Posted on 03/18/2017 6:04:20 PM PDT by upchuck
Complete article here: http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/business/T057-S001-7-things-that-will-soon-disappear/index.html
Quick list:
1. Keys - Keys, at least in the sense of a piece of brass cut to a specific shape, are going away.
2. Blackouts - Frustrating power outages that leave people with fridges full of ruined food are on their way out as our electrical grid becomes increasingly intelligent – and resilient.
3. Fast-food workers - Burger-flippers have targets on their backs as fast-food executives are eager to replace them with machines, particularly as minimum wages in a variety of states are set to rise to $15.
4. The clutch pedal - Every year it seems that an additional car model loses the manual transmission option. Even the Ford F-150 pickup truck can’t be purchased with a stick anymore.
5. College textbooks - By the end of this decade, digital formats for tablets and e-readers will displace physical books for assigned reading on college campuses. K–12 schools won’t be far behind, though they’ll mostly stick with larger computers as their platform of choice.
6. Dial-up Internet - According to a study from the Pew Foundation, only 3% of U.S. households went online via a dial-up connection in 2013. Thirteen years before that, only 3% had broadband (Today, 70% have home broadband). Massive federal spending on broadband initiatives, passed during the last recession to encourage economic recovery, has helped considerably.
7. The plow - Modern farmers have little use for it. It provides a deep tillage that turns up too much soil, encouraging erosion because the plow leaves no plant material on the surface to stop wind and rain water from carrying the soil away. It also requires a huge amount of diesel fuel to plow, compared with other tillage methods, cutting into farmers' profits. The final straw: It releases more carbon dioxide into the air than other tillage methods.
8. Your neighborhood mail collection box - The amount of mail people are sending is plummeting, down 57% from 2004 to 2015 for stamped first-class pieces. So, around the country, the U.S. Postal Service has been cutting back on those iconic blue collection boxes. The number has fallen by more than half since the mid 1980s. Since it costs time and fuel for mail carriers to stop by each one, the USPS monitors usage and pulls out boxes that don't see enough traffic.
9. Your privacy - If you are online, you had better assume that you already have no privacy and act accordingly. Every mouse click and keystroke is tracked, logged and potentially analyzed and eventually used by Web site product managers, marketers, hackers and others. To use most services, users have to opt-in to lengthy terms and conditions that allow their data to be crunched by all sorts of actors.
10. The incandescent lightbulb - No, government energy cops are not coming for your bulbs. But the traditional incandescent lightbulb that traces its roots back to Thomas Edison is definitely on its way out. As of January 1, 2014, the manufacture and importation of 40- to 100-watt incandescent bulbs became illegal in the U.S., part of a much broader effort to get Americans to use less electricity.
“Those convenient big corner mailboxes disappeared from around here years ago. So have all the convenient substations like the one at the rear of our local gift shop.”
Our mail(person) still picks ours up at our house?
“Blackouts will disappear?”
Yes.
The author somehow failed to take account of the lifetime stash of incandescents at the POF household. I'll keep my "telltale glow of a tungsten element," thank you very much.
>> 7. The plow - Modern farmers have little use for it. The final straw: It releases more carbon dioxide into the air than other tillage methods. <<
All 16 farmers in blue counties are quitting the plow for that reason.
>> 10. The incandescent lightbulb - No, government energy cops are not coming for your bulbs.... As of January 1, 2014, the manufacture and importation of 40- to 100-watt incandescent bulbs became illegal in the U.S., <<
THE STUPID... IT BURNS!!!!
I will never give up my manual transmissions.
NO COMPUTER CONTROLLED SLUSH BOX WILL EVER BE MORE RELIABLE OR CAPABLE TO REACT TO BAD DRIVING CONDITIONS THAN THE HUMAN BRAIN ... PERIOD.
ALL automatics rob the driver of the feel of driving, of being connected to the road.
Americans have become LAZY that is why manuals are slowly dying.
Checkbooks NOPE
Cash/coins/pennys NOPE
Any books DEFINITELY NOPE
Newspapers NOPE
Magazines NOPE
Auto workers NOPE
Pencils/pens NOPE
Steering wheels NOPE
Typewriters YES
AM/FM radio Not sure.
DVD/Blue Ray Not quite.
Broadcast TV NOPE. (Cable is down; broadcast is up.)
As long as there are squirrels and transformers, there will be blackouts!
How could the author have left off AUTOMOBILES? Predictions vary from the personal automobile disappearing in 5 years up to 25 years from now. Why own your own automobile when your phone will order one to your door in five minutes and you pay only for what you use, not for the asset depreciating away in your garage or work parking lot? In a decade or two, people won’t even know how to drive any more. Then in a few decades after that, cars won’t even have manual controls any more. Big changes coming to transportation.
It’ll be especially convenient for the next Obama or Maduro type that gets elected. We’ll be picked up thinking we’re headed to to local drug store but find ourselves on a one-way trip to the reactionary processing center.
11. North Korea
“NO COMPUTER CONTROLLED SLUSH BOX WILL EVER BE MORE RELIABLE OR CAPABLE TO REACT TO BAD DRIVING CONDITIONS THAN THE HUMAN BRAIN ... PERIOD.”
The are not your daddy’s slush boxes anymore.
And congratulations for never having disengaged your brain and missed a shift ...
Detergents that really clean clothes and dishes because they contain phosphates.
Oh, wait, that already happened seven years ago.
Toilets that reliably remove all waste with a single flush.
Hmmm, nope, that happened already, too.
Gas cans that don’t spill and leak all over your garden tools.
Er, nope, the government ruined those, too.
I hope that after I am dead and gone that the scientists will remove all carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as I read where they were planning to do to fight climate change. I hope that they make the atmosphere 100% oxygen. Or at least 50%. And Al Gore is still around to get the benefit of it.
Doing some writing. In the late 21st century I have th flying car. Then 60 years later the Chinese and Japanese collaborate on a three level liner synth for flying cars. the top lane is express and the middle for causing and the bottom for descent or docking at buildings 2nd and third floor.
I have synths controlling traffic since 2065 and they speed up the flow. So after the dying cars and synths and second floor walk ways across streets, the streets of Ny are park like and easy to walk. Bodegas and food carts on the second floor level in cross wars between buildings.
“Bodegas and food carts on the second floor level in cross wars between buildings.”
Maybe one day there will be no more wars.
C4
Somehow, I doubt very much that everything you and others imagine about the future will come true; it never has before3, when people predict what will be "normal" in 20, 50, or 100 years.
Unlike vintage sewing machines, there is a huge pool of collectors for quality pens, watches, first edition books, paintings, and object d'art, many of which are signed by.
You only read at the library,on a machine?
With a book, you can read ANYWHERE and you don't have to worry that someone will change any words/whole chapters, or even, as was done with quite a few books, in the past, pull the book, even though people have bought it.
And pssssssssssssssst...we have "keyless" cars, but the STILL have sort of a key. ;^)
Public school taught me .99 is not a dollar! lol
I love auto text. cross walks
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