Things that ought to be archaic
 

Yellow Page (paper) phone books are my first choice of something that should go extinct...
.

checks

LL, I like my local phone book.

Monster, There is something very satisfing about writing a big check, and having it cash.

Well, writing a big check means a big chunck of your money will be gone. :right: And as for cashing a check, hmm....can't even remember how that feels.

Wing mirrors. They look so archaic. beautiful sleek car, all lovely lines and then....mirrors stuck on the side...talk about lo-tech.

I use my wing mirrors all the time. Shame more people don't...

ur weerd.

this is done. in Seattle, we are able to opt out.

Oh I know they're useful. It just seems odd that, all the high-tech stuff we do with cars, and we still see what's coming up alongside and behind with mirrors stuck out on the side.

human driving. seriously google and many universities have had sucess with fully self driving cars going on for years that haven't had an accident yet, the everage human driver can't say the same, not even the "safety drivers" which have being payed to sit behind the wheels of those cars for possible emergency cases and for liability, that throughout the last few years without having done a damn thing throughout the entire timeframe (lucky bastards).

i realize the price of a supercomputer in your car with laser scanners all around at this point in time is sort of steep, but they should at least be made avalible for those who can afford them, and insurance companies should accomedate the increased statistical safety.

We have one phone book which covers Business (A-Z), Business by type (builder, plumber, taxi etc) and Residential (A-Z)

We use it frequently.
MANY smaller businesses do not have their own website - especially fast food, mobile hairdressers, odd-job men, taxi firms etc.

And if you have a quick query for a shop "Are you open tomorrow?" it's much quicker to find the number and dial and talk to a human being, rather than logging on and going through multiple menus to find the Contact Us section.

And if it's an independent business you also get to ask relevant questions "Are you still doing that deal with the, you know, that pink top and the necklace thingy? Oh can you see if you still have it it size XXXXL? Can you put one aside for me?" or "Can we share a meal deal between five rather than four?" or "Can I bring it back now I've washed all the spoodge off it" or any number of imaginary conversations...

Much as I embrace living online, there is still a lot to be said about living IRL in a large town.

the words "IRL".

really, the stuff you buy online is less real?
do people who work online have less real incomes?
are the talents of content creators and designers and service providers of all kinds get devalued if they are using a mouse and a keyboard?
the relationships you have and communities you take part of have the disadvantages of long distance and the advantages of anonymity, but from my enecdotal exp breaking the physical distance doesn't change them that much because the level of consequance-less openness and comfort has already being established. affection is aweosme, but most non romantic relationships aren't using it when they don't have the physical distance anyway, and most relationships are non-romantic.

overall its another layer for your real life, and "IRL" makes for a pointless distinction.

I think you have mistaken my meaning.

By IRL I simply mean a face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) transaction.
Seeing and touching what I buy, interacting in real time with other people rather than waiting for a response - especially across time differences - trying on items of clothing or tasting food items are all added value. There are other values associated with internet purchases.

And I was referring to financial transactions only, not personal connections, so I agree with at least half of your post.

sorry for the miscommunication but i wasn't addressing what you meant or how you used it as much as i was just jumping on "IRL" to say its something that should be archaic...

regarding what you said, its a matter of big businesses vs. small businesses rather then online/offline.

talk to indevidual online contractors or small teams for whatever purpose and you'd get the same thing as you do in your town, and i can't tell you how many times living in a large cities in the US and canada i encountered "our computers don't allow us to do that" or "we can't do that" and i ended up with an annoyed "why the hell do they put people there if the one advantage they had - common sense - wasn't allowed to be used" line of thought, in real life.

I'm probably overly-narked at the moment because I've been locked out of my YouTube account and have no way of resolving it. Not banned or barred, it just doesn't recognise my password any more. If only I could TALK to someone! Drives me crazy as I've been a member there almost as long as here :(

FWIW I am currently planning a bra purchase that has to happen IRL [insert your preferred acronym]:)
Too many differences between sizes.
If I don't try it on I don't know if it will fit.
I go back to school on Wednesday and I don't have time to faff about with waiting for the post and still finding it doesn't fit. My only remaining white bra (essential for pale coloured tops) gave up the ghost this week.

When I say "the ghost", I mean it spat out the underwire from one cup.
The bra survives, but makes my boobies look a bit like this :eyebrow:

However when it comes to recipes, I doubt I will ever buy a book again.
Horses for courses x

Ahhh, that old French cookery book.

when it comes to clothes & shoes of all kind in general i agree... i'm a large guy and unfortunately XXXL is used to tag anything between tall to broad to fat and any figure in between... and when it comes to getting the right suit its a hell of a lot worst.

there are shops that do laser body scans, but you can usually only use them at that shop, and its really expansive shops that can afford buying those (as gimicks).

i wouldn't buy vegtables or meats online either.

Yeah, I'm not sure how happy I'd be with perishables. Unless it was something like a tesco delivery, or the glocal farm foods sites.

Trac - I've got you there.

The evil ex took me to a January sale in a prestigious store because I'd lost weight.
My (late) Christmas present was supposed to be £200 in clothes.
When I realised the largest size was XL and that was UK size 12 (I was a size 14) I stormed out. I was a mite touchy, but that's what he brought out in me.
Big row and no present afterwards, just the suggestion that I either lost more weight or grew a tougher skin.

I gave up on internet shopping for food when ordering online for EEA.
You could either TICK for alternatives and get the wrong type of coffee or NO and not get any toilet paper, despite ordering twelve packs (it was for the whole office/ workshop). And yes, much of what arrived had a sell-by or use-by date of one day, pointless when the last office delivery was on Friday and the Board Members met on Sunday.

Cheaper (for the company) for me to shop individually, get the freshest things and just charge them for the taxi back to the office.

...which is one of the many reasions you never exchange money you can use everywhere for money you can use in only one place and give it as a gift. its taking the act of actually giving someone money as a gift (thus proving you have no idea what they enjoy) and finding a way to make it worst.

back to topic - the war on drug.

i know there's a topic devoted to that but it fits here - should be archaic & isn't.

Actually it was just one of the many reasons he was a shit.
He waited until the New Year sales, then told me my present all along was to overspend on me, and specified the shop despite it being a cash purchase and when nothing fit me, made me feel guilty for ruining it all.

I behaved stroppily, but his arseholiness was subsequently proved many times over. He offered the same deal to his ex FIRST. She was a stick compared to me. She slapped his face, as she suspected he was with me. I found this out years later. But hey - he saved himself £400.

And that's why he's probably not got anybody who is at all sorry about his finger.

If you sell them one for $399 you can have $100 of it as commission.

Not for the human being though, who is merely annoyed by having to answer "we're open today until 9", 27 times per day.

I've been that human.
It's far nicer than "Rah, rah, rah, stupid product design your fault explicitly, should come out of your personal wages, rah, rah, rah!"

That said, if more websites had the information I needed on their homepage I'd be less inclined to phone them.

So, are we now back to the OP ?

The web is accessible by smart phones, and is the perfect (update-able) database
for phone numbers and addresses and linkages to people, etc.
with pics and fonts and colors prn.

Phone books are duplicated, static, annual, non-requested, non-recyclable,
yellow- or white- bound volumes of single sheet toilet paper,
that just add to the volume of trash.

They probably continue to exist only because retailers are afraid
they might lose a sale if they even slightly tweek the old way of spending their advertising $.

BTW, ask me again and I'll tell you what I really think. :rolleyes:
I might even include another thing that should be archaic: "junk mail". :eyebrow:

No smart phones in this house.
We have reasonable but not reliable coverage in this house or in this town (we're in a valley).

Quicker to find on paper.
Ask me again and I'll tell you the same ;)

I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying YMMV.

I get you re junk mail.
And 90% of leaflets.
But the 10% are fast food places that can't survive any other way. And we use them occasionally.
And recycle the leaflets.

i'm sensing i entered a new stage in my life, one that can be sumed up in 3 lines:
"i hate my xwife!"
"i hate my xhusband!"
"we have so much in common!"

which brings me to the next thing that ought to be archaic: marriage.

living together is a choice two people make.
celebrating it is a choice two people make.
sharing custady of a child is a choice two people make.
paying for someon else's tax benefits is a choice that single people didn't make.

adoption agencies wanting a commited couple can look into shared property. immigration can seperate sponsorship from marriage. people should be able to make visitor and decision makers lists in databases hospitals can look at, etc.. this is also useful for cases where you might love your life but don't neccessrily agree that with her religious views about comma or organ donations.

marriage as a legal instrument shouldn't be treated differently from a regular contract.

Phone books rocked when we had Ma Bell. I used to actually check it out when it came.


Now you get 5 or 6 different phone books and it depends on how much money a company has to invest in advertising as to what phone books they have a comprehensive listing in. Small businesses around here, sometimes they might be in the 'county' book but the 'this city and that city and that one other town' book never heard of them, for example.

I just got another one the other day. It was on my front step for I don't know how long, wrapped in its little plastic bag. It went onto the pile.

I got my new Yellow Pages today lol

I was in the process of bagging up stuff for the dump, so it went straight into the papers and magazines bag.

Traceur we live in separate worlds I think.
I was married, but not to the evil ex. I call him that simply to differentiate.



I sense I'm in the minority re phone books though.
I surrender.

My phone books ARE the one thing I can actually find when I need them. They stay in one drawer, and I use them so little that they don't get tossed all over the house. So when I need a pizza number or whatever, I can actually find the phone book.

But things are different now, for sure. I don't have any of my friends' phone numbers memorized. I still remember some of my friends' numbers from high school though. Because we had to dial the phone. Sometimes, you had to try to dial really quietly because "what could you possibly have to talk about you just got off the bus with them?" and when the dial went back it seemed way too loud for how sneaky I was trying to be.

hahahahaha

That brought back memories.

Whirrrrr clicketyclicketyclickety

Archaic: Computer keyboards that can't easily switch between lowercase and uppercase letters, thus the user only types with one or the other.

Shift key??????????

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

i mean what are you talking about/

Unintended pregnancy ought to be archaic. Hey ya gotta dream.

I would extend that to any kind of human reproduction.

unintended sex? i know what you mean man. i hate it when i'm working on a leader without my pants on and then fall on some innocent women passing by on the street just when she decided to go comando with a short skirt.












either that or you meant rape, but i'll assume you meant the leader thing.

I think he meant the having babies part.

That's how I interpreted it.

SonofV asked me "What is that?" when a rotary dial phone was present in a scene in a movie recently. I explained, and also told him that's where the term "dial" a number comes from. He just kind of blinked.

I think milk men missed the boat, local daily delivery by enviromentally friendly transport. If you had been able to go online and enter an order in the evening and have it come the next day on the milk cart, they'd be more popular than ever. I beleive you can get grocery delivery in the UK, not here in the US though, but if internet odreing had come in before milk men were obsolete, it would have been a great fit.

I get grocery delivery here, though I only order specific things from them because it's cheaper to get most of it myself at our regular store. I order it from them if I'd have to drive across town to the Whole Foods to get it myself.