10 Things That Will Soon Disappear Forever (And 7 That Refuse to Die)

...yet another one that refuses to die: the dollar bill

Costs an arm and a leg to replace all the worn out bills (compared to longevity of a coin) - alas, dollar coins have failed many times to the point where the government finally gave up producing them for circulation a few years ago....
 
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Music Lover said:
Yeah...when are you folks gonna finally join the modern system of measurement that almost all of the rest of the world uses??
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With Brexit, I think Imperial will have a few years left. Remember stones and thrupence? I don't think I will live to see 2x4s and 4x8s obsolete. OK 1.75x3.5...
 
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COcheesehead said:
I had a manual not because it shifted faster, but because it gives you more control of the driving experience.
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+10

It's what I have when I want to enjoy driving a vehicle, be it my sports car or my truck. Also, try driving in 3 or 4 foot of snow drifts, in an automatic on a bad day.:dance:
 
euro said:
...yet another one that refuses to die: the dollar bill

Costs an arm and a leg to replace all the worn out bills (compared to longevity of a coin) - alas, dollar coins have failed many times to the point where the government finally gave up producing them for circulation a few years ago....
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Up here, we loved the $1 coins so much that we added $2 coins. I don't miss the small denomination paper money at all. In fact, the coin tray in my car has $50 or $60 in loonies and twonies...there's always money for a car wash or a drive thru.
 
Music Lover said:
Up here, we loved the $1 coins so much that we added $2 coins. I don't miss the small denomination paper money at all. In fact, the coin tray in my car has $50 or $60 in loonies and twonies...there's always money for a car wash or a drive thru.
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can you actually buy anything up there for $1?
 
Midpack said:
  1. Keys - less for sure but never zero
  2. Blackouts - we have had one outage in 20 years when the step-down transformer exploded in a fiery flash. We do not even install backup batteries in electronics.
  3. Fast Food Workers - fewer but never zero. More JIT delivery. Never leave the workstation/couch
  4. Clutch Pedals - maybe in driverless cars
  5. College Textbooks - yup except how do the profs avoid hacking?
  6. Dial-Up Internet (it's not already dead?) - 1996 dialup Compuserve mail from Mexico. Never since.
  7. Your Neighborhood Mail Collection Box (group box, not individual home) - this is failed experiment in Canada includes delivery
  8. Your Privacy - always a work around for the paranoid
  9. Incandescent Light Bulbs - yup by government decree
Things that refuse to die:

  1. Parking Meters - group payment machines by spot number, cash Debit CC or call up. Extend time by callup.
  2. Cassette Tapes - already dead
  3. Ethanol Flex Fuel - bad idea anyway, please hurry...
  4. The Penny- already gone in some places. Pay to the penny by CC/Debit otherwise round.
  5. Fax Machines - not as long as there are doctors and lawyers!
  6. Paper Checks - we have to have something to take a photo of. Wait for Fintech?
  7. CB Radios - not soon in my boat. Always out of cell range.
Things That Will Soon Disappear Forever
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I just had to do it. Sorry I am relaxed.
 
exnavynuke said:
Cassettes aren't dead? I can't recall the last time I saw one.

One thing I expect to be gone in 20-30 years is the traditional realtor charging a % of the house sale price. I think the flat fee realtors will replace them for the market that will still use realtors at all by then.
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I still have some!!! But have not listened to one in more than 10 years... and I even had a car that would play them up to a couple of years ago... (and it was a 2004!!)...

DW wants me to get rid of them as they are taking up space... I have thrown out 80% of what I owned, but just cannot seem to throw out the last... now that I read this I probably will...


Edit to add... my car was a manual and I LOVED it... but, will probably not buy another since DW will drive mine at times... I do not need an 'extra' vehicle...
 
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Bye, four wheel drive's manual front locking hubs. My 79 Chevy K20 pick up had it. The 98, and 06 GMCs are push button. The 06 eve has an auto 4wd. Never used it, not sure it is fast enough to lock when needed. Prefer engaging before I need it.
 
I have yet to see an automatic transmission that can rock a car out of a snow drift.

Now, about those kids on my lawn...
 
As to the collection mail boxes... there are none up here north of Houston.... except at the local post office...


I have never thought about it, but I guess I could just put mine in the neighborhood box in the subdivision next door (I have to drive through it to get out of mine)... but we do not mail that much so it is not a big deal...
 
Blackouts: How will you stop the college kids from chugging the cheap liquor? :)

Clutch: loved the manual, until my knee rebelled on me.

Penny: please. Remove it already. We don't have bits and half pennies. It is time.

Imperial units: For fasteners, please do it. All mechanics find themselves reaching for metric most of the time anyway. Let's end it. But if you force degrees C down my throat, then you better give the temperature to the tenth of a degree.

Finally, just to bug my DW, I set our new scale to Stone and Pounds. She was not happy thinking it was broken, and then laughed. I admit, for us Americans, it is a nice mental exercise to measure weight this way.
 
JoeWras said:
Blackouts: How will you stop the college kids from chugging the cheap liquor? :)

Clutch: loved the manual, until my knee rebelled on me.

Penny: please. Remove it already. We don't have bits and half pennies. It is time.

Imperial units: For fasteners, please do it. All mechanics find themselves reaching for metric most of the time anyway. Let's end it. But if you force degrees C down my throat, then you better give the temperature to the tenth of a degree.

Finally, just to bug my DW, I set our new scale to Stone and Pounds. She was not happy thinking it was broken, and then laughed. I admit, for us Americans, it is a nice mental exercise to measure weight this way.
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Quite often when the bill comes to x.99 I tell the cashier to keep the penny, just not worth the hassle for a penny.
 
Music Lover said:
Yeah...when are you folks gonna finally join the modern system of measurement that almost all of the rest of the world uses??
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Because politicians are afraid of people getting ripped off.

They're the same ones who police wine labels for the percentage of a particular grape in a bottle. They only recently allowed wineries to change the vintage year on a bottle of wine without the usual 6 month $$$ label approval proce$$.
 
Music Lover said:
Yeah...when are you folks gonna finally join the modern system of measurement that almost all of the rest of the world uses??
Click to expand...
The us tried in in 1975-1982 and going metric in general was a smash flop for the consuming public. All be it booze comes in metric sizes such as 1l and 1.75l. many devices use metric screws and threads Regan killed the effort off as a way to save money Note that new cars all have metric fasteners for example. If you have an english socket set you can buy metric sockets for it, but you would have to buy new wrenches.
 
exnavynuke said:
Cassettes aren't dead? I can't recall the last time I saw one. ... .
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Really. It's been a long time since I saw them in use. A few years ago, I went through mine and digitized the few that had some (mostly sentimental) value to me. Had a tough time finding a cassette player in the house that still worked, broken belts, etc.

A few years before that, a very-low-tech relative brought an old cassette to me, some (similarly low-tech) friend of his used the songs for a Bible class or something. She couldn't count on having a cassette player available, and wanted it recorded to a CD (regular audio red-book format). I was able to do that, but when I asked about making an mp3 or wav and putting it on a USB stick for them, they had deer-in-the-headlights look, so audio CD, stick in CD player worked for them.



Texas Proud said:
I still have some!!! But have not listened to one in more than 10 years... and I even had a car that would play them up to a couple of years ago... (and it was a 2004!!)...
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Yep, They are dead!

And the sound quality of the prerecorded ones was terrible. But a good quality home deck and good tape did a pretty nice job. The mass production process used cheap tape, and dubbed at high speed, cutting the freq response even worse than that poor little 1/8", 4-track (stereo in 2 directions) running at 1 7/8 IPS could handle. Studio tape was much wider per track, and ran at 30 IPS. The first tape recorders like that used actual razor thin (and sharp!) metal tape, and it could kill somebody if it spun off the reel. The sound engineer was actually in another room! Yikes!

Oh, and manual shift cars - like so many other things, these will be around for a long time, but only to serious hobbyists. Heck, I follow a forum of music box and player piano enthusiasts - those are still around!

-ERD50
 
JoeWras said:
...
Finally, just to bug my DW, I set our new scale to Stone and Pounds. She was not happy thinking it was broken, and then laughed. I admit, for us Americans, it is a nice mental exercise to measure weight this way.
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I was in a training class for work in the early 80's, and there were people attending from all over the world. Some of us got together to ski over the w/e, and when getting the rental skis, the guy from Scotland and his wife were trying to convert their weight in stones to our pounds. I thought stones was some old archaic measurement system from medieval times, I didn't know it was in use still (well, this was the 1980's).

-ERD50
 
After my recent retirement :)dance: btw) I had to actually fax paperwork to the 401(k) company. Dropped by the local UPS store who wanted $1.50 per page as if it actually cost them anywhere close to that. So I went by the old office and used the multifunction machine (we used to call them copy machines). Last time I intend to go in there. Thought about making rounds to say "hi" but immediately thought better of it.
 
Refuse to die: Long playing records - LP's - "Vinyls" in current parlance. Not only refuse to die but are enjoying a resurgence.
 
ejman said:
Refuse to die: Long playing records - LP's - "Vinyls" in current parlance. Not only refuse to die but are enjoying a resurgence.
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As indeed are tube type amplifiers. It appears that because they handle distortion differently than transistors some like the sound better.
 
meierlde said:
As indeed are tube type amplifiers. It appears that because they handle distortion differently than transistors some like the sound better.
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Guilty as charged listening to one as I type this...
 
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