25 THINGS ABOUT TO BECOME EXTINCT IN AMERICA

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#2 Analog TV clarification:

OTA (over the air) TV reception via the old antennas is still viable for Digital TV broadcasts, but do require a digital tuner (TV or receiver).
 
Originally Posted By: 47HO
#2 Analog TV clarification:

OTA (over the air) TV reception via the old antennas is still viable for Digital TV broadcasts, but do require a digital tuner (TV or receiver).


Yeah but UPN is extinct! I want my Moesha!
 
23. Classified Ads
The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper
Classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a
Long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that
Could signal the end of civilization as we know it.

Huh? A little over the top maybe?

Many parts of the country don't have broadband available.

We still have & use a VCR. It works fine. Why would I get rid of it? We have several tapes that are just fine.

Yeah, I've never seen a milkman.

Personal checks are a long way from being extinct. Heck, our water & electric bill require either cash or check (I assume money order is fine.) Local churches are a long way from having a cash register for the offering. That would be a funny site though!

What is the source for this list?
 
The wild honey bee population collapsed some years ago while commercial hives (at first) were unaffected. Bad news indeed. Hopefully, natural selection will make good with a population of bees that's unaffected by whatever plague this is.

Shame about the ash trees, too. An ash on my mom's property mysteriously and precipitously died a few years ago, wasn't until later that we found out about the beetle. Beautiful tree and very strong. Sad to think about the ash and the chestnut...
 
I am not a full auto toting, lobotomized employee of the USPS.
But they are very reliable IMO, and reasonable in $.

I imagine they they are burdened by costs of retirements and pensions like other large industries and fields, and this is starting to severely erode them as time goes on, people retire, and live longer.
 
Quote:
U.S. Post Office


Nonsense. If you try to send a bill or simple legal document via UPS, they are going to charge you $3-5 easily.

The packaging business in USPS is making money, so they can easily transform if they have to. And no, you still need to send signed document once in a while and junk mail still delivers via USPS.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: 47HO
#2 Analog TV clarification:

OTA (over the air) TV reception via the old antennas is still viable for Digital TV broadcasts, but do require a digital tuner (TV or receiver).


Yeah but UPN is extinct! I want my Moesha!


LOL! We used to kid about exactly the same thing!

Although the 2nd digital channel on the UPN network here used to show music vids 24x7. I watched that more than anything. Alas, all good things must come to an end so it was taken offline.
 
25. For many packages, the post office is faster and cheaper. Also, 1st class postage is very inexpensive compared to the past (accounting for inflation). So I think when they get their revenue situation worked out, they'll be just fine.

21. The dial-up shutdown has bitten me. Sometimes I still need it while traveling, so now I set up my own land line (#20) for dial-in Internet. Thank you, craigslist (the cause of #23), for hooking me up with a fancy external modem for $10.

18. VHS is still alive and well at my house, but I admit it is dead in most others. Some Mondays I record three things simultaneously, and my homebrew DVR can only record one. VHS to the rescue! Humorously, two of my decks' clocks don't go past 2006. The other one is Panasonic AG-1980P, which is a commercial-grade deck that is still worth more than a lot of cars of comparable age.

12. I think the incandescent bulb will live on as a niche product. They're hard to beat for dimmer fixtures, rough-service locations, and fixtures that take decorative bulbs. I just bought some HIR-based halogen incandescent bulbs, and they are great. 1600 lumens for 70 W. They're compliant with the upcoming ban.

8. Should be "feral" horses. They are not native to America.
 
8. Should be "feral" horses. They are not native to America.

Yes, good riddance to the friggen vermin. Every last one of them.

Ed
 
Originally Posted By: bretfraz
That list of 25 is really 10 or so, the rest are a real stretch. Time marches on, and all that. Who really misses the VCR or their old Code-A-Phone machine?

Sounds more like the perspective of some cranky ol' fool who misses the milkman (or was a milkman). Or maybe it's a college Communications course mid term analysis.

Either way, I'd like to see a list of things that really need discussing and addressing. The honey bee issue is a serious one.


Couldn't agree more.

Originally Posted By: Steve S
The loss of bees is tragic, the family farm even more so.


Research in New Jersey has shown that when honeybees (which are not native to North America) disappear the native pollinators pick up the pace and largely fill the void. Now, in a place where natural pollinators may have been scarce to begin with (California's central valley Steve S?) things might be different.

Quote:
8. Wild Horses
It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses
were roaming free within the United States . In 2001, National
Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population has
decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse
and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming
horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in
Nevada . The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the
total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective
euthanasia.


Extinct would be a good thing in N. America. Considering that the Spanish originally brought them here makes them a non-native. I give kudos to the BLM for having the testicular fortitude to reduce the population. Gee, maybe pronghorn and mule deer will use that extra room.

Clark
 
Umm, horses actually evolved in North America and South America and went extinct about 15,000 years ago. Their descendants are some what more "native" to the continent than humans are....
 
Originally Posted By: MarkC
Umm, horses actually evolved in North America and South America and went extinct about 15,000 years ago. Their descendants are some what more "native" to the continent than humans are....


And we all started on Pangaea. Let's be realistic.

Clark
 
Originally Posted By: gonzo
Salvage yards.I know of three that have closed in the last 3 years.I guess the Green Car era has killed that too.


The Cash for Clunkers program has restocked some of the salvage yards in my area.
 
Originally Posted By: ClarkB
Originally Posted By: MarkC
Umm, horses actually evolved in North America and South America and went extinct about 15,000 years ago. Their descendants are some what more "native" to the continent than humans are....


And we all started on Pangaea. Let's be realistic.

Clark


Not really, Humans didn't appear until long after Pangaea was separated.

But anyway, I'm not disagreeing with the need to manage the feral horse population (not make it extinct), but just with the tone.
 
My 25 list. (This is my own, not from another site or blog)

25. CRT monitors

24. Music Stores (there will always be a few, but the days of one on every corner are gone)

23. Physical media (dvds, cds, etc) Downloading and streaming is the future

22. Ashtrays. Nobody smokes anymore, and if they do its not inside. When's the last time you saw an ashtray in someones house?

21. Analog. The future is (already) digital.

20. K-Mart. Who shops there anymore?

19. Local drugstores. The chains are pushing all of them out.

18. "Made in America" The only thing we export these days is bad reality television and obesity. And bad reality tv ABOUT obesity.

17. XM/Sirius. Good concept, but people seem content to keep listening to 3 songs and then 10 minutes of commercials on regular FM radio.

16. Anything less than 10% unemployment in America. The promised recovery ain't coming anytime soon. The system can only soak up so many people who sit in a cubicle and scratch themselves all day.

15. Affordable college tuition. Let's face it, unless you're truly rich and famous, you WILL be buried in loans for a long time that not even BANKRUPTCY can get cleared.

14. Marijuana possession as a felony. It just costs too much to haul those people through the system and keep them locked up. Really when it comes down to it, not much more harmful than alcohol.

13. Lower taxes. Every level of government is so buried in debt that lowering taxes is just not an option.

12. Wrist watches for anything other than fashion or formality. Everyone now just uses their cell phones as a timepiece.

11. Repairable small and medium ticket items. Most things now are disposable or too expensive to fix to make it worthwhile. Shoes, refrigerators, etc.

10. Simple cars that don't have 100 miles of wire harness. Power everything, navi, heated seats, etc are becoming standard on most cars.

9. True old world style tradesman craftsmanship. Houses today are built in a week by a crew of non-English speakers that gather outside of Home Depot. When is the last time you saw anyone build a church or house with as much beautiful intricate detail as was common 100 years ago.

8. Farmers who save and re-use seed. Also food crop seeds that aren't patented. Monsanto is truly and honestly an ugly entity in every way.

7. Trans fats. Everyone thought they were SO wonderful to begin with, now looking to go the same way as frying things in animal fat.

6. People in the US getting more sleep on average. We all need it, but it ain't coming back. With recessionary and lay off pressures mounting, we're forced to do all we can cram into a day. Hence so many coffee shops and energy drink brands.

5. Shade tree and gas station mechanics. Gas prices are too competitive to make much money. Used to be supplemented by repairs, now they just sell people lots of overpriced corn syrup.

4. Kids walking or biking to school. They get to ride on heated leather seats while watching a movie instead.

3. Pensions. Be thankful if you have one, because they're going fast.

2. Employed for life. Who wants to stare at the same wall 8 hours per day for their whole life? With pensions gone, there's just no incentive.

1. "Until death do us part" There's still a few holdovers out there. (Mostly for religious or personal beliefs) but lets face it, after spending half of your waking hours with the same person for 5-10-15 years, you just get sick of it. Not knocking the sanctity of marriage, hats off if you both are in it for life, just saying it's statistically becoming less common.


And a few "maybe?"
-Tower computers for non-office use. Who wants something that big and clunky when you can do everything you need on a laptop?

-Big box bookstores. The kindle e-reader has proved amazingly popular.
 
AcuraTech:

Everything is analog in the low level, including your hard drive, cell phone (yes, even the 3G and CDMA stuff), flash memory, DRAM, etc. Engineers just found ways to make the analog part nicer, so your interpretation of digital is better and faster.

Tower computer? still good for those of us with ergonomics problems that can't use it for more than 12 hours a day.
 
Originally Posted By: Bluestream
It's too bad about those Ash trees. When I was a kid (60's) my parents were always pointing out the dead Elm trees from Dutch Elm disease. Those tree's were huge and majestic. Before my time the American Chestnut disapeared. (thy're still trying to bring that back) And with it the food supply for a lot of animals...


+1... but pay keen notice to why they say that we are loosing those trees.

Wal-mart strikes again!
 
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