Posted on 04/22/2018 6:13:57 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Ten Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime
1. The Post Office
Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check
Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with check by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.
3. The Newspaper
The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
4. The Book
You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone
Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.
6. Music
This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalogue items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."
7. Television Revenues
To the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.
8. The "Things" That You Own
Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Joined Handwriting (Cursive Writing)
Already gone in some schools who no longer teach "joined handwriting" because nearly everything is done now on computers or keyboards of some type (pun not intended)
10. Privacy
If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway.. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits.. "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again and again.
All we will have left that which can't be changed.......are our "Memories".
Logic is dead. Excellence is punished. Mediocrity is rewarded. And dependency is to be revered.. This is present-day North America. When crooks rob banks they go to prison. When they rob the taxpayer they get re-elected
“All I am pointing out is that the entirety of human knowledge IS NOT available on line. “
Unfortunately for you the electronic medium that stored your earlier post has not self-destructed or been rendered obsolete:
“Then here is one they never think of: Electronic devices go obsolete in a few short years.”
Knuth’s books are now online. I think the Computer Snob in all of us would prefer the hardbound books. I downloaded, and won’t shell out the bucks for the books.
I'm not sure with what you are taking issue, because everything I have stated here is true.
FSU had a ‘mainframe’ in 1965 that we did ‘programming’ on but I really cut my teeth on a IBM 360 with punchcards, especially when I had to get a bunch of programs running on the ‘compatible’ Amdahl 360 that UofF upgraded to.
A PDP-11 was a workhorse for our field work. My favorite computer now? A Denon 4300.
Drooling....
“If you want to keep up with your stuff, you must copy it from one media to another, forever. Just like I said before.”
Your description of it as an frequent onerous task. Since the 80’s I just pull the hard disk out of my old computer and put it into my new one. Start the copying and come back a little while later, pull the disk and ‘archive’ it.
It’s been over four years since the last. I have a backup disk in my computer that gets backed up to a USB hard drive about once a month.
Put my system together piece by piece as I found sales.
I have a mini-pc in the cabinet to access high quality (360 bps Pandora) and starting a collection of Hi Def albums from HDTracks.
Have a Harmony Hub and Echo. Walk into the run and tell Alexa to turn on Music or TV.
Overheard in 1968: "A computer on a chip! What a crock! They'll never amount to anything!".
The 360 drove me to Space Invaders!
Checks ...
They better open a Brick and Morter that accepts CASH ...
Companies ( more than one ) already skip sending me a Bill so that they can Dun me and then try to get me to sign up for the Auto-Pay...
Old tactic
Orwell was right.
Why pay $2.66 or anything at all for that trivial service?
You can use Google Drive or iCloud or Dropbox or ZipCloud or whatever. Upload your content and send your correspondent the download link. Simple. Post Office not needed!
Or just have your correspondent set up an FTP server, log onto it, and upload your content directly onto your correspondent's hard drive. Or you can set up an FTP server, post your content, and let your correspondent download it. More work, but Google, etc., not needed, just the internet.
All you need is an internet connection. You would not be reading this if you did not have one of those.
Why do you need the Post Office to send bits? The Post Office is about dead trees, about sending physical things, not bits.
Will you scan my Machinery Handbook for me? It is 2693 pages long and the cover measures 4.8 X 7.2 inches. You won’t be allowed to break the binding.
Good point.
Hit a deer in January...got it into the body shop in March.
A sign was posted indicating anything over $1,000 had to be paid with a check but you could use a CC for $1,000 or less.
We gave them a check for $250 (our deductible) and they received the other $4,600 via a check in the MAIL (see list item #1).
Have a great week, FRiend!
The most incorrect one is “music”.
I sort of do. I have used it for strings of LED lighting and they work fine. I wouldn’t think of using it for incandescent lighting at all.
*** “11. Common Sense” ***
It has never been common, now it is rare ;^)
FedEx carries much of the mail now, anyway. Big contract. UPS lost it a few years ago.
If you get something that was picked up by the USPS, and delivered by the USPS, it likely flew on a FedEx plane, if the distance was great.
If you get something in the mail that started with FedEx, it’s cheaper than having FedEx deliver it the “last mile”.
You should work for th ePost Office if you cannot figure it out. Collect it on the receiving end instead of wasting money sending it back.
“I sent a birthday card with a gift card to Danville, PA.”
I no longer mail gift cards-——they are a big theft item.
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