Friday, December 2, 2016

Obsolescence

I miss having a watch that you had to wind up every day. (It was a nice morning ritual for me.) These days all watches seem to be battery powered.  I also miss vinyl records with their crackling imperfections.

Remember rotary phone dials?  My brother used to have a phone with a picture of the medieval scholar Roger Bacon in the dial hub.  I saw this documentary Manufactured Landscapes once where they showed a dump in China with about a million phone dials! (They had to go somewhere...)

Ever been in those big high schools and such that they built about a century ago?  Back then the door to each room would have a transom window on top so they could let out the hot air.  But today buildings have air conditioning so they aren't needed now.  Too bad, they were an elegant feature.

I also remember the age of paper grocery bags.  Back then they had bags of double-lined paper for frozen foods!  And we also got milk in glass bottles instead of plastic pouches and cardboard boxes.  And there were also freezers that you had to defrost!

I suppose that when I get a little older I'll start feeling obsolescent myself.  But such is life!

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