Some things are actually getting better

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by athena53 I am grateful for on-line bill pay. So much paper is saved with the elimination of paper bills (some with return envelopes) and it saves me all the time I used to spend writing out and recording checks and getting them all in the mail. Mail thefts have increased in our area- some thieves "wash" the checks and write them to themselves for larger amounts. Good to eliminate that risk.

All that saved paper is now in the stack of advertisements I get daily in my mailbox. And when the politicians are out in force, the box gets stuffed to the gills with their garbage level flyers!

[Winemaker]

Yes, despite every thing we complain about , we never had it so good. i just wish folks were more grateful. A great article/opinion piece of the great strides we have made, especiall the last 122 years.


https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-f...-time-be-alive

[Time2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 Yes, that's exactly what I do.

Do you get a surprise email saying, "you just paid your quarterly"?

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Time2 Do you get a surprise email saying, "you just paid your quarterly"?

If I recall, they send me an email before the IRS pulls the money. I don't recall one after the fact, but maybe they do send one.

[Time2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 If I recall, they send me an email before the IRS pulls the money. I don't recall one after the fact, but maybe they do send one.

I'm all signed up, hoping that website is not owned by aja888! I want the withdrawal to pay my taxes.

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Time2 I'm all signed up, hoping that website is not owned by aja888! I want the withdrawal to pay my taxes.

You are good to go! Easy way to pay est. taxes.

[NW-Bound]

"Some things are actually getting better?"


No, a LOT of things have gotten better. And they will get better still.

On the other hand, I think a few things may have gotten worse. I just hope that these few things will not ruin all the good things we have.

[Time2]

Here's an article about why this is the best time to be alive.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-f...-time-be-alive

[FIYes]

One thing that has gotten better for me in my lifetime is air conditioning. Today is low 90’s and high humidity. I really appreciate my air conditioned house. I didn’t have air conditioning until my 30’s so it is not a luxury that I take for granted.

[ncbill]

Just this week added internet to the mountain cabin my grandparents built in the late 50s.

The local telephone co-op is moving everyone to fiber, target end of this month.

Fiber had already been laid underground, took about 45 minutes for them to complete the install, which included literally removing what might have been the original copper aerial telephone line.

Back home, AT&T ran conduit & pulled fiber on the main road outside my neighborhood almost FIVE years ago, but haven't yet deigned to bring it down to our houses.

[Out of Steam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB Ordering for curbside pickup at Walmart can be a convenience, but the occasional sighting of “people of walmart” inside the store is a cultural experience unlike any other.

I made my first in-person visit to Walmart since the beginning of the pandemic last week, and there was an elderly couple at the door being arrested for shoplifting. The woman was in a wheelchair.

[TheWizard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Out of Steam I made my first in-person visit to Walmart since the beginning of the pandemic last week, and there was an elderly couple at the door being arrested for shoplifting. The woman was in a wheelchair.

Good.
They need to be incarcerated...

[MC Rider]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheWizard Good. They need to be incarcerated...

Are There No Prisons? Are There No Workhouses?

[GenXguy]

I can't think of anything that's gotten better in the last couple years - it seems like everything is worse, not just in the global and national news, but personally as well.

[jollystomper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIYes One thing that has gotten better for me in my lifetime is air conditioning. Today is low 90’s and high humidity. I really appreciate my air conditioned house. I didn’t have air conditioning until my 30’s so it is not a luxury that I take for granted.

Air conditioning influenced my future career choice when I was in high school. I was very good at speaking and reading French, and was one of the school's French tutors. But my junior year they offered an elective called "Computer Math" - essentially a introduction to FORTRAN programming. It was either take that course or take a 3rd year of French. The teachers lounge and the computer math classroom were the only rooms in the school with conditioning at the time, and that was a factor in my choosing the course. My French skills went to heck, but that was the beginning of my learning (and loving) computer programming... and the rest is history .

[marko]

Have not read all the posts, but how about lathroscopic surgery? SIL had a hysterectomy last week and was home that evening with minor, minor discomfort. Years ago that would've been a week in the hospital and a month of recuperation.

My own gall bladder removal was a mere overnight, and I was out food shopping two days later....another three week recuperation had it been years ago.

[ncbill]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marko Have not read all the posts, but how about lathroscopic surgery? SIL had a hysterectomy last week and was home that evening with minor, minor discomfort. Years ago that would've been a week in the hospital and a month of recuperation. My own gall bladder removal was a mere overnight, and I was out food shopping two days later....another three week recuperation had it been years ago.

It is amazing...friend had a barely visible scar after gall bladder removal.

Versus dad who had the above done while in the Army back in the 1960s which left him with a 18" x 1/2" scar.

We used to joke it was because they had to unzip him & fish around for it.

[O2Bfree]

Our knowledge of the very large and very small continues to improve. New space telescopes show us more amazing wonders of the universe. New theories and discoveries in the quantum realm give hints about the basic nature of existence an unimaginably small scales. For example:

Quote:

“Even though in classical physics we are taught that energy is conserved, which means it cannot change, one of the tenets of quantum mechanics says that energy doesn't have to be conserved if the change happens for a short enough time. So even if space had zero energy, it would be perfectly OK for a little energy to pop into existence for a tiny split second and then disappear—and that's what happens in empty space. And since energy and matter are the same (thank Einstein for teaching us that E=mc2 thing), matter can also appear and disappear.”

So we may finally have an explanation for where those reading glasses went.

[Rianne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Time2 Here's an article about why this is the best time to be alive. https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-f...-time-be-alive

Send that article to the stock market.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIYes One thing that has gotten better for me in my lifetime is air conditioning. Today is low 90’s and high humidity. I really appreciate my air conditioned house. I didn’t have air conditioning until my 30’s so it is not a luxury that I take for granted.

I was more fortunate to get the comfort of AC even earlier in my early 20s. I am now addicted to AC.

Or rather, it's my life-support system. Without it, I would die. It's caused by old age, and I am sticking to this reason.