21 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade
By Brian | December 12, 2009
Business Insider has published a list of the twenty-one things that have become obsolete during the 00’s. Unfortunately, it’s one of those sites that tries to increase their ad revenue by making you click twenty-one times to see the whole list (like advertisers don’t understand that it’s not twenty-one people seeing their ad, but the same person ignoring it over & over again? But, I digress). Anyway, since I’m technologically opposed to that sort of thing, here’s the full list (with links back to their pages in case you want to read the text behind each one). You’ll note that this list of twenty-one things has twenty-two items on it (a bonus item? Seriously? Sheesh…)
- PDA’s: Specifically, PDA’s that need a stylus, like the old Palm Pilot
- E-mail accounts you have to pay for: as storage got cheaper, e-mail accounts became free
- Dial-Up: the sound of a modem connecting to another modem has become relegated to War Games and movies like it.
- Getting Film Developed: Remember the old Fotomat booths in the shopping center parking lots? No more…
- Movie Rental Stores: Say goodbye to your local Blockbuster’s, if you still can, and sign-up for your Netflix account (or just use your TV provider’s On-Demand channel). Also obsolete: late fees.
- Maps: With GPS devices and Google Maps-enabled phones, why figure out how to fold (and un-fold) a map?
- Newspaper Classified Ads: Thank you, Craig Newmark.
- Landline Phones: When your cellphone works anywhere, why have a phone that plugs into your house? I’m not sure this one is gone for good yet, but it’s certainly getting there.
- Per-Minute Long Distance Charges: like storage (above), this got cheaper and cheaper until it became free. Most people pay a flat rate per month now, and VOIP is chasing that into oblivion too…
- Public Pay Phones: This one’s for you, Bennion. Again, when your cellphone works anywhere, why have a phone that plugs into a closet on a street corner?
- VCR’s: Even DVD’s are going away, now that Blu-Ray has won the day. The VCR has officially gone the way of the Betamax machine.
- Fax Machines: If anyone’s even sending faxes anymore, they’re winding up in e-mail boxes, not paper trays.
- Phonebooks, Dictionaries & Encyclopedias: What used to take up shelves, now takes up hard drive space. And now it’s searchable! Also becoming obsolete: the need to remember the order of the letters in the alphabet.
- Calling 411 for Information: My kids don’t even know about this! Phone numbers come from Google or some more specific search engine now…
- Music CD’s: Gone are the days of buying eight songs you don’t like to hear the two that you do like…
- Backing Up Data to Floppies & CD’s: This one’s a bit unfair, since it was both created and obsolesced this decade, but it’s true – backups go on external hard drives or UBS thumbnail drives now. It doesn’t save as much shelf space as the encyclopedias, but it still helps…
- Getting Bills in the Mail: or, for that matter, sending checks back to pay them. I honestly don’t know how much a stamp costs these days.
- Buttons on Electronic Devices: Touchscreens have brought us into the Minority Report world.
- Losing Touch with People: Thanks to Facebook and Twitter, we’re in touch with everyone we ever knew. Or ever will know…
- Personal Boundaries: also gone, thanks to Facebook and Twitter. Of course, I think this is more about us learning how to better use these tools than anything else. No one’s forcing you to post that picture of yourself dancing on the tables at the bar last night, ya’ know…
- Paper: It’s true. While everyone’s screaming about saving the environment, we’ve managed to eliminate a great deal of the paper in our lives, and it’s becoming moreso every day….
- Record Stores: Like the movies, people no longer need to go somewhere else to get their music. It comes to them…
A pretty good list, I think. Your turn to chime in – what did they leave off the list?
Categories: The Future is Now | 5 Comments »
The Twelve Sentences of 2009
By Brian | December 11, 2009
In the first of two Ilya-inspired posts (the second being “How People Found Me” – coming soon!), here are the twelve sentences that started off each month of 2009 here at I Should Be Sleeping:
January: Happy New Year to all!
February: Given the current state of the U.S. Economy, the following new rules will be instituted for this year
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 3 Comments »
Some Events, I Just Can’t Fathom…
By Brian | December 6, 2009
We took the kids to see Disney’s A Christmas Carol last night (super-quick review: an intense telling of the story, Jim Carey could legitimately win an Oscar for it if he isn’t careful, the 3-D is so good that I can’t imagine it not being the future of all movies, but way too scary for the kids – especially the seven-year old. Consider this your Parental Guidance). Anyway, during the previews (most of which were also in 3-D, by the way), there was an ad for something called FathomEvents.com.
The idea here is to bring special events into movie theaters for one-time only or limited-run performances. They have operas performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, old-time movies that get eviscerated by the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000, special on-location news reports by Elizabeth Vargas, and the like. Pretty cool idea, if you ask me. But then there’s this: “Glenn Beck
Categories: Movie Talk, Random Acts of Blogging | 4 Comments »
O, Christmas Tree…
By Brian | December 4, 2009
Merry Christmas from Rockefeller Center! Click the picture above (or the “Featured Photos” link in the upper left) for more pictures from the famous Tree Lighting event…
Categories: New York, New York | 3 Comments »
Random Acts of Blogging – 12/3/09
By Brian | December 3, 2009
So many blog-worthy things going on in the world all at once! So, some quick thoughts on several things:
Adam Lambert emerged from his #2 finish on American Idol as one of the most promising singing talents in years. At the American Music Awards, he decided to make his performance a social statement, rather than make it about the music. He’s since been cancelled by ABC from Good Morning America, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. And the shows that are letting him on suddenly want to talk about nothing else but the AMA’s. I’m disappointed. Not because I have a particular opinion about his “cause,” but because he’s allowed his cause to overshadow his music, which I was looking forward to enjoying. On the upside, I think maybe he’s realizing his mistake. Here’s what he told Ellen Degeneres:
It was maybe a little too far. I think in hindsight I look back on it and I go, “OK, maybe that wasn
Categories: News and/or Media, Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging, Words about Music | 4 Comments »
The Wall on the Highway – A Parable
By Brian | November 28, 2009
One afternoon, two men were walking alongside a highway. As they came over a small hill, they were surprised to see that someone had built a brick wall right in the middle of the road. The wall was perpendicular to the road, and went from shoulder to shoulder, making it impossible for anyone or anything to pass. As the two men discussed how impractical the wall was, a car came driving over the hill. Failing to see the wall in time, the car crashed into the wall head-on, killing everyone inside. The men were outraged.
Categories: Political Rantings | 10 Comments »
Thanksgiving in New York
By Brian | November 27, 2009
Before filling up on turkey and stuffing, it’s nice to check in with a mouse, a frog, an ogre, and all of their friends.
Click the picture above (or click here) for a full slideshow of the festivities.
Categories: Family Matters, New York, New York | Comments Off on Thanksgiving in New York
It was the Autumn of ’69…
By Brian | November 18, 2009
Here’s how the last few months of 1969 went: On October 16th, the New York Mets won the World Series. And as if that wasn’t crazy enough, thirteen days later, a couple of computer geeks in California connected two computers together using a brand new network called ARPANET (which, despite popular myth, does not stand for the Al Gore Really Planned it All NETwork). ARPANET would later turn into a pretty successful project known as the Internet. Twelve days after ARPANET, a cute little children’s television show called Sesame Street debuted on public television. And eight days after that, I was born. Not a bad couple of months, I think…
So, on this, the occasion of my fortieth birthday, the traditional thing to do would be to consider all of the things I had planned to do by the time I was forty, sum up my regrets and failures, wallow in a pool of self-pity, and whip up a respectable midlife crisis, complete with the irresponsible purchase of a completely impractical sports car. Or, as my nine year-old put it the other day, “Daddy, most people die in their eighties, so you’re halfway done!”
The thing is, I have no memories of making grandiose plans for my milestone birthdays as a kid. I have a vague memory of computing how old I would be in the Year 2000 (thirty-one!) and marveling both at how far away the Year 2000 seemed and how old “thirty-one” sounded, but that’s about as close as I came.
So, it would seem, I’m left without the necessary ingredients to make a good crisis. Instead, this seems like a pretty good time to review the decade of my life that will forever be known as “my thirties.”
The first and most obvious difference between 11/18/99 and 11/18/09 is the presence of my two wonderful children, Avery and Brandon. To consider that when I turned thirty, neither of them were in my life is to realize just how long a decade it has been. Their growth from infants into happy and enthusiastic young boys colors every single memory I will ever have of my thirties, and makes the rest of my life before that pale in comparison. Which is, of course, exactly as it should be.
The rest of the family has had a good decade as well. Since that day, ten years ago, there have been various new nieces, nephews, and cousins born, and all the celebrations that come with all of that. And with the sad exception of my wife’s grandfather, everyone who was around for my thirtieth birthday is still alive and kicking on my fortieth. Again, I am truly blessed.
Speaking of blessings, I consider the party my wife threw me on my 30th birthday, and the various celebrations that have occurred over the past few weeks for my 40th. Many of the friends who attended back in 1999 had some part to play in 2009, and while there are some who are no longer in touch, there are many more whom I didn’t know then, but consider good friends today. No disrespect to Facebook, of course, but I can tell you without looking it up that my list of actual friends continues to grow unabated.
Other aspects of my life have progressed in similarly gratifying ways – my career has advanced nicely, we’ve significantly upgraded our home and I’ve got some shiny new toys that weren’t even invented when I turned thirty.
So, color this forty year-old content. All I need now is a song from some childhood friends:
Ah yes, that hits the spot…
Categories: Family Matters | 3 Comments »
Truth or Consequences – But Not Both!
By Brian | November 18, 2009
As we move toward the passage of a health care bill, the opinion polling isn’t necessarily getting more useful, but it is certainly getting more entertaining.
Our friends at the Associated Press do their best impression of Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” routine:
A ban on denial of coverage because of pre-existing medical problems: 82% in favor
A ban on denial of coverage because of pre-existing medical problems that would probably cause most people to pay more for health insurance: 43% in favor
Everyone should be required to have at least some health insurance: 67% in favorEveryone should be required to have at least some health insurance, or face a federal penalty: 28% in favor
All companies should be required to give their employees at least some health insurance: 73% in favorCompanies that don’t give their employees at least some health insurance would face a fine: 52% in favor
So, to sum up: require coverage for more people, but don’t raise my premiums and don’t penalize in any way those who ignore this new requirement.
Ah, democracy…
Categories: Political Rantings | 11 Comments »
Field of Dreams
By Brian | November 16, 2009
This past Sunday, my friend Mike gave me a birthday present to remember. He enrolled me in the 2009 Damon Runyon 5K Walk/Run for Cancer Research, which took place inside Yankee Stadium. Part of the 5K course, which included stairs, ramps, and several laps around the stadium, was two laps around the warning track that circles the field of play. We took full advantage of this unique opportunity, and brought our kids along to share in the experience as well. Here’s a quick (less than two minute) video montage:
Photos are also available here, or in the Featured Photos link on the left navigation bar of this site.
Thanks, Mike, for an awesome birthday present and (one more time…) Go Yankees!!
UPDATE: I just received an e-mail from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, asking me to add a link to their foundation to this blog post. Done! Anything for a good cause…
Categories: Family Matters, New York, New York, Sports Talk | Comments Off on Field of Dreams
