757 – “As to the presidency, the two happiest days of [my] life were those of my entrance upon the office and [my] surrender of it.”

–Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States [Attributed by Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the United States]

Today is President’s Day in the United States!

419 – “With its promise of smooth, effortless efficiency, [convenience] threatens to erase the sort of struggles and challenges that help give meaning to life.”

“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.”

–Tim Wu

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