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Things That Will Soon Disappear Forever
Kiplinger Magazine ^ | February 2017No date | By David Muhlbaum, Online Editor and John Miley, ReporterNo author

Posted on 03/18/2017 6:04:20 PM PDT by upchuck

Complete article here: http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/business/T057-S001-7-things-that-will-soon-disappear/index.html

Quick list:

1. Keys - Keys, at least in the sense of a piece of brass cut to a specific shape, are going away.

2. Blackouts - Frustrating power outages that leave people with fridges full of ruined food are on their way out as our electrical grid becomes increasingly intelligent – and resilient.

3. Fast-food workers - Burger-flippers have targets on their backs as fast-food executives are eager to replace them with machines, particularly as minimum wages in a variety of states are set to rise to $15.

4. The clutch pedal - Every year it seems that an additional car model loses the manual transmission option. Even the Ford F-150 pickup truck can’t be purchased with a stick anymore.

5. College textbooks - By the end of this decade, digital formats for tablets and e-readers will displace physical books for assigned reading on college campuses. K–12 schools won’t be far behind, though they’ll mostly stick with larger computers as their platform of choice.

6. Dial-up Internet - According to a study from the Pew Foundation, only 3% of U.S. households went online via a dial-up connection in 2013. Thirteen years before that, only 3% had broadband (Today, 70% have home broadband). Massive federal spending on broadband initiatives, passed during the last recession to encourage economic recovery, has helped considerably.

7. The plow - Modern farmers have little use for it. It provides a deep tillage that turns up too much soil, encouraging erosion because the plow leaves no plant material on the surface to stop wind and rain water from carrying the soil away. It also requires a huge amount of diesel fuel to plow, compared with other tillage methods, cutting into farmers' profits. The final straw: It releases more carbon dioxide into the air than other tillage methods.

8. Your neighborhood mail collection box - The amount of mail people are sending is plummeting, down 57% from 2004 to 2015 for stamped first-class pieces. So, around the country, the U.S. Postal Service has been cutting back on those iconic blue collection boxes. The number has fallen by more than half since the mid 1980s. Since it costs time and fuel for mail carriers to stop by each one, the USPS monitors usage and pulls out boxes that don't see enough traffic.

9. Your privacy - If you are online, you had better assume that you already have no privacy and act accordingly. Every mouse click and keystroke is tracked, logged and potentially analyzed and eventually used by Web site product managers, marketers, hackers and others. To use most services, users have to opt-in to lengthy terms and conditions that allow their data to be crunched by all sorts of actors.

10. The incandescent lightbulb - No, government energy cops are not coming for your bulbs. But the traditional incandescent lightbulb that traces its roots back to Thomas Edison is definitely on its way out. As of January 1, 2014, the manufacture and importation of 40- to 100-watt incandescent bulbs became illegal in the U.S., part of a much broader effort to get Americans to use less electricity.


TOPICS: Society
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To: upchuck
10. The incandescent lightbulb - No, government energy cops are not coming for your bulbs. But the traditional incandescent lightbulb that traces its roots back to Thomas Edison is definitely on its way out. As of January 1, 2014, the manufacture and importation of 40- to 100-watt incandescent bulbs became illegal in the U.S., part of a much broader effort to get Americans to use less electricity.

Bullshit. I bought new incandescent lightbulbs yesterday at my local Menards. They've never stopped carrying them, neither has the local Lowes, Home Depot or Ace Hardware. Fact check much?

81 posted on 03/18/2017 7:08:15 PM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: akalinin

Toyota Tacomas have them as an option. Mine is a 6 speed.


82 posted on 03/18/2017 7:10:05 PM PDT by wally_bert (I didn't get where I am today by selling ice cream tasting of bookends, pumice stone & West Germany)
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To: upchuck

Here in Oklahoma we will always have ice storms and tornadoes. I am not giving up my generator. I will give up my six speed standard Shelby GT500 when they pry the steering wheel from my cold dead hands.


83 posted on 03/18/2017 7:10:19 PM PDT by SVTCobra03 (You can never have enough friends, horsepower or ammunition.)
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To: Bryanw92

>>People shoot transformers all the time around here. Snipers! LOL.

Why? Are they good eatin’? :)


84 posted on 03/18/2017 7:10:29 PM PDT by vikingd00d (chown -R us ~u/base)
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To: upchuck
1. Keys - Keys, at least in the sense of a piece of brass cut to a specific shape, are going away.

When the EMP SHTF happens how are people going to open all those gun safes equipped with electronic keypad locks or biometric fingerprint locks?


85 posted on 03/18/2017 7:11:13 PM PDT by Vlad The Inhaler ("Prepare Now - You never know when today really is the day before.....)
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To: vikingd00d

>>Why? Are they good eatin’? :)

They go well with beer.


86 posted on 03/18/2017 7:11:34 PM PDT by Bryanw92 (If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.)
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To: upchuck
The clutch pedal - Every year it seems that an additional car model loses the manual transmission option. Even the Ford F-150 pickup truck can’t be purchased with a stick anymore.

Because driving a 10-speed auto with panel shifters is soo much fun.

87 posted on 03/18/2017 7:11:48 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: umgud

Those old 2 speed powerglides must have had magic in them.

Around 1964, I was riding with a friend in his Impala which had a 300HP 327 and a powerglide. At 65 he stomped it and to my amazement it downshifted and stayed in low til around 75.


88 posted on 03/18/2017 7:12:35 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: upchuck
FWIW, Ad Block Plus says it is blocking 12 ads and/or graphics and Ghostery says it is blocking 22 trackers; 16 advertising, 3 site analytics, 2 social media and 1 comments. I’m using Slim Jet as a browser. Based on Chrome.

Beyond pop-up ads, I'm talking about the stupid design of "columns" that require you to click on each point they're touting. I HATE that kind of format. Why not just put the darned column in one page, instead of this weird click, click, click crap?

89 posted on 03/18/2017 7:13:33 PM PDT by WXRGina (Repeal and DON'T replace!)
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To: upchuck

I don’t see keys going away anytime soon.


90 posted on 03/18/2017 7:15:23 PM PDT by rwa265
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To: Enterprise

Deodorants?


91 posted on 03/18/2017 7:16:29 PM PDT by TexasGator
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To: House Atreides

I was looking for something in my in-laws basement last week, and there’s a Royal and an IBM Selectric down there.


92 posted on 03/18/2017 7:16:51 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: upchuck

1,2,4,10- nope, not going away.


93 posted on 03/18/2017 7:17:34 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: BenLurkin

I haven’t had to buy a comb for quite awhile.


94 posted on 03/18/2017 7:18:46 PM PDT by wjcsux (The hyperventilating of the left means we are winning! (Tagline courtesy of Laz.))
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To: beethovenfan

I’m gonna miss #4 manual transmission. It was on the Mustang my mom bought me when I was 15 1/2 [the first year Mustangs came out] and it had been harder and harder to buy it on newer cars.


95 posted on 03/18/2017 7:19:05 PM PDT by BunnySlippers (I LOVE BULL MARKETS!!!)
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To: upchuck

Authors and dates will also be disappearing.


96 posted on 03/18/2017 7:19:49 PM PDT by aspasia
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To: upchuck
Thanks for the humor, but a gentle correction if I may: We don’t need CO2 to live but plants do. We will die from starvation.

Technically, every carbon atom in your body--the basis of every fat, protein, sugar, and nucleic acid--came from carbon dioxide "fixed" by plants. Essentially, we are made of carbon dioxide.

In addition, we use carbonic acid--the acid carbon dioxide makes when it is dissolved in water--to regulate the pH of our blood. We get sufficient quantities of carbon dioxide from the metabolism of our cells to regulate our blood pH quite adequately, and change the rate of breathing to keep the concentration of carbon dioxide constant in our blood.

97 posted on 03/18/2017 7:21:07 PM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: nopardons

Try out the surfacenter pro 4


98 posted on 03/18/2017 7:24:10 PM PDT by TexasGator
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To: COBOL2Java

Good one, you old-time. COBOL is the tell, born in the fourties, schooled in the fifteys, worked at a terminal with green striped printouts in the sixties. Made a ton of money in 1999 too, I’ll bet.


99 posted on 03/18/2017 7:25:05 PM PDT by SandwicheGuy (*The butter acts as a lubricant and speeds up the CPU)
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To: BunnySlippers

Easy to get on mustang


100 posted on 03/18/2017 7:28:04 PM PDT by TexasGator
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