My cousin works at a Toyota plant in Kentucky and I used to joke that he was basically just a button pusher. Then he showed me video of their assembly line welding arms that can switch between six different car models in like 30 seconds. I always thought factory automation was just big clunky arms that do the same thing over and over, but that stuff is way smarter than I gave it credit for. Now I kind of get why home robots are so far behind, the real world is way messier than a factory floor. Honestly it made me feel less bad about my own washing machine, not more.

Yeah, 'working smarter' is the real takeaway there. It's wild how much time we waste grinding the wrong way just because that's how we were taught.

Read somewhere that a little bit of coconut oil before washing helps keep it from getting too messy.

Did he ever fish it out or is it just living in there forever now?

Oh man, tell me about it. I dug out my old Intuos 4 last year and spent a solid half hour just staring at the cursor doing the jitterbug before I figured it out. Honestly, the worst part was trying to adjust the pressure sensitivity again. My first few lines looked like I was drawing with a wet noodle and then suddenly a brick. Ngl, I almost threw it against the wall. But once I got it dialed in, it felt like coming home to a clunky but lovable friend.