I was thinking about @jpop’s comment of how downloadable music would’ve been a godsend to him growing up in Eastern Europe. And it got me wondering if there were any cases where the reverse was true. Where an old technology is replaced and we lose something valuable as a result.

I remember a French teacher telling me how in the 1980s she went to what was then Yugoslavia and how she bought these beautiful hand-stiched colorful tablecloths. At the same time, the people in the village craved the vinyl tablecloths in the West that were easier to clean.

I know that we have lost the sounds of the high pitched squeeks that a dial up modem made before connecting, but I don’t consider that a loss. Quite the opposite.

I think one bit of technology that I do miss is “easter eggs.” Finding out about one and then getting it to work on your machine was always a thrill.

No one pumps gas for us anymore, but ourselves, in good weather or bad.

Vinyl 45 rpm records were very hard to play on the subway, or in other public places, and that was a good thing too.

No phone booths in which to get out of the rain, or grab a quick kiss......

I think some TV personalities looked much better on small black and white screens than on highly colorful, contrasty bright sharp modern large scale LCD screens.

I rather think dial up telephones were much better for conversations as people actually used them to make voice telephone calls, unlike modern cell phones which are rarely really used for talking to anyone these days.

I think weather forecasters, in the middle of the previous century, actually looked out the window before announcing forecasts - whereas today, I frequently see online weather predictions that are categorically wrong when I just look out the window... Like "no rain today", when it is raining cats, dogs, coyotes and fish in torrents of water.

I really pefer businesses that still employ real humans to answer their telephones, over the obvious robots answers, that are never, ever as smart as the one's I see google demonstrate.

I call my cable company, Spectrum, on MY Verizon CELL PHONE, to report that my cable TV, my VOIP Telephone, and my internet service are all down, and the robot suggests my wait will be much shorter if I go online to report my issue, since their answering service is TEMPORARILY overloaded - Well duh, I'm not the only one whose total serivce was down.

These are a few things that quickly come to mind - I may report more later as I contemplate the modern world a bit more.

One other thing I miss is silent, no video "enhanced" gasoline pumps - Large filling stations are noisy enough as it is, I really do not like being assaulted by video marketing junk while I am filling my gas tank. Older gas pumps were at least pretty quiet.

Putting up with loud aggressive marketing and loud exhausts of restarting vehicle engines, while I am pumping gas, is really hard to swallow. Makes me want to carry a can of nice black spray paint with me....

I can appreciate the quiet calm of the Tesla charging stations even though I am not yet an owner of one.

And now some idiots think we want to be marketed while standing in a check out line in the super market too. Where did I leave my black spray paint again??

My trash service has recently replaced human empoyees who picked up the trash and deposited into the trash truck bin, with a robot arm. The humans would always pick up obvious trash outside my trash bin and truck it away, but the robot arm now only picks up trash inside my blue home trash bin - but not everything fits inside my blue trash bin easily, unless I dis-assemble it with an axe or a hack saw or a cutting torch. Darn it.

The world is getting better and better each and every day - Not!!

Am I the only person grumpy enough for this thread??

Really???

I can actually remember when folks actually paid for things with real silver dollars too - back when I was a youngster. Silver dollars have held their value over the intervening years much better than the paper dollars most folks kept.

Real silver dollars are worth what the coin market will pay for them, but anywhere from 30 or 40 dollars to hundreds of dollars depending on their mint marks, year of mintage, and condition. Don't you wish your paper dollars grew in value with time too??

In a few months we may actually be watching our saved money in the bank grow smaller with the wisdom of negative interest rates....

I am actually amazed no one else has mentioned the effects of the switch from precious metal backed currencies to fiat currencies has in the real world.

The F1 rocket that powered the Saturn V.

It still holds up well and beats current engines in some metrics. There was even a modernized version that was designed to be used on the SLS:

cdn.arstechnica.net

New F-1B rocket engine upgrades Apollo-era design with 1.8M lbs of thrustDynetics and Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne rebuild the F-1 for the "Pyrios" booster.arstechnica.com

So it almost came back but due to budget cuts the SLS is mostly using leftover space shuttle parts.

One would not expect SRBs to be used on the SLS after the Challenger disaster. On another hand, Musk's first stage lands itself — to me this still looks like science fiction — and he got NASA a working "trampoline".

Those SBR's since then have been pretty reliable IIRC but there also was the issue that the shuttle didn't have an abort system and Orion will.

I remember reading that before the invention of cellophane, people used a lot of twine. We still used it in the 1970s and 1980s to tie up our newspapers for recycling. It used to be that places would actually pay you for your accumulations of newspapers. You would load up your station wagon with stacks of newspapers and drive onto a weight scale. They’d unload your newspapers, reweigh your vehicle, and then pay you the difference at a per pound rate. But before the invention of cellophane, tapes and other plastic adhesives, twine was ubiquitous in most homes.

Storage of twine was often inside of whimsical dispensers. I doubt there’s much demand for them in the antiques market, however, I find them interesting to look at: are our homes becoming less cluttered? Or bereft of beautiful artifacts such as Grandfather clocks and the below dispenser?

Vintage English Babbacombe Pottery Fox Head Twine and Scissor Holder Wall Hanging

Vintage English Babbacombe Pottery Fox Head Twine and Scissor Holder Wall HangingStunning, figural fox head string and scissor holder. Late 20th century piece made in England by Babbacombe Pottery. Sweet face with a glint in his eye, and when scissors are in the scissor holder, he transforms into a dapper, spectacled gentleman. Perfect for a craft room or kitchen.www.chairish.com

Attention @chris, @kevin, @Vilen, @StephenL

I'm posting on June 24.

For some reason this conversation shows up under Active as sixth from the top even though (prior to the publishing of my comment) the most recent showing comment is from June 13.

This may be indicative of a "feature" which could be gamed by the same mentality that stuffs irrelevant key search words onto websites. What I mean is this: If the reason that this is showing up today under active is that someone posted a comment and then later decided to delete it—

Then this could be exploited in the future by anyone seeking to keep a conversation near the top of the Active feed.

In other words, you may want to check the software to see whether or not this is indeed possible and if so (assuming that you would not want anyone to be able to do this) eliminate it from the coding.

I noticed this too earlier today, it appeared as Active, but I had already seen @StephenL comment about the pottery Fox seveal weeks ago too

I continue to see this thread at the top even after posting this comment just above - but it is a FEATURED thread, so maybe that's what is going on.

Pathfinder,

When I added my comment that definitely sent it to the top. When you added yours that also would send it to the top.

I was referring to the fact that before I added my comment, it was at #6 even though (at that time) nothing was displayed after June 13.