I've never used a compass except in team building yomping exercises (yawn) but I stopped driving before SatNav came in, so it would be weird for me not to use a map.

Chances are I would plot an unfamiliar journey online, but I'd still want something beside me, written down in case of diversions/ accidents etc.

BUT the two teens working with me on the 27th both have SatNavs in their cars now (the 17yo got hers for Christmas) and find the idea of maps seriously archaic. Like, who has a map in their car anyway? Why? Then again, neither of them have driven anywhere unfamiliar to them yet. The day after I passed my driving test I drove into Central London! The day after that I drove the evil ex to a job interview in Reading (reasonably sized city I had never been to before).

I guess if I ever drive again I will succumb to SatNav - I'm not anti it or anything. It just seems odd that the beauty of maps has been lost so quickly to the next generation.

Better keep your maps, the Chinese have entered the sat nav game.

http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNe...D=201112290035

Writing a letter by hand, putting into an envelope, licking a stamp and sending it off in the mail has become seriously archaic. All in all there is something different about the hand written word that is different then the type written word. It seems more permanent and much more intimately connected to me.

Which probably explains ...

Yea, true. I just hope they don't go away completely. Besides when the aliens take out all of our satellites and the electric grids, we may need those post office networks once again.

That's why I still love sending cards.
And especially those sent for no precise reason, as I don't trust the post to get anything anywhere on time.

It's a slice of sunshine when you know someone has gone and chosen and bought something for you, put thoughts on paper, addressed it and stood in line to get the correct postage. A value way above the actual cost.

That said, if I have a lot to say I do type it.
I still write because it's necessary at school. But I find my typing fingers can keep up with my brain more nimbly than my writing fingers.

My postal service is already in serious decline. Our pay stubs were stuffed with a coupon for a ham or turkey for the holidays, it took 10 days for mine to arrive in my Dad's mailbox, not my box which they never use.

FTFY

...i feel so young (26.. 27? need to count, remind me sometime next week).

off the top of my head from things i grow up with that are disapearing for more and more of my generation:

home phones (smartphone+skype+wifi & turn your data off when your home)
cable/satalite tv setups (websites for movie streaming of ill repute)
wall hanging or floor standing clocks (mobiles)
wall hanging calanders (screensaver widgets if you want changing pics)
books of local road maps that always used to be out of date (GPS)
magazines (currently fashionable only because they are archaic)
CDs/DVDs (not big enough for anything you can't just upload anyway)
music players (download MP3s on the pc and upload to your mobile)
dictionaries & encylopedia's (urban dictionary / google define / wikipedia)
fixing services (howstuffworks + youtube + free time)
globes (google earth/maps)
peep shows (online porn)
newspapers (everything)

Not quite sure what this one means. Do you mean clocks?

:o fixed. now lets pretend that never happened.

From the way we're moving today, my dog and I are archaic.

*grins* pretend what never happened?

WOW! Now I feel BLOODY old.
I'm not disagreeing with the post.
I'm just explaining how it is different to me/ my generation and/ or why some of these things are still relevant to me/ us.

I'm not anti new technology, if I have a use for something I'll use it archaic or not.

Our home phone is still the best way to get hold of any of the three occupants in this house

most of it really depends on whether you have internet avalible to you at all times or not, which really depends on what companies are availble to you and where you live, and its usually best to research for the companies you don't know about and check for "competiton encouraging" laws enforced on providers in your local mancupality.

for example for me (israel) there's a law that phone companies are required to treat new customers who got their phone elsewhere exactly like they would if they bought it from the same company.. including the payment reinversement most payment plans have.

now if you buy a smart phone online from a supplier rather then a service provider, and then use a 12-24 month payment program, you will actually make a profit of the reinversement.

in other countries (canada) companies will give you a completely free smartphone because they expect most customers to have no idea how much their data packs (mobile internet access) will be. other countries have their own tricks. there's always something.

either way, that is why is the first thing you do is download a desktop app to turn data on/off easily. you get a skype or a google-call number, you set up a referal to your actual number, and you pretty much get free calls and no data charges or nearly so whenever your in a wi-fi zone (malls, resturants, office buildings, and ofcourse set it up in your house).

limit your time using the data pack and phone service within the range which will give you the reinveresement for the payment (if it depends on it). get an app to monitor it. beyond that use it for emergencies only.

now yes, there are many packages that combine internet and cable tv and phonelines and mobile lines and they tell you that the other services are free... which is always bullshit. google unlimited highspeed internet [insert your area] and its likely their will be a few companies giving internet only services for a much lower flat monthly price.
place a cable between your tv and a convenient spot for your laptop and add links to your ill-reputed video streaming websites of choice, and you pretty much got all of the services you would have gotten otherwise. alternatively their are "Streamers" which are gadgets that streamline the process.

most households can save hundreds of dollars a month.

....and now I feel old lol

I understood about 40% of that communications strategy.

Address numbers on business buildings, or painted on curbs

Good Humor ice cream trucks

Hiking boots that don't leak

Leaded gas

Me too!
All I know is we have three different mobile numbers, but our phones are not always at our fingertips. Mine is often in my bag.
One call to the landline will get an answer 90% of the time.

I've lived without a landline before.
It was limiting then and I think it would be now.
0800 numbers, 0845 numbers, verification of address, many job applications etc.

And we know how reliably available I am with a mobile phone *grins*

Odds on at any one time if someone tries to contact me, I'll have left the bastard on silent, lost it in the back of a taxi cab or just lost the signal in my stupid communications blackhole of a house :p

honestly i think it has less to do with age and more to do with having had to learn how to live on a single low income with a 3 member household; its the petty things you really don't want to have to look for or think about, but once you did its sort of worth it regardless of your economical situation.

back to topic:
toilet paper in japan (bidet + drier + awesome toilet sits).

Films that fade over time. Look at tv and movies from the 80s and they look faded. Even the early 90s. That won't happen with digital media. It'll be aged by what it's showing and the quality of the effects possible, but the image will be as clear and the colours as sharp as on day one.

Poverty. aw shit that's still going on

This is the opening paragraph of a Must Read book, In the Absence of the Sacred written in 1991.

When I first read this book, I bought 25 copies of it and gave them away to friends.

The Author also wrote Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

We got rid of the land line recently. Paid for one that we never used for three years. Only calls we got were around dinner time..."Hi I'd like to talk to you about..." We each have a mobile, my mobile number hasn't changed in at least 4 years I put it on anything that asks for my number. I like the mobile phone, took me a while to catch on myself, but I really do like the benefit of the technology.

ok so the next step:

1. do you have wireless internet connection? if not, set one up.
2. is your phone an android smart phone? if not, check your provider if you can (this might be an option on the iphone but i can't say for certain).

if or when the ansewr to both is yes, download an widget/app to turn on and off data. when your at home, turn it off.

download skype to your mobile and get a skype number or (if your in the US) download google voice and get a google voice number.

in the settings to either one you set it up to redirect to your actual mobile phone number.

then you give your new skype/google-voice number to your friends and family.

if you are calling or recieving calls when your at home or in any public area with wifi, you can answer from your mobiles, your doing it for free.

saves a lot of money.

cool! missed the mark on fax, synthetic fibers, and antibiotics, whatever. Times, they are a'changin'!

Interesting! I looked up when the first synthetic fibers were made and there seems to be a distinction between synthetic and artificial. Cellulose acetate, for example is made from processed cellulose and not strictly a synthetic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fiber

He was a few years off with Antibiotics and almost a century off with fax machines! Holy cats, who knew fax machines were that old?