ew 

- BABY GROOT IS PRECIOUS I WILL KILL YOU  IF YOU COME NEAR HIM (the flipping part where Ego the arsehole was trying kill the Guardians and Groot was being squished and he started crying oh my god my heart) also him not understading crap is adorable (PRECIOUS BABY OF THE GROUP) also the post credit scene with teenage Groot going through puberty was hilarious i’m dead. ALSO HIM DANCING WHILE THE REST ARE FIGHTING A MONSTER AND THEM CONSTANTLY HAVING TO TAKE CARE OF HIM aka GAMORA WAVING HI, ROCKET STOPPING MID WAY TO TELL HIM TO SPIT OUT A BUG AND HIM BEING ANGRY AT DRAX FOR DESTROYING THE STEREO PLAYING THE SONG HE WAS DANCING TO LMAO 

- Mantis is precious and innocent and oh my god Drax going “you’re ugly” and then going “that’s good cause if someone loves you then you know they do.” beautiful people don’t know who to trust - absolutely true. and at the end when he went “you’re beautiful, on the inside” #yes 

- Peter and Gamora are my first hetero ship in years. #thisunspokenthing (them dancing to Sam Cooke was just awwwww) 

- Peter being a precious bean and carrying around a photo of Hassleholf all the time to pretend that he’s his father and all he wanted was to play ball with his father and the first thing he did with Ego was play with a ball of energy. it’s a sweet moment despite how dubious the whole thing seemed. 

- Nebula character development was one of my favourite things ever because she went for “i will kill you Gamora” to “I just wanted a sister” gosh the feels, such a good movie. 

- Gamora, Drax and Rocket referring to the  Guardians as a family #best

- Groot making Yondu an honorary Guardian 

- Yondu being the best father figure to Peter ever and him dying and me sobbing horribly in the theatre (my awesome friend was crying with me and she was handing me tissues bless) 

- okay symbolism time, Peter had his Sony WALKMAN to listen to his mum’s Awesome Mixes and when Ego destroys this, he eventually receives another device from Yondu to listen to over 300 songs on. The WALKMAN is akin to his old family (his mother and Ego) and his new player is a representation of his new family (the Guardians and Yondu) 

- Ayesha (’She’) is pretty cool but christ she is scary. The Sovereignty armada is pretty cool, it’s like a giant arcade where the people are shooting their targets virtually through drones. Pretty interesting stuff (especially with the video game noises) 

- Rocket being referred to as a “triangle-faced-monkey”, “raccoon”, “fox” etcetera. and him being a giant softie inside because of his beginings (also him referring to Ego as a one-inch-tall man and winking with his wrong eye HAHA) 

- i laughed too much during this movie bless me 

- STAN LEE IN SPACE

- Sylvester Stallone !!

- 700 jumps and face warping #priceless 

- Howard the Duck cameo 

- TAZERFACE

- horrendous inneundos everywhere help 

- FANTASTIC SPACE FIREWORKS FOR YONDU’S FUNERAL YAS HONOUR HIM YALL

SUCH A GOOD SHOW IM SO HAPPY GUYS GO WATCH IT SOON OKAY edit : omg i typed this at 3am and wrote Arnold Schwarzenegger instead of Sylvester Stallone oh my brain HAHAHAHA 

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

The Tyranny of Convenience – The New York Times

Americans say they prize competition, a proliferation of choices, the little guy. Yet our taste for convenience begets more convenience, through a combination of the economics of scale and the power of habit. The easier it is to use Amazon, the more powerful Amazon becomes — and thus the easier it becomes to use Amazon. Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural bedfellows.

Given the growth of convenience — as an ideal, as a value, as a way of life — it is worth asking what our fixation with it is doing to us and to our country. I don’t want to suggest that convenience is a force for evil. Making things easier isn’t wicked. On the contrary, it often opens up possibilities that once seemed too onerous to contemplate, and it typically makes life less arduous, especially for those most vulnerable to life’s drudgeries.

But we err in presuming convenience is always good, for it has a complex relationship with other ideals that we hold dear. Though understood and promoted as an instrument of liberation, convenience has a dark side. With its promise of smooth, effortless efficiency, it threatens to erase the sort of struggles and challenges that help give meaning to life. Created to free us, it can become a constraint on what we are willing to do, and thus in a subtle way it can enslave us.

It would be perverse to embrace inconvenience as a general rule. But when we let convenience decide everything, we surrender too much.

Convenience as we now know it is a product of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when labor-saving devices for the home were invented and marketed. Milestones include the invention of the first “convenience foods,” such as canned pork and beans and Quaker Quick Oats; the first electric clothes-washing machines; cleaning products like Old Dutch scouring powder; and other marvels including the electric vacuum cleaner, instant cake mix and the microwave oven.

Convenience was the household version of another late-19th-century idea, industrial efficiency, and its accompanying “scientific management.” It represented the adaptation of the ethos of the factory to domestic life.

However mundane it seems now, convenience, the great liberator of humankind from labor, was a utopian ideal. By saving time and eliminating drudgery, it would create the possibility of leisure. And with leisure would come the possibility of devoting time to learning, hobbies or whatever else might really matter to us. Convenience would make available to the general population the kind of freedom for self-cultivation once available only to the aristocracy. In this way convenience would also be the great leveler.

Continue reading the main story

This idea — convenience as liberation — could be intoxicating. Its headiest depictions are in the science fiction and futurist imaginings of the mid-20th century. From serious magazines like Popular Mechanics and from goofy entertainments like “The Jetsons” we learned that life in the future would be perfectly convenient. Food would be prepared with the push of a button. Moving sidewalks would do away with the annoyance of walking. Clothes would clean themselves or perhaps self-destruct after a day’s wearing. The end of the struggle for existence could at last be contemplated.

The dream of convenience is premised on the nightmare of physical work. But is physical work always a nightmare? Do we really want to be emancipated from all of it? Perhaps our humanity is sometimes expressed in inconvenient actions and time-consuming pursuits. Perhaps this is why, with every advance of convenience, there have always been those who resist it. They resist out of stubbornness, yes (and because they have the luxury to do so), but also because they see a threat to their sense of who they are, to their feeling of control over things that matter to them.

By the late 1960s, the first convenience revolution had begun to sputter. The prospect of total convenience no longer seemed like society’s greatest aspiration. Convenience meant conformity. The counterculture was about people’s need to express themselves, to fulfill their individual potential, to live in harmony with nature rather than constantly seeking to overcome its nuisances. Playing the guitar was not convenient. Neither was growing one’s own vegetables or making one’s own clothes. But such things were seen to have value nevertheless — or rather, as a result. People were looking for individuality again.

Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that the second wave of convenience technologies — the period we are living in — would co-opt this ideal. It would conveniencize individuality.

You might date the beginning of this period to the advent of the Sony Walkman in 1979. With the Walkman we can see a subtle but fundamental shift in the ideology of convenience. If the first convenience revolution promised to make life and work easier for you, the second promised to make it easier to be you. The new technologies were catalysts of selfhood. They conferred efficiency on self-expression.

Consider the man of the early 1980s, strolling down the street with his Walkman and earphones. He is enclosed in an acoustic environment of his choosing. He is enjoying, out in public, the kind of self-expression he once could experience only in his private den. A new technology is making it easier for him to show who he is, if only to himself. He struts around the world, the star of his own movie.

So alluring is this vision that it has come to dominate our existence. Most of the powerful and important technologies created over the past few decades deliver convenience in the service of personalization and individuality. Think of the VCR, the playlist, the Facebook page, the Instagram account. This kind of convenience is no longer about saving physical labor — many of us don’t do much of that anyway. It is about minimizing the mental resources, the mental exertion, required to choose among the options that express ourselves. Convenience is one-click, one-stop shopping, the seamless experience of “plug and play.” The ideal is personal preference with no effort.

We are willing to pay a premium for convenience, of course — more than we often realize we are willing to pay. During the late 1990s, for example, technologies of music distribution like Napster made it possible to get music online at no cost, and lots of people availed themselves of the option. But though it remains easy to get music free, no one really does it anymore. Why? Because the introduction of the iTunes store in 2003 made buying music even more convenient than illegally downloading it. Convenient beat out free.

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As task after task becomes easier, the growing expectation of convenience exerts a pressure on everything else to be easy or get left behind. We are spoiled by immediacy and become annoyed by tasks that remain at the old level of effort and time. When you can skip the line and buy concert tickets on your phone, waiting in line to vote in an election is irritating. This is especially true for those who have never had to wait in lines (which may help explain the low rate at which young people vote).

The paradoxical truth I’m driving at is that today’s technologies of individualization are technologies of mass individualization. Customization can be surprisingly homogenizing. Everyone, or nearly everyone, is on Facebook: It is the most convenient way to keep track of your friends and family, who in theory should represent what is unique about you and your life. Yet Facebook seems to make us all the same. Its format and conventions strip us of all but the most superficial expressions of individuality, such as which particular photo of a beach or mountain range we select as our background image.

I do not want to deny that making things easier can serve us in important ways, giving us many choices (of restaurants, taxi services, open-source encyclopedias) where we used to have only a few or none. But being a person is only partly about having and exercising choices. It is also about how we face up to situations that are thrust upon us, about overcoming worthy challenges and finishing difficult tasks — the struggles that help make us who we are. What happens to human experience when so many obstacles and impediments and requirements and preparations have been removed?

Today’s cult of convenience fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience. Convenience is all destination and no journey. But climbing a mountain is different from taking the tram to the top, even if you end up at the same place. We are becoming people who care mainly or only about outcomes. We are at risk of making most of our life experiences a series of trolley rides.

Convenience has to serve something greater than itself, lest it lead only to more convenience. In her 1963 classic, “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan looked at what household technologies had done for women and concluded that they had just created more demands. “Even with all the new labor-saving appliances,” she wrote, “the modern American housewife probably spends more time on housework than her grandmother.” When things become easier, we can seek to fill our time with more “easy” tasks. At some point, life’s defining struggle becomes the tyranny of tiny chores and petty decisions.

An unwelcome consequence of living in a world where everything is “easy” is that the only skill that matters is the ability to multitask. At the extreme, we don’t actually do anything; we only arrange what will be done, which is a flimsy basis for a life.

We need to consciously embrace the inconvenient — not always, but more of the time. Nowadays individuality has come to reside in making at least some inconvenient choices. You need not churn your own butter or hunt your own meat, but if you want to be someone, you cannot allow convenience to be the value that transcends all others. Struggle is not always a problem. Sometimes struggle is a solution. It can be the solution to the question of who you are.

Embracing inconvenience may sound odd, but we already do it without thinking of it as such. As if to mask the issue, we give other names to our inconvenient choices: We call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions. These are the noninstrumental activities that help to define us. They reward us with character because they involve an encounter with meaningful resistance — with nature’s laws, with the limits of our own bodies — as in carving wood, melding raw ingredients, fixing a broken appliance, writing code, timing waves or facing the point when the runner’s legs and lungs begin to rebel against him.

Such activities take time, but they also give us time back. They expose us to the risk of frustration and failure, but they also can teach us something about the world and our place in it.

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So let’s reflect on the tyranny of convenience, try more often to resist its stupefying power, and see what happens. We must never forget the joy of doing something slow and something difficult, the satisfaction of not doing what is easiest. The constellation of inconvenient choices may be all that stands between us and a life of total, efficient conformity.

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TIM WU

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