21 Things That Became Obsolete In This Decade

[Yavin4]

Interesting:

http://www.businessinsider.com/21-things-that-became-obsolete-this-decade-2009-12#pdas-1

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Retrograde]

2. I still use some of these

My old Palm still works, paper maps are good when you can't get a signal or a decent connection (yes, there are still places like that), I find phone books more useful for quick lookups, especially if I'm not 100% sure what I'm looking for (my last online search - for sportswear - suggested a place that turned out to specialize in bait and hunting licenses).

And it's good to have low-tech backups for essentials: my entire town lost power for a day last month, and many business found themselves unable to cope without modern aids.

[GoCubsGo]

7. Me, too.

I'll never give up my land line as long as they exist. And, going through one of those "entire town lost power" experiences is why. We had one of those a few years ago. The cordless phones didn't work. The cell phones couldn't be recharged. But, I could still make and receive calls on my old Trimline corded phone on the land line.

I also prefer the phone book, maps, as well as reading material on paper. Still use the VCR, too. And, CDs. I like having a permanent copy of my music, without worrying about losing it if the iPod or hard drive go out on me. Ditto for backing up data. Thumb drives go bad. I'll backup on them, but I am not about to make them my permanent backups.

[XemaSab]

16. I bird all over the state and I don't have a GPS... I think they suck

My DeLorme atlases tell me everything I need to know. :D

[progressoid]

32. I just faxed a W-9 to a new client this morning.

I still use at least half of the things on that list.

[n2doc]

3. I don't think video rental stores are obsolete -yet

Just try renting "the Hurt Locker" on Netflix- you'll get a "long wait" warning and they mean it. The store usually has a rental copy or 3 available. And on demand never seems to have anything I want, certainly nothing high profile and new. Eventually it will happen, though. And 'renting" a film from itunes for $5 isn't cost effective.

[HughBeaumont]

11. TWC's "On Demand" is terrible.

I can get everything they charge $5.00 for from our local library for free.

[gateley]

4. 22 - John McCain. nt

[kestrel91316]

5. 3 1/2" floppies.......

[Yavin4]

8. On MLK day, I was Painting Murals In This School's Tech Lab

One of the pictures that I was painting was of a 5.25 floppy disk. The kids didn't even know what it was.

[hobbit709]

13. 5.25" floppies are new. What about the 8" ones.

[kestrel91316]

46. I opted for a floppy drive in the desktop I bought 3 or 4 years ago, but

that was only so I could transfer a bunch of photos and files from my old dinosaur computer that had only a CD player, no burner. Flash drives were still pricey, and I didn't know how to use a plain hard drive to do it. So it's got the floppy drive, which has gone unused since the first couple weeks I had it.

[damntexdem]

6. A mixture of things obsoleted and things someone thinks are obsolete.

Paper? Forget it! It's obsolescence has been announced before -- fail!

But I'm glad that my PDA is obsolete -- now I can't be called trendy for carrying it. ;-)

[Yavin4]

10. Not All Paper Is Dead

I'd like to see Apple come up with an app to replace these!

[pintobean]

9. I still buy CDs

I can get them cheaper than an album download. I can rip them in the format and bit rate that I want, plus I get a hard copy back-up as well as artwork and liner notes.

[NeedleCast]

12. Me too. I like the fact that I can still "collect" them

[Donnachaidh]

17. hell -- LP's are collectibles, and some are saying they may come back

so this list is obsolete :rofl:

[skypilot]

25. In my town...

...it seems that they HAVE come back. There's a place near me that buys, sells and trades CDs, vinyl records, DVDs, etc. The place is always full of people stocking up on albums and the owner actually pays more for your used vinyl than for your CDs. And the vinyl records aren't necessarily dirt cheap either.

It's kinda funny seeing a list like this claiming that CDs are obsolete when there are people out there buying vinyl.

[pintobean]

30. I still buy LPs, too

Mostly from the dollar bin or garage sales for the artwork. My daughter decorates her room with them.

[JaneQPublic]

19. Me, too. I get used ones on amazon.com.

I love it when I can find great ones for as little as a penny (plus $3 shipping).

I agree that it's good to have the CDs as backup. Computers and MP3 players have been known to crap out.

[LoZoccolo]

38. I noticed that fye has most CDs for $9.99, the same as iTunes but you get more than the songs. n/t

[misanthrope]

56. As would any real music lover**nm

**

[tonysam]

68. Yep, and they're tangible.

I don't want to "own" something I don't really "own."

[The Genealogist]

14. #21 Boundaries: most unfortunate obsolete thing on the list

for me. Whether it be the government ignoring them in their never-ending quest for more TERRA, or facebook users feeling the need to tell the world every time they go to the toilet or find a bruised apple, I miss boundaries, quite often!

[tallahasseedem]

23. I totally agree...

It never ceases to amaze me at the inane shit people will post. I want the days of mystery back.

[peace13]

15. So in the event of a major problem with the internet

be it cyber attack or simply our country deciding that the peons no longer need access, we will no longer have access to things like:
-phone books
-dictionary, encyclopedias, works of literature
-maps to navigate
-music
-libraries including information on health, gardening and basic living skills.

Once our community libraries are totally unfunded only people with money will have access to any of this. I love the internet but I am not so proud that it takes credit for making so many things obsolete. We will be in the dark when internet, electricity and personal machines are no longer at our finger tips.

[Yavin4]

27. When Electricity Became The Norm

The same could be said, as well as when the telephone became the norm.

Every advancement in technology breeds more dependence on that tech. We don't hunt and raise our own food.

[peace13]

34. Food and access to information are two very different things.

I can kill the deer that is in my front yard right now if I had to. Breathing life into my struggling library is a problem of a different nature.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

18. On that list I'll miss:

1. Video stores--Going to Blockbuster on a Friday evening was always a nice tradition for me
2. Maps--I love staring at a map and imagining what the place I'm going to looks like
3. Landlines--I still wouldn't recommend getting rid of it. Plus I like to have a "home base" for my phone.
4. CDs--You don't get the same thrill downloading a song like you do from buying the new CD from your favorite band or artist and popping it into your car's CD player. Plus downloading has made bands and artists lazy in creating great albums as opposed to just a couple of listenable songs.
5. Paper--especially newspapers and personal coresspondence via the letter.
6. Record stores--See #4

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. AOL is obsolete?

But....I have all these shiny coasters I have been collecting. :-(

[Donnachaidh]

29. take up skeet shooting

they work pretty well, as long as the sun doesn't bounce off and blow your concentration.

[NewMoonTherian]

47. Since you mention it...

I hear those CD's also make good emergency signal mirrors, since they already have the hole in the middle for aiming.

[dixiegrrrrl]

70. Hey..I can "rebrand them" and make a fortune !!!

Thanks, AOL.

[BrklynLiberal]

21. And 15-16 year olds will never even miss them....

[tallahasseedem]

22. They keep trying to get rid of paper...

but it's not going anywhere! LOL!

I personally love opening and reading a new book, watching my kids draw with crayons, paint, etc...

I was actually just working with my daughter on an assignment and taught her how to look up words in the dictionary and thesaurus. What an old timer! LOL!

[HeresyLives]

24. People still used horses long after the car was invented.

It always takes awhile for the switch-over, but much of paper is already gone.

[Cleobulus]

39. Its been my experience that we might use slightly less paper but that paper is still used...

People have been talking about the "paperless office" for example, since the 1980s, it hasn't happened yet, and its not going to happen in the future. Digital information can be too easily changed without a means to detect it, something needs to be written down for permanent record keeping and verification.

[HeresyLives]

42. Because people are used to it.

They don't actually need to use it.

[slampoet]

44. What Paper substitute do you use to wipe your ass? An IPHONE ?

Take a look at a supermarket and imagine it without paper.

[HeresyLives]

45. You wipe your ass with office paper??

Because a paperless office is what we were discussing.

[slampoet]

50. All recycled toilet paper has a high percentage of office paper.

That is why office paper fetches more on the market than other kinds.

[HeresyLives]

52. I suggest a bidet.

And that is not why...:rofl:

[GreenArrow]

58. Just as an observer, it's pretty clear that you were discussing

the obsolesce of paper in general, including, but not limited to the "office".

[HeresyLives]

61. Clean your glasses

[GreenArrow]

69. How about if I clean your clock, you stupid nit.

>>Post 35 They keep trying to get rid of paper...
but it's not going anywhere! LOL!<<

Paper in general terms.

>>Post 36 (YOU) People still used horses long after the car was invented.
It always takes awhile for the switch-over, but much of paper is already gone <<

paper in general terms.

>>Post 37 Its been my experience that we might use slightly less paper but that paper is still used... <<

Paper used in general terms.


>>Post 54 People have been talking about the "paperless office" for example, since the 1980s, it hasn't happened yet, and its not going to happen in the future. Digital information can be too easily changed without a means to detect it, something needs to be written down for permanent record keeping and verification. <<

Paperless office used as one example, in a larger context.

>>Post 57 (YOU) Because people are used to it.
They don't actually need to use it. <<

'It' refers to what? Paper. Not paperless office, paper in general.

Sorry, you lose. Clean my glasses? You clean your manners next time.

[HeresyLives]

71. Freak much?

The topic was office paper....not napkins, not toilet paper, not paper towel, office paper.

IT didn't need to be specified each time, IT was the topic...paperless offices.

[Book Lover]

57. If only that were true!

The vast, vast majority of manufactured paper use is for packaging, not books or magazines. IPCO is still doing quite well poisoning our waterways, thank you very much.

[Romulox]

26. CDs, fax machines, LPs, record stores are not obsolete. Not even close. nt

[Donnachaidh]

28. I got the feeling this list was written by a 14 year old

I have and use ALL of those things. And I'm not about to give up my landline anytime in the near future. It's CHEAPER than a cell phone LOL!

[slampoet]

41. amen.

[tammywammy]

62. We use the fax machine all the time

And CDs. Strange list.

[progressoid]

31. What a shitty list.

It assumes that everyone can afford to be hyper integrated into the digital age. Stupid.

[HughBeaumont]

33. I'll still stay behind on a few things for awhile.

I like the convenience factor of downloading/per pay, but I don't regularly download to the point where I'm ready to give up CDs. Video on Demand is still not to the standard that I would give up library DVDs. And sorry, but it's highly unlikely I'll get an e-reader. :)

[eppur_se_muova]

51. Or WANTS to be totally dependent on network connections.

I want to be able to function when the network goes down, thank you very much.

[Faryn Balyncd]

35. Peace . . . .Prosperity. . . .the Middle Class. . . . (but, gee whiz, we've sure got the trinkets!!)

[LoZoccolo]

36. CDs still have better sound quality than mp3s. I still buy them. n/t

[progressoid]

37. yep. n/t

[slampoet]

40. What a bullshit, lazy "reporter". I can refute each of these points.

1. pda just have phones in them now. the iphone is just an evolved pda.

2. anyone who is concerned about even business level security better not use a free email.

3. Dial up is all many people have in large areas of the USA still.

4. Any pro still develops film and also the printing industry

5. Only blockbuster is obsolete. Ever try to rent a film in Arabic or Turkish from Netflix?

6. Road maps were obsolete with the invention of Mapquest in 1996. Also how do you navigate a river or railroad track with just GPS. If you back pack are you gonna carry a solar charger for your GPS also or are you going to save the weight and go paper? What if you are hiking in the Olympic Mountains were there is no good sunlight to solar charge?

7. How do you reach people how are 75+ years old or are in small towns with Craiglist?

8. i have a landline, so does every business i know of.

9. Call Canada from Detroit and see what kind of long distance charges they give you.

10. if homeless people have cellphones like this article claims then were do they charge them?

11. of my top 25 favorite movies, 3 of them still aren't on DVD

12. I faxed someone my resume just yesterday. how do you sign your name to an email for a legal document?

13. Ever try to look up the spelling of a word in an online dictionary? Real difficult if the word is rare enough not to appear in spellcheck or hard to confirm that a word isn't actually in the language like "unpossible"

14. 411 became obsolete when phone companies started charging for it in the early 90's

15. CD quality is the standard for all audiophiles. If this reporter even spent $50 on decent headphones they'd realize that.

16. ever burn a one megabyte text file to a DVDr? Me neither because i still use burnable CD's and every Staples in the USA still sells them. You're also going to want a boot CD or Floppy the next time your hard drive fails and you need to reinstall Windows. A lot of Macs still don't come stock with a DVD burner. Many operating systems won't boot from a DVD.

17. This is just stupid. We all get bills in the mail and if you don't, i pray for you the next time you have a computer failure or an audit.

18. qwertyuiop[]\asdfghjkl;'zxcvbnm,./ Have they forgotten that these are buttons too?

19. If you weren't meant to fall out of contact with people, Facebook wouldn't have a Block feature.

20. Boundaries? same as above.

21. Paper Obsolete? I guess this reporter just wipes their ass with a Blackberry.

[Retrograde]

48. Good rebuttals

Although you should have warned us about #21!

My new phone has a GPS feature, which works kinda OK, but I still find paper maps more efficient. For me it's easier to open up the map, find start and end points and routes (yup, plural) in between than to type in an address it likes. The map also gives me a better idea of how far away places are, and if, say, a road is closed for some reason I can find an alternative more quickly. In the end, GPS is only as good as the underlying mapping databases.

I don't consider myself a technophobe, but I've seen enough various media come and go over the years to realize that everything that can't be read directly by people is going to eventually go obsolete. There's a large capital investment in changing to meet each new technology. While paper will eventually deteriorate, it takes a long time - and it's highly unlikely that the local bookstore will suddenly decide to repossess a physical book, as Amazon did recently.

I learned the value of a landline a few weeks ago when we were without power: my town has a reverse-911 system that periodically called with updates on the outage. The old landline worked; the new base stations didn't.

And how do the homeless charge their phones?

[GeorgeGist]

43. Apparently decades are now more than 10 yrs.

[Delphinus]

49. That was

an interesting list!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

53. I dropped my landline.

Because of incessant hangups, wrong numbers, boiler rooms hassling me to buy something.

But I still buy CDs. MUCH BETTER sound quality than MP3s.

And I still have my vinyl collection.

[Ex Lurker]

54. very cool, but a big pet peeve of mine...

these "lists" where you have to keep clicking on each item. Just put them in order on one page and be done with it.

[Patsy Stone]

55. I miss handwritten personal letters.

E-mail is nice, but I like being able to hold the paper in my hand and look at the ink. They aren't actually obsolete, but they're getting scarce.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

59. I put weird stickers on the back of the envelopes my bills are in.

Just to confuse the bureaucrats.

Like Bill Clinton sitting in a lawn chair in front of the White House, saying "Talk to the Wife".

:rofl:

Or The Simpsons.

[Patsy Stone]

63. You just keep on keepin' on!

Fabulous! :thumbsup:

[kskiska]

60. And cursive handwriting isn't being taught in schools

I learned to write with a scratch pen and still love a fountain pen, but rarely use one anymore.

[Patsy Stone]

67. I loved my handwriting.

My print was a beautiful, almost architectural, short stroke and my cursive writing was delightfully round and fun. Now, I even have trouble signing my name, and when I write, my hand hurts from lack of use and the pen feels funny. That's just sad.

[Ex Lurker]

74. I print in block letters

I don't think I know how to write cursive any more.

[L0oniX]

64. 24 ...hope.

[tinrobot]

65. I wish health insurance companies would have been on that list.

[Bluenorthwest]

66. Well, much of that is just silly

I mean, maps are not obsolete just because they are now also often electronic. The map was never the paper, but that which was printed on it. The same map could be both on paper, and on the device of your choice, it is still a map, and still the same map. Maps obsolete. Also, paper. If only.
I remember when stores were declared obsolete. All of them were to vanish, these out dated 'bricks and mortar' stores, with actual buildings were to be gone, at once. Bricks and mortar. This is the same level of Apple style wackiness. Air is obsolete.

[marmar]

72. Jobs.

[HughBeaumont]

73. +1.