25 things about to become extinct in america

[mark the shoeshine boy]

25 THINGS ABOUT TO BECOME EXTINCT IN AMERICA


25. U.S. Post Office
They are pricing themselves out of existence. With e-mail, and
and on-line services they are a relic of the past. (refer to #9)
Packages are also sent faster and cheaper with UPS.




24. Yellow Pages
This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry.
Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed
dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet
Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination
search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodel Factors like20an
acceleration of the print 'fade rate' and the looming recession
will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the
falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even
reach 10% this year -- much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen
in past years.

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. The argument
is that if newspaper classifies are replaced by free on-line
listings at sites like Craigslist.org (http://craigslist.org/) and Google Base, then
newspapers are not far behind them..

22. Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps
closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000
left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is
down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a
quest of Circuit City . Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood
Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small
video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost
already.

21. Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008.
The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable
high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone
have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up
Internet access.

20. Phone Land Lines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health
Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was
cell-only and, of those homes that had land lines, one in eight
only received calls on their cells.

19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs
Maryland 's icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake
Bay Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds)
since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million
pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did
a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay
and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population.
Over-fishing, pollution, invasive species and global warming get
the blame.

18. VCRs
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller
and staple in every American household until being completely
decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In
fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or
Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes
are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be
found. They served us so well.

17. Ash Trees
In the late 1990's, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle,
now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North
America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia .. In less
than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the
Midwest , and continue to spread. They've killed more than 30
million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of
millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana . More than 7.5 billion ash
trees are currently at risk.

16. Ham Radio
Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide)
wireless communications with each other and are able to support
their communities with emergency and disaster communications if
necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of
electronics and radio theory.. However, proliferation of the
Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of
amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people
holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even
though Morse Code is no longer a requirement.

15 The Swimming Hole
Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a
thing of the past. '20/20' reports that swimming hole owners, like
Robert Every in High Falls, NY, are shutting them down out of
worry that if someone gets hurt they'll sue. And that's exactly
what happened in Seattle . The city of Bellingham was sued by Katie
Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole
in Whatcom Falls Park. As injuries occur and lawsuits follow,
expect more swimming holes to post 'Keep out!' signs.

14. Answering Machines
The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly
tied to No 20 our list -- the decline of landlines. According to
USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped
159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New
York ; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It's logical
that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional
landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.

13. Cameras That Use Film
It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance
of the film camera in America . Just look to companies like Nikon,
the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006,
it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to
the shrinking market -- only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to
75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.

12. Incandescent Bulbs
Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt)
bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement
and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent
Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era
incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star
CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for
approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And
according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out
incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.

11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys
Bowling Balls.. US claims there are still 60 million Americans who
bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone
bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of
facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag,
go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow
miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many
non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and
resorts, and gambling casinos.

10. The Milkman
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over
half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by
1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4%
percent. Nowadays most milk is sold through supermarkets in gallon
jugs. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of
course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration
and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the
rounds in pockets of the U.S. , they are certainly a dying breed.

9. Hand-Written Letters
In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion
e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November
of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones,
and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone
coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and
the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So
where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant,
polite hand-written letter?

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.

7. Personal Checks
According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of
consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two
years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit.
Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based
payments -- for the time being. Checks continue to be the most
commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at
least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However,
a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers'
recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).

6. Drive-in Theaters
During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in
theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were
still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since
2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so
there isn't much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.

5. Mumps & Measles
Despite what's been in the news lately, the measles and mumps
actually, truly are disappearing from the United States .. In 1964,
212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the U.S. By 1983, this
figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination
program. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine,
approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the
U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases
were recorded.

4. Honey Bees
Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire;
plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our
food supply as the honey bee. Very scary. 'Colony Collapse
Disorder,' or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S. and Europe over
the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many
beekeepers -- and along with it, their livelihood.

3. News Magazines and TV News
While the TV evening newscasts haven't gone anywhere over the last
several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about
the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times
reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had
only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they
have today is half that.

2 Analog TV
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in
the U.S. get their television programming through cable or
satellite providers. For the remaining 15% -- or 13 million
individuals -- who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor
antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air.. If you
are one of these people you'll need to get a new TV or a converter
box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast
in = 0 A digital.

1. The Family Farm
Since the 1930's, the number of family farms has been declining
rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the
nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the
2003 farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn't yet been
published). Ninety-one percent of the U.S. FARMS are small Family
Farms.

Both interesting and saddening, isn't it?

[mark the shoeshine boy]

Tell me if you think is correct. Have you gotten rid of some of these items already? Just curious.

[jazzman]

Newspapers could be added to the list. I think this is a bad development because there is no substitute for in-depth information on a daily basis. Internet news sources tend to publish very short stories.

[Monkeydad]

I plan on stocking up on Incandescent Bulbs.

No thanks, Mercury poisoning.

[Alacrity59]

Tell me if you think is correct. Have you gotten rid of some of these items already? Just curious.

Yes no more VCR. . . when blueray came in something had to go due to lack of space.

Home phone land line . . . I have VOIP wired into the house phone system (did this 3 years ago . . . save $30+ per month vs. Bell).

Movie Rental Stores. I have video on demand but 80% of rentals still come from a store . . . somehow there is still more selection at the store but the stores are narrowing their selection and the cable company is expanding their selection so . . .

Turntable, which was not on the list, hit the tracks about 12 years ago . . . same issue no space and replaced with CD.

Twin cassette tape deck . . . again not on the list . . . survives. Well maybe it survives who knows for sure as it has not been turned on in 2+ years.

Yellowpages . . . hits the blue bin (recycle bin) when delivered.

[ouch]

Great thread, Mark.

[mmack66]

I am sure that most folks would say the same with DE or Straight shaving. Actually, most folks think it is extinct already. A lot of these things are being replaced by newer or better technology, so I don't see a big deal. Only the trees, horses, bees, and crabs should be of real concern, if those statistics are accurate. Maybe a couple of the other things as well due to nostalgia.

I don't see the post office disappearing anytime soon, though, as I doubt there is a better system in place or forthcoming to deliver mail locally.

[RazorDingo]

I've grown to hate the Yellow Pages.

Back in the day, before the good old Internets, there used to be one Yellow Pages book. It was useful for finding various businesses around town.

Nowadays, not only do we not need to refer to a cumbersome book to find out where the nearest Chinese restaurant or metal recycling center is - we also don't need two or three of these massive tomes dumped - unasked for - on our driveways and doorsteps, by various competing phone companies.

I hate to think of how many trees are destroyed each year to make yellow pages that nobody ever even opens.

Other than providing a handy backstop for a basement shooting gallery - is there actually any useful purpose for a Yellow Pages book?

[SpyvSpy]

Sadly enough I can see #19 is very true. Back when I was 8-9 they were all over. Not anymore really.

[82R100]

I think the obituary for the Postal Service is a little premature. I certainly don't see too many people on this forum using anything but.

Last I'd heard, the postal service was a self-sustaining entity. It's suffering in this recession like so many other entities.

- Chris

[the beav]

I plan on stocking up on Incandescent Bulbs.

No thanks, Mercury poisoning.

Yes, I bought the fluorescent ones until I found out they had mercury in them, and if they break then you have a biohazard situation. The manufacturers and the government won't care, though, so I expect them to continue pushing for the fluorescent ones.

Also, I think the family farm will make a comeback. Maybe not a complete comeback, but a comeback of sorts. I have a book published in 1929 entitled Too Many Farmers. The author states that increases in technology (tractors, fertilizer, etc.) had increased production so much that prices were too low to support all of the family farms that were present at the time. So the "Declining Family Farm" idea is an old one.

What I think is going to happen soon--and is already beginning to happen--is that higher energy and transportation prices, concerns about health, and other issues such as "going local" are going to bring a small revival of the family farm. Concerning corporate farms, some corporate farmers have little idea of how to actually farm and run their farms profitably. They blow into town, buy 50,000 acres, and think that because they went to Harvard or have an MBA from XYZ they are smart enough to farm. Well, they are not because they don't have the experience necessary to farm, and a season or two without experience leaves a person in trouble. So eventually those kinds of corporations end up going broke. Lastly, many of the corporate farmers don't produce what we call "food". Instead, they produce crops that become byproducts in the things you buy at the store. The two big crops that I'm thinking of are soybeans and corn, which are transformed into things like partially-hydrogenated oils, cattle feed, high fructose corn syrup, or included in food as other ingredients. I think that the whole foods movement will gradually overcome a need for many of these products in the quantities that they are now grown, thereby opening up opportunities for others to fill the gap with more direct foods.

[Jwolf24601]

Good Ridance to:
24
23
22
21
20
13
8-Wild horses are an invasive species in this country
3-Maybe news is declining because it is so biased and negative, only report bad news, I for one am tired of being depressed watching the drabble.

Some Very Sad:
19 Blue crabs are one of my favorite delicacies, very sad to see them decline
4 Honey Bees, Making room for killer bees?

[castlecraver]

#1 is so incredibly sad. It's an issue near and dear to my heart. It's almost unjust to distill it down to some statistics and relegate the extinction of family farms to the level of disappearing answering machines, because it's had serious negative consequences for our food supply, health, and economy.

[TimMechEngr]

I think as long as we have eBay (and it's growing worldwide by leaps and bounds), we'll have the Postal Service.

[kooshman7]

UPS cheaper than USPS? Was I relocated to a parallel dimension? :confused:

[DaveAri]

Newspapers could be added to the list. I think this is a bad development because there is no substitute for in-depth information on a daily basis. Internet news sources tend to publish very short stories.

I agree, I have had the NY Times delivered to my home every morning for nearly 20 years. Just recently I started thinking about stopping it.

[Edcculus]

25. U.S. Post Office - I don't see their immediate collapse yet

24. Yellow Pages - useless

23. Classified Ads - craigslist is free and more extensive

22. Movie Rental Stores - I think RedBox's have ultimately doomed them. One thing I hated about netflix is that if you were bored one night and wanted to pick up a movie, it would have been impossible. The biggest problem with the Red Box is that its only new releases with some random spatterings of older movies.

21. Dial-up Internet Access - that noise was annoying anyways.

20. Phone Land Lines - Completely use a cell phone. I doubt I'll ever need one.

19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs - thats a shame.

18. VCRs - useless now. Its pretty easy to convert VHS to digital too.

17. Ash Trees - also a shame

16. Ham Radio - I never got into it, but I've always associated a "romantic" notion with Ham Radio. Its a little more personal than the internet. Ultimately, its old technology though.

15 The Swimming Hole - I hate sue crazy people.

14. Answering Machines - my cell phone has voice mail...

13. Cameras That Use Film - I'll hold on tooth and nail. I use my film camera a lot.

12. Incandescent Bulbs - no opinion

11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys - I've never seen these super entertainment complexes. Maybe we still like or decrepit smoke filled bowling alleys in the south.

10. The Milkman - A milk man delivered to our house where I was born in Fargo, ND. We moved when I was 5, so I've never technically seen one. long past extinct IMO.

9. Hand-Written Letters - there will always be something special about a hand written letter.

8. Wild Horses - couldn't drag me away

7. Personal Checks - avoid them if I can.

6. Drive-in Theaters - never been to one. I guess its cool, but kind of out dated.

5. Mumps & Measles - good

4. Honey Bees - bad, REALLY bad!!!

3. News Magazines and TV News - Walter Cronkite was the last (and first) true anchor. Its all just entertainment now.

2 Analog TV - already happening/happened

1. The Family Farm - kind of hard to tell

[alexo]

I plan on stocking up on Incandescent Bulbs.

No thanks, Mercury poisoning.

I installed LED lamps instead of Incan. about two years ago and they still work every evening for hours with a warm and comfortable light that happens to be efficient too.

[NorthALABeeKeep]

#4 I'm doing what I can to keep them buzzing along!:smile:

[airplanedoc]

I saw a similar list in our local newspaper a few weeks back. My dad brought it up when I was over for dinner, and we got talking about it around the dinner table. We came up with a couple of others

26. Muffler Shops -- My parents have a Camry, it is a 96 i believe and has its original muffler. When was the last time you replaced a muffler of exhaust pipe on a car?

27. Independant/Shade Tree Mechanic/Service Station -- Autos are now so complicated and require computers to work on them.

28. Full Service Gas Station -- My grandmother never pumped gas. I am not sure she even knew how. Even when I or one of my parents drove her car, she would not let us use the self service pump

29. Pay Phones. I just saw a article there NY only had a very small number of working phone booths Where will Superman Change?

30. Real in store credit -- My cleaners recently switched from monthly billing to credit/debit card billing. There is only one store in town that I am aware of that will just send the bill

31. TV commercials -- DVR has made them a less effective from of advertising, producing less returns and less profit for network tv.

[ClubmanRob]

25. Post Office[/I]]They are pricing themselves out of existence. With e-mail, and on-line services they are a relic of the past. (refer to #9)Packages are also sent faster and cheaper with UPS.

The USPS will never go under. They will scale down, and one day they may actually (gasp!) cost as much as UPS, but they will never be extinct.






This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry.
Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed
dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet
Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination
search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodel Factors like20an
acceleration of the print 'fade rate' and the looming recession
will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the
falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even
reach 10% this year -- much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen
in past years.


Yellow pages are still going strong. In my little secluded corner of the earth I have no less than four different phone books that make their way to my porch every year.


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. The argument
is that if newspaper classifies are replaced by free on-line
listings at sites like Craigslist.org (http://craigslist.org/) and Google Base, then
newspapers are not far behind them..


Agree. One day the paid classified ad will cease to exist.



22. Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps
closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000
left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is
down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a
quest of Circuit City . Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood
Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small
video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost
already.

I don't think that movie rental stores will ever go completely under, but with shrinking rentals and mega conglomerate Blockbuster and Netflix, the death toll of the independent rental venue is staggering.




21. Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008.
The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable
high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone
have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up
Internet access.


There will always be dial up access for geographic locations that don't have high speed options. I lived in such an area not three years ago. Heck, they still had a party line in place (look that one up, kids).



20. Phone Land Lines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health
Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was
cell-only and, of those homes that had land lines, one in eight
only received calls on their cells.


The phone land line will never go extinct. When you call your local store up to inquire whether an item is in stock, is the internet going to list all the different individual cell phone numbers of the people that work there? Let's not be hasty in pronouncing the imminent demise of the land line.


19. Maryland's icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake Bay Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million
pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did
a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay
and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population.
Over-fishing, pollution, invasive species and global warming get
the blame.

Let's hope they stage a comeback in numbers.



18. VCRs
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller
and staple in every American household until being completely
decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In
fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or
Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes
are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be
found. They served us so well.

The VCR will always have a place in my home. Of course, I still have a functioning quadraphonic 8 Track set up next to my RCA Selectavision video disc player. :biggrin:



17. Ash Trees
In the late 1990's, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle,
now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North
America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia .. In less
than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the
Midwest , and continue to spread.

Oh sure... blame the Beatles. :biggrin:


16. Ham Radio
Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide)
wireless communications with each other and are able to support
their communities with emergency and disaster communications if
necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of
electronics and radio theory.. However, proliferation of the
Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of
amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people
holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even
though Morse Code is no longer a requirement.


So long as there will be old men and basements, there will always be Ham Radio. :wink:


15 The Swimming Hole

They're still going strong here! We're not as lawsuit happy in the south as folks are elsewhere.


14. Answering Machines
The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly
tied to No 20 our list -- the decline of landlines. According to
USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped
159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It's logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.

Like the landline, the answering machine will never go extinct.


13. Cameras That Use Film
It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance
of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon,
the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006,
it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to
the shrinking market -- only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to
75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.

There are many professional photographers that refuse to play with digital. You may one day not be able to walk into Wal-Mart and purchase one, but there will always be film cameras.


12. Incandescent Bulbs
Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt)
bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement
and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent
Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era
incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star
CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for
approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And
according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out
incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.

I will be highly PO's if all we have to choose from in the future is fluorescent or LED bulbs. They give me headaches. In fact, I'll bootleg the suckers if that happens.




11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys
Bowling Balls.. claims there are still 60 million Americans who
bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone
bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of
facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag,
go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow
miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many
non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and
resorts, and gambling casinos.


Honestly, I really think that the decline in stand alone bowling alleys has to do with the non-smoking legislation that has sprung up in places. Statistics have shown that people will stop going to certain activities if they can no longer smoke in them, and arcades and bowling alleys are such places.



10. The Milkman
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over
half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by
1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4%
percent. Nowadays most milk is sold through supermarkets in gallon
jugs. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of
course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration
and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the
rounds in pockets of the , they are certainly a dying breed.


I thought the milkman was already extinct.



9. Hand-Written Letters
In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion
e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November
of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones,
and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone
coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and
the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So
where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant,
polite hand-written letter?


They won't go completely extinct.



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.

Wild Horses are indeed troublesome in some regions. I support the population control efforts in certain areas.


7. Personal Checks
According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of
consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two
years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit.
Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based
payments -- for the time being. Checks continue to be the most
commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at
least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However,
a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers'
recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).


I don't think that again, personal checks will go away for good. But yes, they will continue to dwindle.


6. Drive-in Theaters
During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in
theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were
still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since
2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so
there isn't much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.


Drive-In openings are seemingly on the rise in the last few years. For every one that closes, one opens. They seem to thrive in areas that have them. In fact, if you're not at the Badin Road Drive In in Albemarle NC (I go about once a month) an hour before the show starts, good luck finding a spot to park. They do more business than the local Megaplex.



5. Mumps & Measles
Despite what's been in the news lately, the measles and mumps
actually, truly are disappearing from the United States .. In 1964,
212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the U.S. By 1983, this
figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination
program. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine,
approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the
U.S.annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases
were recorded.

They said that the Bubonic Plague has gone extinct too, but folks still die every year from it.


4. Honey Bees

I'll keep buying their honey if they keep making it. :biggrin:



3. News Magazines and TV News
While the TV evening newscasts haven't gone anywhere over the last
several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about
the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times
reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had
only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they
have today is half that.

Time magazine and 60 Minutes will always be around.


2 Analog TV
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in
the U.S. get their television programming through cable or
satellite providers. For the remaining 15% -- or 13 million
individuals -- who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor
antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air.. If you
are one of these people you'll need to get a new TV or a converter
box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast
in = 0 A digital.

Even though we have gone to digital, we still get UHF over analog signals. There are no plans to do away with these signals as of yet, but they're definitely an endangered species.



1. The Family Farm
Since the 1930's, the number of family farms has been declining
rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the
nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the
2003 farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn't yet been
published). Ninety-one percent of the U.S. FARMS are small Family
Farms.

Both interesting and saddening, isn't it?

Ehh, the family farm has been declining for the last two thousand years. I think a better distinction would be to prophesize the eventual extinction of family tobacco farms. The way this country has treated its tobacco farmers over the course of the last three decades is shameful.

[Doc4]

Post Office ... still use it (grumble grumble)

Yellow Pages ... got it, use it ...

Phone Land line ... got it!

VCR ... got it ... take that, tivo!

Answering machine ... what else to hook up to my phone land line??

Film camera ... got it ... loaded with b&w

Incandescent bulb ... got 'em ... 'stockpilled like English Fern ought to be'

Personal Cheques ... yours is in the mail! ... dude, trust me!

Honey Bees ... darn shame! I keep buying honey, not that that helps.

TV News ... sure I watch it

Analogue TV ... analogue static looks so much more natural than digital static.

[Brodirt]

I'm pretty sure that we don't have to worry about the extinction of Honey Bees.

First, I recall reading that the CCD loss estimates were ridiculously overinflated. It seems that prior to, the below, resolution of the issue it served a "green" political agenda to over-hype the honey bee loss. It was real, just not as bad as we were told, or caused by what we were told.

Second, it seems to have been resolved or is resolvable.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090414084627.htm
and
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/saving-bees-what-we-know-now/

If you notice the times article even uses a more moderate colony loss estimate.

Anyway, I'm glad smart people have figured things out...they usually do before the sky falls.

[BEAR DEN]

# 9 Hand written letter. I just bought my first fountain pen and love it. I will now hand write letters to loved ones rather then e-mail as much as possible. There is something special about handwritting. If I look at my mothers handwritting over the years, even though I haven't seen her...you can see her aging by the her handwritting...and I am more appreciative of her wisdom and advice.. unlike an e-mail.

[Kratos]

UPS cheaper than USPS? I must be in the same bizarro dimension as Kooshman. I don't see them going anywhere, but scaling down, as my exiled comrade stated. Land-lines will also stick around. They have their uses, and cell signal is still nowhere near as reliable. I still use my yellow pages; I don't always feel like messing with the computer. At least they are recyclable.

[The Knize]

To most of the list, true that. Some things have morphed, of course.

Phones and internet access morphed. Personal checks I would say have morphed to card payments.

Yellow pages and classified ads. Movie brick and motar shops have morphed in to mail and on-line.

The Chespeake Bay all around is a tragedy. Oysters went before crabs. Lots wild besides horses are gone or almost gone.

Drive-ins are long gone. VCRs morphed.

There are new childhood diseases.

News TV and papers have changed to on-line to some extent.

Muffler and brake shops have become more car repair shops charging about what dealers do. Consumer car parts places seem nearly gone at least where I live.

Car bodies do not seem to rust anymore. I do not miss that.

[82R100]

Classified Ads: I encountered a particularly eccentric form of these when I driving across the country in 1983, leaving Redmond, Washington for a new job in Middle River, Maryland.

I'd spent the night (4th of July!) in Miles City, Montana and was driving a VW bus with an AM radio and no other form of audio entertainment. I tuned into KFLN in Baker, Montana and managed to listen to it most of the way across South/North Dakota over the course of the day. KFLN had a feature called "radio bulletin board" in which they read the classified ads out loud over the air! Queen-size mattress, lawn-mower, you name it. Later in the morning they listed who had checked out of the local hospital.

It gave me the impression that Baker wasn't a very big town.

- Chris

[chickpea]

25. U.S. Post Office - WHAT?????:confused:

24. Yellow Pages - good riddance to bad rubbish

23. Classified Ads - same as above.

22. Movie Rental Stores - meh, the only reason they are still around is that sometimes I want a movie NOW instead of waiting to download it.

21. Dial-up Internet Access - wow, people still use this?

20. Phone Land Lines - I haven't had a landline (a real one) since, well, since I moved out of my parents house in 1996.

19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs - add to that Bluepoint Oysters

18. VCRs - got rid of mine a few years back.

17. Ash Trees - oh too bad.

16. Ham Radio - meh.

15 The Swimming Hole - it probably has condoms and styrofoam cups floating in it now anyway

14. Answering Machines - will not be missed

13. Cameras That Use Film - film was costly to develop and annoying to carry. Happy that it has seen its swan song.

12. Incandescent Bulbs - I get headaches from the flicker of flourescent lights so these will be missed.

11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys - no more stinky rotten shoes????

10. The Milkman - never had one, don't care.

9. Hand-Written Letters - no one can read my handwriting anyways

8. Wild Horses - meh

7. Personal Checks - hate them.

6. Drive-in Theaters - horrible sound. If you want romance, just put on a clean pair of undies at home.

5. Mumps & Measles - Fantastic, vaccines are probably one of the single greatest achievements of humankind.

4. Honey Bees - This is literally apocalyptic news. Read my lips: the world WILL end without bees. They pollinate more food stuffs than all other pollinators combined.

3. News Magazines and TV News - The crazy drunken uncle of TV News (aka cable news) went on a bender about three years ago and ran TV News and his wife News Magazines over with his rusted out beater. They've never been the same since.

2 Analog TV - Rabbit ears, seriously?

1. The Family Farm - Oh, well I like food that tastes like cardboard anyways. Hey pass me some of those friend corn chips, with real beef flavoring. (hint: it's not the "beef" that's real, but the "flavoring", I can't stand fake "Flavoring":biggrin:)

[Razor&Pens]

List of pop 'wisdom' rubbish.

[ClubmanRob]

6. Drive-in Theaters - horrible sound.

I agree that drive in speakers were tinny and mono, but broadcasting through your vehicles car audio via FM has been the standard for the last thirty years or so. If it sounds horrible in your car, then blame your vehicle.

[airplanedoc]

Car bodies do not seem to rust anymore. I do not miss that.

That because they are plastic

18. I agree many of these things have evolved VCR became DVD which is changing to Tivo

14. Answering Machine has become Voice Mail. The machine part is just not at your house, but there is still a box somewhere with you messages stored on it.

3. TV news/all magazines/newspapers I think are all on the way out, breaking news can be had in seconds world wide via electronic communication. I still get several magazines, but by the time they arrive, I have already read most of the articles on line, so I wonder why I should get the paper magazine. I switched to the small local newspaper that comes out once a week, because they do a much better job of providing "local" info. The much larger news paper provides 2 day old national news via the AP, and does a poor job of covering local events.

1. If the family farm is 2-4000 acres of Corn or beans, then they are still going strong here in IL. If they are 1000 acres or less, they are dissappearing rapidly.

My last box of 500 personal checks is over 5 years old, and still going strong.

[Blondie]

I agree that drive in speakers were tinny and mono, but broadcasting through your vehicles car audio via FM has been the standard for the last thirty years or so. If it sounds horrible in your car, then blame your vehicle.

Do you remember those air conditioning tubes that you would roll up in the window to keep cool at the Drive In Movie? My great uncle used to own one in Colorado. Just closed it about 18 months ago.

[ClubmanRob]

Do you remember those air conditioning tubes that you would roll up in the window to keep cool at the Drive In Movie? My great uncle used to own one in Colorado. Just closed it about 18 months ago.

I've seen them before in documentaries and such, but we never had any around here. They seemed pretty innovative.

[82R100]

Car bodies do not seem to rust anymore. I do not miss that.

Thanks to double-sided galvanizing. And plastic.

- Chris

[Doc4]

To most of the list, true that. Some things have morphed, of course.



the 'drive-in restaurant' has morphed into the drive-through. (Or I guess the "drive-thru" ... add 'proper spelling' to the list of almost-xtinct)

[blantyre]

4,5,8,17 and 19 are not man made and somewhat less responsive to market forces than the rest which are mainly product or service delivery systems. These will evolve but not completely disappear in most cases, VCR may be the only one that really does go like 8-track, cassettes and ZIP drives have. The demise of vinyl records, tube amps, books and even old fashioned razors has been predicted for years now. They are all flourishing.

As for bees, they may diminish and lead to serious consequences. Let's hope they stay around for a while and keep pollinating stuff.

One thing that could usefully go is the penny - make the increment .05 and cut out the .99 stuff except for pricing and then round at the checkout.

[Swampfox]

Even though we have gone to digital, we still get UHF over analog signals. There are no plans to do away with these signals as of yet, but they're definitely an endangered species.

'Cause, we got it all, yeah we got it all on UHF! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fc/UHFposter.jpg/200px-UHFposter.jpg

[rickboone1]

Some of it is as true as we may want it to be.

Some say that ridding newspapers is good. Cleaner and greener. However, look at the energy it can take you to use your laptop to read the news. Or, the TV. So, it's a wash in that area.

The economic downturn is actually for the good in a lot of ways, IF people can see that.

Look at the newspaper. Well, people now have to cut corners and become more thrifty. Thus, coupon clipping. That brings up the Sunday edition of the newspaper so people can get their coupons.

Also, with the advent of creating a cleaner planet people are looking for more alternatives. Making their own soaps, cleaning products, etc.

25. U.S. Post Office - This is in conjunction with the handwritten letter. However, as long as there are products that need to be advertised, the PO ain't going no place. And, as long as we keep buying stuff online...they'll sit right there. The way of the mailbox may change as we'll be reduced to just packages, but that's quite alright. If the PO wants to save a TON of money, stop delivering the mail just ONE day a week. Just one day do not put the mail out. Do you know how many MILLIONS of dollars this would save?

24. Yellow Pages - Junk. Have you ever really found a reliable service or product there? People are reverting back to tried and true...word of mouth.

23. Classified Ads - Overtaken by MLM scams. Nobody wants to read them. Also, saves on trees, but...see above.

22. Movie Rental Stores - So? Look how much gas you use going to these places.

21. Dial-up Internet Access - Thank Heavens!

20. Phone Land Lines - Really? We didn't see that one coming? Gone also is long distance calling.

19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs -No clue about this.

18. VCRs - There'll always be some around. Hell, look at DE razors......

17. Ash Trees - Don't know anything about these.

16. Ham Radio - Woopity. Pick up the phone.

15 The Swimming Hole - I disagree. Probably quite geographic in this.

14. Answering Machines - So.

13. Cameras That Use Film - Technology has caught up with film. There is still a lot of film in production. I use it time to time. As much? Nope. Look at the resources you're using to get a photo from film.

12. Incandescent Bulbs - Good to have energy saving alternatives. Those get HOT too.

11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys - oh darn.

10. The Milkman -
Certain things, like that of a milkman have been gone for ages. When I lived in Utah a dairy there would deliver milk. It was very expensive.


9. Hand-Written Letters - There are too many people that need to send a herarfelt message out. I collect fountain pens. Handwritten letters aren't going anywhere.

8. Wild Horses - Disagree on this one. As long as horses are in the wild and producing sperm, they'll be there.

7. Personal Checks - Cash too. Gasp...oh so bad! Too easily counterfitted too often. The only ones that care are those that have illegal pay and don't pay taxes.

6. Drive-in Theaters - This will be missed. Well, it has been. Many areas have one and they do exceptionally well.

5. Mumps & Measles - Every 20 years a disease is wiped out. This has been gone quite a while. Vaccines have multiplied and worsened diseases in our children.

4. Honey Bees - PURE BS. Look at all the honeybee farmers.

3. News Magazines and TV News - Good. They're illiterate, non-functioning idiots that retell the same negative crap I don't wish to hear over and over again.

2 Analog TV - So. It's gone already.

[Phog Allen]

#1 is so incredibly sad. It's an issue near and dear to my heart. It's almost unjust to distill it down to some statistics and relegate the extinction of family farms to the level of disappearing answering machines, because it's had serious negative consequences for our food supply, health, and economy.

Hey Pat. Never fear. The return of the real family farm could well be underway. How so? Considering I live in Northeast Kansas, (which is not high prairie like most think, it is part of the Missouri river basin systems. At least I think that is right. We are green, lush, and tree filled.) there seems to be a real resurgence in what can best be described as farmsteads. Gentleman farmers as it were. 5-25 acre spreads dotted with various industry on them. Vineyards, specialty herds of dairy and meat cattle, special grains(semi-locals growing barley for the local brewery), raising rabbits for meat and sale, etc. It is not huge but it is gaining ground. This is what my mother used to refer to as family farms. Yes, row cropping as a family farm of 160-640 acres was a family farming practise but the real "farming" was the vegetables and the orchards that all these little farmsteads seemed to have.

Our soil here along the Kansas/Missouri border(which is the Mighty Mo itself) grows crops, fruits, and veg like nobody's business. We had a remarkably cool summer this year and even then, the field corn was over 8 feet tall by the middle of July. This place just grows stuff. So even though you would have to give an unqualified "yes" answer to the question of small farms disappearing, there is more to it. With modern growing means, ideas like square foot gardening really come into their own. Ten acres of square foot boxes would yield enough food feed a family of four MANY times over for the year and still have enough left over to sell for thousands. The sale of home grown food items is pretty big here. People will pay well for it. Like anything else farming related though, it is hard work in the Kansas heat. No matter the amount of mechanised equipment you use to make it easier. My mother has a ten acre land with about five acres tillable. She is considering a few milk goats, a Dexter steer for meat, and of course her semi-free range chickens which produce superb eggs. She is a green thumb of the first water and her orchard is always popular with my kids. I certainly hope when I am in my seventies I can be as robust and energetic as she is. So yes, there is some hope.

BTW, a stat that jumps out at you; just after WW2 75% of Kansas' population lived in "rural" areas. Now, 75-80% live in these midwestern metroplexes as I call them. Indinapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Wichita, Denver, etc. These are the only places with any decent jobs. About every 300-600 miles as you cross the country. Go a bit north and add Omaha, south, Okalhoma city. The rest of these states areas are depopulating. Sad, but it does give hope the rise of local farmsteads in the outlying areas of these monstrosities.

Regards, Todd

[otherstar]

Hey Pat. Never fear. The return of the real family farm could well be underway. How so? Considering I live in Northeast Kansas, (which is not high prairie like most think, it is part of the Missouri river basin systems. At least I think that is right. We are green, lush, and tree filled.) there seems to be a real resurgence in what can best be described as farmsteads. Gentleman farmers as it were. 5-25 acre spreads dotted with various industry on them. Vineyards, specialty herds of dairy and meat cattle, special grains(semi-locals growing barley for the local brewery), raising rabbits for meat and sale, etc. It is not huge but it is gaining ground. This is what my mother used to refer to as family farms. Yes, row cropping as a family farm of 160-640 acres was a family farming practise but the real "farming" was the vegetables and the orchards that all these little farmsteads seemed to have.

Don't forget hilly. I grew up in Atchison and I owe my muscular legs to riding bikes on Atchison's hills. We lived in Centropolis for a few months and it's hilly there too. All of those hills were formed by glaciers and the meandering of the Missouri River.


Our soil here along the Kansas/Missouri border(which is the Mighty Mo itself) grows crops, fruits, and veg like nobody's business. We had a remarkably cool summer this year and even then, the field corn was over 8 feet tall by the middle of July. This place just grows stuff. So even though you would have to give an unqualified "yes" answer to the question of small farms disappearing, there is more to it. With modern growing means, ideas like square foot gardening really come into their own. Ten acres of square foot boxes would yield enough food feed a family of four MANY times over for the year and still have enough left over to sell for thousands. The sale of home grown food items is pretty big here. People will pay well for it. Like anything else farming related though, it is hard work in the Kansas heat. No matter the amount of mechanised equipment you use to make it easier. My mother has a ten acre land with about five acres tillable. She is considering a few milk goats, a Dexter steer for meat, and of course her semi-free range chickens which produce superb eggs. She is a green thumb of the first water and her orchard is always popular with my kids. I certainly hope when I am in my seventies I can be as robust and energetic as she is. So yes, there is some hope.

Best tomoto's I've ever had were grown in Kansas soil. My family, or part of it, has been farming in that part of the state since 1851. Never on more than 40 acres though. Since the '40's, most have had regular jobs and would qualify as "gentleman farmer's" by today's standards.


BTW, a stat that jumps out at you; just after WW2 75% of Kansas' population lived in "rural" areas. Now, 75-80% live in these midwestern metroplexes as I call them. Indinapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Wichita, Denver, etc. These are the only places with any decent jobs. About every 300-600 miles as you cross the country. Go a bit north and add Omaha, south, Okalhoma city. The rest of these states areas are depopulating. Sad, but it does give hope the rise of local farmsteads in the outlying areas of these monstrosities.

Regards, Todd

Some of that kind of thing (gentleman farmers/wannabee ranchers) is starting to happen in parts of Texas now too.

On a side note, amateur radio is still going strong on the gulf coast. Hams tend to get real busy, real quick, after a hurricane when cell phone service was knocked out for a few days. Hams are busy in tornado season in the midwest also. Just one of many ways some storm-trackers use to keep in touch with each other.

Jeff

[airplanedoc]

Some say that ridding newspapers is good. Cleaner and greener. However, look at the energy it can take you to use your laptop to read the news. Or, the TV. So, it's a wash in that area.

Not completly true. Indirectly newspapers consume huge ammounts of resources. Trees, power, and millions of gallons of water to produce paper for newspapers. Then you have the ink, and probably the largest consumer is the fuel used to transport trees then paper in rolls and newspapers from the forest to the mill then to the printing plant, then to your house. The post office is estimating a annual fuel savings of $85M by droping 1 day of mail delivery. I would guess the Newspaper easily consumes a similiar ammount of fuel to deliver your paper

[toucanlamp]

The family farm has been dying out for the last fifty years, farmers without huge land holdings didn't make any money fifty, sixty, seventy years ago and they still don't today. It's kind of a sign of progress though as well, large farms run like businesses are massively more efficient than having the same land owned by dozens of different people all working on their own.

My grandfather lived all his life on a 160 acre farm out in Saskatchewan and I can remember my dad telling me that once in the mid 70's he saw my grandfather's tax return and that year he had earned something like $3200. It was a very simple life where family and nature were the most important things.

We can learn stuff from that sort of existence that isn't bent on material success, but at the same time, I don't think it's necessarily something to romanticize as much as some do, all my relatives out in the country there are so much fun and the greatest hosts you can imagine, but I know for a fact a lot of them have had bigtime struggles trying to get by farming, raising cattle, etc. and most of them have had to do stuff on the side like go up North to work in the diamond mines or drive truck etc.

I have an aunt and uncle who have two huge pig barns and they are ruined pretty well, pork isn't worth anything today and from what I've heard they are probably going to have to default.

It's just so volatile, the prices of commodities like crops, livestock etc. the uncertainty of income from year to year is awful for farmers.

It doesn't necessarily mean that we all have to go live in 3 million person cities, however, in developed societies where the service sector utterly dominates the economy, jobs are inevitably going to concentrate in the same place the consumer is.

But like others here have said, I think there just might be a niche for the small farmer in specialty products. I lot of people like the idea of eating stuff produced locally, and the farmer's who sell their stuff at the farmer's market in some of the cities here move a lot of product. There's just something appealing to it, the jar of honey that has a handwritten label on it and you meet the person who made it vs. some tub of Billy Bee.

It's a change, and it's rediculous to fight against reality and just subsidize a business model that just doesn't work in the 21st century because it's traditional.

[The Knize]

<Time magazine and 60 Minutes will always be around.>

Ghosts of their former selves, don't you think? Of course, TV is filled with expose time shows now, so 60 Minutes is not as alone as it was once.

And the cultural type things that Time magazine covered more than any other outlet are coverd everywhere it seems, to the detriment of hard news.

Anyway, it just seems to me that these two were "important" at one time, and now they are really not!

I would like it a lot if drive-ins managed to come back. But to tell you the truth I am surprised that any move theaters have survived.

[Parataxis]

Tell me if you think is correct. Have you gotten rid of some of these items already? Just curious.

Most of them I agree with - some I can't say for sure, as I'm not a USian (Canada Post isn't going anywhere, at least).

I strongly disagree with #9. The very reasons you cited for it disappearing are the very reasons it won't. In an age of electronic communication, txting, &c... the hand-written letter (and I'll add hand-typed as well) will become ever more powerful and meaningful.

Will everybody be sending them? No. But will they still be used? Oh yes.

[Parataxis]

Answering machine ... what else to hook up to my phone land line??


Nowadays, most landlines come with a message service, rather than a physical machine. Certainly every business uses them, as do most households (not my father though). That will continue. Messages will still be left, but machines will disappear, I imagine.

[Ru4scuba?]

#1 is so incredibly sad. It's an issue near and dear to my heart. It's almost unjust to distill it down to some statistics and relegate the extinction of family farms to the level of disappearing answering machines, because it's had serious negative consequences for our food supply, health, and economy.

+1. I spent my entire childhood on a good buddy's family farm. Can't believe those stats. To some extent, farms seem to be so part of the American charm.

[Kratos]

I would like it a lot if drive-ins managed to come back. But to tell you the truth I am surprised that any move theaters have survived.

Really? I don't see them going anywhere soon. Many still dig the whole going to the movies experience. Plus, no home theatre has a 50-ft screen, let alone something like an IMAX. Some movies I like to see on the big screen. As long as the people around you are civil, it's usually a good experience. Hopefully the prices level off at some point.

[SRock]

Excellent post Mark. I'd have to agree if these aren't already endangered they are certainly threatened.

[Phog Allen]

The family farm has been dying out for the last fifty years, farmers without huge land holdings didn't make any money fifty, sixty, seventy years ago and they still don't today. It's kind of a sign of progress though as well, large farms run like businesses are massively more efficient than having the same land owned by dozens of different people all working on their own.

My grandfather lived all his life on a 160 acre farm out in Saskatchewan and I can remember my dad telling me that once in the mid 70's he saw my grandfather's tax return and that year he had earned something like $3200. It was a very simple life where family and nature were the most important things.

We can learn stuff from that sort of existence that isn't bent on material success, but at the same time, I don't think it's necessarily something to romanticize as much as some do, all my relatives out in the country there are so much fun and the greatest hosts you can imagine, but I know for a fact a lot of them have had bigtime struggles trying to get by farming, raising cattle, etc. and most of them have had to do stuff on the side like go up North to work in the diamond mines or drive truck etc.

I have an aunt and uncle who have two huge pig barns and they are ruined pretty well, pork isn't worth anything today and from what I've heard they are probably going to have to default.

It's just so volatile, the prices of commodities like crops, livestock etc. the uncertainty of income from year to year is awful for farmers.

It doesn't necessarily mean that we all have to go live in 3 million person cities, however, in developed societies where the service sector utterly dominates the economy, jobs are inevitably going to concentrate in the same place the consumer is.

But like others here have said, I think there just might be a niche for the small farmer in specialty products. I lot of people like the idea of eating stuff produced locally, and the farmer's who sell their stuff at the farmer's market in some of the cities here move a lot of product. There's just something appealing to it, the jar of honey that has a handwritten label on it and you meet the person who made it vs. some tub of Billy Bee.

It's a change, and it's rediculous to fight against reality and just subsidize a business model that just doesn't work in the 21st century because it's traditional.

Very well said and excellent points. Things change. There never really was "money" involved in successful farmers. They were judged successful by how much land and livestock they amassed in their lives and handed down to their kids. Much of it by bartering. As modern farrming allowed yields unseen in history, it became a volume issue for row crops. The real niche in "family farming" were the little specialty farms that produced honey or other specilised things that people want locally. Like fresh farm eggs(one of my favourite things btw). Agreed that a romantic lore is not the best way to manage this. Nothing wrong with the small family dairy. I grew up with dozens of them around here. Yet they are all gone and we can still buy milk any day of the week. I can drive 15 minutes from my home and find a bison farm. It is really neat to see the big shaggies and my kids get a real kick out it. They sell the meat right there at the farm. It is one example of the evolving nature of the family farm.

Regards, Todd

[marvin100]

Did you make this list or get it from another source? Cite/link?

[rm71]

Wow that list could apply to Australia as well. Incandescent bulbs are already gone in Australia. Can't buy them anymore and in fact I think it may be illegal to even sell them.

[Barbarian]

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.

No such thing in the U.S. These are feral horses, invasive, and a cause of ecological degradation. Good riddance.

[The Knize]

Really? I don't see them going anywhere soon. Many still dig the whole going to the movies experience. Plus, no home theatre has a 50-ft screen, let alone something like an IMAX. Some movies I like to see on the big screen. As long as the people around you are civil, it's usually a good experience. Hopefully the prices level off at some point.

Don't get me wrong. I like all of that, too. But one would usually go broke looking to me as a model of the market.

I am just surprised that given the expense and the hassle, including the uncivility of people talking and such in the theaters, and the ease of the alternatives--and the fact that the technology would alllow first run movie delivery to homes--we still so many freestanding movie theaters and that Hollywood does so well. The load factor must be horrible. Most of the business must be on the weekends, yet you have a lot of square feet in say a shopping center to pay for.

I guess people need somewhere to go out to. Also improvements have been made in seating and sound systems. Hollywood's marketing is good. Folks want to see the latest movie.

[airplanedoc]

The load factor must be horrible. Most of the business must be on the weekends, yet you have a lot of square feet in say a shopping center to pay for.



I think for movie theaters or drive-ins to really survive and thrive there needs to be a alternate use for the theater. A few weeks ago on my day off, a buddy of mine called and asked if I wanted to go see a movie. It as raining so the day was pretty much shot anyway so I went. We went to a 3pm Wednesday showing. There was more staff at the theater, than there was viewers, and best I could tell was all 16 movies were showing even if there was no one watching them. I couldn't thelp but think How could this space be better used, to generate profit during the day, while still showing movies on nights and weekends.

I don't have any answers or I would be in the movie theater business.

[chickpea]

S
5. Mumps & Measles - Every 20 years a disease is wiped out. This has been gone quite a while. Vaccines have multiplied and worsened diseases in our children.



Umm, reality seems to disagree with you there.



4. Honey Bees - PURE BS. Look at all the honeybee farmers.


You have heard of CCD correct? There won't be many honeybee farmers when all the honeybees die.

[mark the shoeshine boy]

Did you make this list or get it from another source? Cite/link?


just an email from a friend....i found it to be interesting and thought it would be fun to discuss and see if there any others to chat about....

[Swampfox]

We're...All...Going...To...Die!!!!!! :scared:

[chickpea]

I guarantee it.:wink:

[The Knize]

Sorry to post so often. I meant to say that my parents used to say something to the effect that they were both very grateful for the demise of their respective family farms. Not that they were foreclosed on or anything--the children of their generation simply grew up and left the farm at the first opportunity. He said, basically, that anyone that could get the heck out and had any sense, got out as fast as they could. My Dad was very against the romanticized vision of the rural life of growing up on a small family farm, at least in the early 1900s. He felt that farming was very hard and dangerous work at very high risk of financial failure in the best of circumstances. I think my Mother grew up much closer to any poverty line and in much more isolated circumstances. Yet she probably grew up in a more idealic place than my Dad--surrounded by extended family and the like. Mutually supportive community. I do not think she missed farm life much though.

Of course there are family farms and there are family farms. I do not think that anyone really envisions farms like my parents grew up on being a way to make a reasonable living. Really subsistance farming. And I think there was a lot of that if one goes back far enough in American History. The world modernized and there was not the need for most folks to grow their own food to keep from starving.

But there have also been many family run farms that were good-sized operations, specialized, well-managed, with economies of scale and everything else going for them. I suppose the question there is why can't a well-managed small entity of any kind function profitably in the modern era? Lots of things used to owned by families from stores (or chains thereof), to gasoline stations, funeral homes, propane dsitributors, whatever. The family farm is not the only small to medium sized business that is getting wiped out, I would think, but it does seem to be more thoroughly wiped out. What is is about farming that demand such large economies of scale?

[Phog Allen]

Cstrother. Those things you ask about in your last paragraph CAN be done in the modern age. They just consume your life. And they are hard work. When you own a small business, you really don't own it. IT OWNS YOU. And a family farm is a small, usually unprofitable business. There are three things that should always be looked at as vocation rather than profession; preaching, teaching, and farming. These are labours of love and no way to make big money or even a comfortable amount of money. I think your dad and mom may have been saying that. He was right. Farming is hard, hot, dangerous work that rarely pays off in the coin of the realm. I grew up with kids who lived on real working farms. Everyone of their parents had factory jobs that really payed for everything. Almost to a man their dads had hung up their farming boots by the time those kids graduated high school. Much the same with owning a small business. Hard, grueling work, sometimes for years with little or no payoff. It is just easier to try to find a decent maintenance or factory job. And they went home after eight hours and didn't deal with it till the next day. No such chances when you own it.

Regards, Todd

[infotech]

15 The Swimming Hole





We are going to lose swimming holes more than the reasons listed. Here on the Gulf Coast of Texas we have weekly warnings of fecal bacteria levels in the Gulf of Mexico. They only warn when the levels of bacteria are elevated which means if you swim in Galveston, or any other beach around these parts you're swimming in a giant, unflushed toilet. I'm sure there are worse contaminants in the water as well. It doesn't really phase many people. You can go to the beach any weekend and see people swimming and having a good ole' time in the water. They are only risking diarrhea, upset stomach, vomiting, and other sickness...

[Mycon]

#4 I'm doing what I can to keep them buzzing along!:smile:

My mother has been talking to a lot of local beekeepers, and they say that CCS is really only a problem with the large commercial operations that consistently move their swarms. The small, family operations are largely untouched.
Do you find that to be the case?

[arcman]

RE: CFL bulbs, these things have only a few milligrams of mercury, barely enough to cover the tip of a pencil. Your thermometer is 50x more of a hazard, if you're going by mercury content.

[airplanedoc]

if you swim in Galveston, or any other beach around these parts you're swimming in a giant, unflushed toilet

Remember that is where your drinking water comes from too


Thats why we call the Mississippi River "The Colon of North America"

[Chuckaluck]

# 9 Hand written letter. I just bought my first fountain pen and love it. I will now hand write letters to loved ones rather then e-mail as much as possible. There is something special about handwritting. If I look at my mothers handwritting over the years, even though I haven't seen her...you can see her aging by the her handwritting...and I am more appreciative of her wisdom and advice.. unlike an e-mail.

I could not agree more! There is nothing like getting a hand written letter from a friend, alas, it is an ultra rare thing today. :frown:

[Chuckaluck]

also becoming extinct are:
small independent book stores and record stores.
pay phones/phone booths, soon to be museum pieces!
sandlot baseball fields
ice cream trucks

[SRock]

9. Hand-Written Letters

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't helped keep the hand written letter alive at all.

I write well enough and my vocabulary is great but my hand writing is atrocious at best. I don't like to hand write anything ever. My handwriting is actually so bad I'm ashamed to show other people. About the only time I put pen (or pencil) to paper is to write a short personal note to myself. I email family like crazy and when I'm away from my kids for extended periods of time I type numerous letters from the heart but I just can't bring myself to force anyone to have to try and decipher the hieroglyphics I scribble. I even con my wife into writing my thoughts in most greeting cards.

I think the computer is the reason for my terrible hand writing. I'm young enough that we had computers in school and I had teachers that preferred type written or computer printed assignments. The last 5-6 years of school I wrote very little. My penmanship slowly started to decline. All of the practice typing has led to a rate of over 100wpm which is great for the day to day administrative functions of my job but has led to my hand writing deteriorating severely over the past 15-20 years.

[NorthALABeeKeep]

My mother has been talking to a lot of local beekeepers, and they say that CCS is really only a problem with the large commercial operations that consistently move their swarms. The small, family operations are largely untouched.
Do you find that to be the case?

Yes this tends to be the case for ccd. However honeybees face a lot of other nasty things that is causing their numbers to decline. Twnety years ago there were a lot of feral or "wild" bees around, nowdays if you see bees in the wild they are a swarm from a beekeepers hive. There are no more feral bees. The mite varroa destructor has killed more bees than ccd probably ever will. This is a parasite imported from Asia that has done more harm to honeybees (and small beekeepers) than anything else.

[chfair]

Yes this tends to be the case for ccd. However honeybees face a lot of other nasty things that is causing their numbers to decline. Twnety years ago there were a lot of feral or "wild" bees around, nowdays if you see bees in the wild they are a swarm from a beekeepers hive. There are no more feral bees. The mite varroa destructor has killed more bees than ccd probably ever will. This is a parasite imported from Asia that has done more harm to honeybees (and small beekeepers) than anything else.

tell that to the killer bees we have around ranches in south texas, could use some mites to help control that population IMO.

hand written letters, written one in the past 9 years (like one that was mailed and such). my handwriting is not something i want to be sending to a lot of people, not the best skill i have.

[andrewckellogg]

If Chesapeake blues ever go extinct I'll be seriously pissed off.

As for wild horses, I highly recommend camping on Cumberland Island, Ga.

[kwk285]

Talking with people recently, I have found that common sense is suffering a slow death.

[Kratos]

Talking with people recently, I have found that common sense is suffering a slow death.

Slow death my ass! Common sense is the only thing dropping faster than the US dollar.

[kwk285]

Slow death my ass! Common sense is the only thing dropping faster than the US dollar.

On a rare occasion I still see it. You have to look hard or you will miss it but it is still there.:biggrin:

[chickpea]

Yes this tends to be the case for ccd. However honeybees face a lot of other nasty things that is causing their numbers to decline. Twnety years ago there were a lot of feral or "wild" bees around, nowdays if you see bees in the wild they are a swarm from a beekeepers hive. There are no more feral bees. The mite varroa destructor has killed more bees than ccd probably ever will. This is a parasite imported from Asia that has done more harm to honeybees (and small beekeepers) than anything else.

It's my understanding that CCD is a mix of stressors one of which is, in fact, the Varroa mite. So, just as a nerdy bit of grammar nazicism, to say that the varroa mite kills more than CCD is a tautology, as CCD includes deaths of hives due to the mite.

But, that said, the varroa mite is likely to be the primary factor in most feral bee deaths.

Reminds me of a poem:

Insects got fleas,
and Bugs that bite 'em,
and so on it goes ad infinitum

I always think of that poem when I hear the varroa mite because I never knew that bees have "fleas" hehehe

[Isaac]

Movie Manners

That is something that is really going away. I cant remember the last time I was in a movie where someone wasnt talking away, checking their cell phones, talking on their cell phones. Its absolutely horrible IMHO.

[blantyre]

RE: CFL bulbs, these things have only a few milligrams of mercury, barely enough to cover the tip of a pencil. Your thermometer is 50x more of a hazard, if you're going by mercury content.

Your teeth could be 100X more hazard if you have amalgam fillings IMO.

[Chessman]

Taking a peek at No. 22 on the list blockbuster is going to close 900 stores this year. Don't forget about redbook those kiosks outside of major dept. stores and McDonalds.

[Kratos]

Movie Manners

That is something that is really going away. I cant remember the last time I was in a movie where someone wasnt talking away, checking their cell phones, talking on their cell phones. Its absolutely horrible IMHO.

I don't see that too often. I'll politely(usually) say something, or get the staff on it. I didn't pay 6 or $9 to listen to some idiot jibber-jabber or be blinded by their LCD screen.

[MPruett]

I think the demise of the family farm, as romanticized by so many, is pretty much inevitable, for the same reasons that mom & pop shops are/were doomed.

The main reason is economies of scale. Think of it this way: If two farmers have setups, yields, etc... that are completely equal except for the acreage they farm, the guy with the larger spread will flat out beat the guy with the smaller one, for economies of scale.

They pay the same amount for equipment, gasoline, etc... but ultimately, the guy with more land makes more money because he can sell more crops.

On the flip side, the guy ordering more seed can get a better deal on it, and pay less per acre than the smaller guy, saving himself further money.

It's the same process as Wal-Mart vs. Dad's Electronics in Smalltown, USA. Wal-Mart buys 10,000 TV sets at $50 each, while Dad is stuck buying the same model for $100, because he orders 10 at a time. Dad has to charge $125 each, while Wal Mart can charge $75 and still make the same absolute profit. Where are people in Smalltown going to buy their TVs?

Plus, having known a few small farmers, I think that life is highly romanticized, and the reality is a lot harder, stinkier, dirtier, unstable and less lucrative than the fantasy.

[Lo'Tek]

'AND - PEOPLE - STANDING - IN - WATER!!! - OOOOOH - I'M STANDING IN WATER!" - Mr. Gumby, Monty Python

[mretzloff]

Saddening? Which of those things actually serve a purpose? Other than the bees, I see nothing on there that is relevant or that technology has not beaten.

[mretzloff]

Movie Manners

That is something that is really going away. I cant remember the last time I was in a movie where someone wasnt talking away, checking their cell phones, talking on their cell phones. Its absolutely horrible IMHO.

You should try working at a movie theater. If you think people are rude when you are a guest, wait until you are an employee.

[82R100]

Saddening? Which of those things actually serve a purpose? Other than the bees, I see nothing on there that is relevant or that technology has not beaten.

Blue crabs?

Ash trees?

[Kratos]

You should try working at a movie theater. If you think people are rude when you are a guest, wait until you are an employee.
Yeah, people act as if you providing a service for them somehow makes them better than you.
Even before I was a cop, I'd say what was on everyone else's mind, namely, "Be quiet." One of the more memorable times was when we had a VERY rude bunch come in, talking loud for a normal situation, let alone a theater. One guy must have had 40 keys on his belt, from the sound of it. He even used the back of my friend's chair to get up out of his(snapping him back while doing so) and jingle all de vay down the aisle. After a while of listening to nonsense I said,"If we want to hear a running commentary, we'll buy the DVD. Please be quiet." We had silence for the rest of the movie.

[mretzloff]

Yeah, people act as if you providing a service for them somehow makes them better than you.
Even before I was a cop, I'd say what was on everyone else's mind, namely, "Be quiet." One of the more memorable times was when we had a VERY rude bunch come in, talking loud for a normal situation, let alone a theater. One guy must have had 40 keys on his belt, from the sound of it. He even used the back of my friend's chair to get up out of his(snapping him back while doing so) and jingle all de vay down the aisle. After a while of listening to nonsense I said,"If we want to hear a running commentary, we'll buy the DVD. Please be quiet." We had silence for the rest of the movie.

Yup, the only time people shut up is when our cop goes in there. Two guys actually got into a fight the other day because one would not be quiet. I am just waiting for the day that one tries to screw around with out 6'5" cop.

[Seraphim]

#1 most important thing about to become extinct?















Penhaligon's English Fern, old formulation.
:cryin:

[Seraphim]

Talking with people recently, I have found that common sense is suffering a slow death.

"Reality TV" is the weapon used to effectively dumb down the population.

[BullGoose]

17. Ash Trees
In the late 1990's, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle,
now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North
America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia .. In less
than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the
Midwest , and continue to spread. They've killed more than 30
million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of
millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana . More than 7.5 billion ash
trees are currently at risk.

- Tom Paciorek, a former announcer for the Chicago White Sox, called this one several years ago. Whenever someone broke a bat he exclaimed that it is getting harder and harder to find a good piece of ash.

[mmack66]

"Reality TV" is the weapon used to effectively dumb down the population.

It is? How? And what does reality tv have to do with a supposed dwindling of common sense?

[whiteweed]

Saddening? I see nothing on there that is relevant or that technology has not beaten.

I do not think HAM Radio will go away as long as there are hurricanes, ice storms and things like that. My HT is in my pack when I hit the trail because I know my network won't be where I am going. Of course I am relying on a repeater. As far as bees if they go we might not bee very far behind. I wonder how much a pollinators job would pay. Or we could make a nano tech pollination device?

[Nancy Boy]

Cursive handwriting. Very sad.

[Bill Smith]

I still shoot with film in my cameras and write hand written letters.

[Doc4]

"Reality TV" is the weapon used to effectively dumb down the population.
Yeah, we were much smarter with Gilligan's Island and Three's Company. :001_rolle

Cursive handwriting. Very sad.

We don't allow swearing here, even when in handwritten form.

[Lo'Tek]

If "video killed the radio star",

then - MP3 is killing the Audiophile.
.
.
.

[WhosYerBob]

My status with all this:

25. U.S. Post Office - I still use the USPS on a monthly basis, though much less than a year ago when I began transitioning most of my bills over to online payments.

24. Yellow Pages - Yellow what? Haven't used the Yellow Pages in almost a decade, even though their door stops continue to be delivered to us.

23. Classified Ads - Haven't used the classifieds in about 5 years.

22. Movie Rental Stores - The local video store recently shuttered it's doors after 25 years and there isn't another available within 15 miles of us. Netflix put him out of business.

21. Dial-up Internet Access - We were early adopters of DSL and have never looked back.

20. Phone Land Lines - Just got rid of our land line in the past 6 months. Feels weird not to have one.

19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs - Having lived in the Bay region since the mid-1970s, this one really hurts. Earlier in the summer we were stunned to see a bushel of #1 males going for $315 (see photo below). Too rich for our blood.

18. VCRs - Got rid of ours years ago.

17. Ash Trees - Didn't know anything about this until a few months when we first noticed hundreds of purple sticky traps strung up in local trees by the state.

16. Ham Radio - Don't know of a single ham operator anymore and only see their license plates infrequently.

15 The Swimming Hole - All gone around here. Most of the local lakes are now "fresh water reservoirs" and forbid swimming as well.

14. Answering Machines - Got rid of ours when we stopped the land line service 6 months ago.

13. Cameras That Use Film - Got rid of my film cameras when I could get better results with digital, about 8 years ago.

12. Incandescent Bulbs - Switched over to compact fluorescent bulbs almost 20 years ago and never looked back. Will switch to LED bulbs when the price becomes affordable.

11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys - My last bowling experience was over 20 years ago.

10. The Milkman - We had milk being delivered to our house as recently as a few years ago, until the cost became too prohibitive. Sure miss it, though.

9. Hand-Written Letters - I still write letters to friends and family with a fountain pen, though not with the regularity that I once did.

8. Wild Horses - Still have a stable herd of them on Assateague Island here in Maryland, but I haven't seen any out in the western states since I was a kid.

7. Personal Checks - I wrote 3 checks last month, only to the businesses that didn't have an online payment process.

6. Drive-in Theaters - Used to love these as a kid, but haven't seen one since I was in high school.

5. Mumps & Measles - Remember my brother getting the mumps when I was kid, but I have a natural immunity to them.

4. Honey Bees - Not sure what to make of this. We've noticed the honey bee populations plummet in our area, but the local fruits and vegetables that require pollination haven't seemed to suffer from their decline. Odd.

3. News Magazines and TV News - Haven't watched the evening news in close to 10 years and stopped getting the major news magazines about 5 years ago. Still listen to news radio though.

2. Analog TV - Switched over to satellite service 15 years ago.

1. The Family Farm - We still buy local produce from local family farmers. Here in our area they seem to be generating more business than in the past.

[WhosYerBob]

I still shoot with film in my cameras...
Where do you get your color shots developed? We used to have access to print shops everywhere; now the closest one is 26 miles away...

[Mr. O]

Whoa wait! There are still milkmen that deliver to your home?:eek: Seriously? Where? That would be awesome!!!:w00t:

[gaseousclay]

- mailorder catalogs