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Things That Are Fading Away

Change is part of life and our world is constantly changing to fit our needs and to keep up with technology.  We older folks have seen the typewriter replaced by the computer and the clothes line replaced by dryers. Though here in Nicaragua, dryers are relatively rare still but that is because electricity is expensive and labor is cheap. The hours we used to spend on pay phones. Not everything has been completely replaced though; many things have simply been updated such as early cameras to a digital camera.  Many things have not changed much at all. For example, cars are essentially still four wheels with a carriage on it even after 120 years. Fancier but still just gets us from point A to B. Those who adapt to the change will be the ones to thrive or at least hang on longer in the changing world.  All others will be left behind.

It should be mentioned that marketing plays a major role. If you doubt that then remember that Pepsi and Coca-Cola are just sugared water companies. You don’t need to be a professional marketer at Yeah! Local to be found arguing that Apple Computer is more of a marketing company than a technology company. They have convinced us that we must have their products and are willing to replace it every two or three years.

Nobody likes the Internet more than me but the price is high especially with the reduction of direct social interaction and the government gathering information on us for unknown reasons. What worries me the most is that if the whole Internet system were to fail then all communications would be gone and many businesses would be out of business.

Several people have written similar articles and too many to give them credit but I have added several lists together and added my own thoughts especially if different in Nicaragua. Here are thoughts and comments on things that may disappear in our lifetime and I’m speaking for the older generation. You may not agree with all of my opinions but it is an interesting topic.

The Check

Banks are already laying the groundwork to do away with checks in the near future. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions are responsible for the demise of the check. The result of this means less mail traffic and the post office will suffer even more. Plastic cards do not have a long future ahead of them.

I haven’t written a check in many years and I live in Nicaragua. For many years I worked with a major commercial credit firm. Even then companies and individuals were writing checks instead of electronic transfers simply to get more float time. Float time is the time from writing the check, mailing the check then the bank eventually debiting your account. When dealing with millions or billions of dollars in transactions, a float time of a week could save you a lot of money in interest. There is little float time in an electronic transfer of funds.

When my career was just starting out I did not have a lot of money so I would write a check to American Express then use the American Express to pay the Visa card then use the Visa card to pay the MasterCard. Remember being able to write checks out on credit cards?

The Post Office

They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to save it even though they have had decades to mimic their destroyers such as UPS, Federal Express and DHL. I have no idea why it now exists except the cost of laying off so many people. They should have shut down the Post Office when they decided to start hiring people for the TSA in the airports.  They could have just retrained the Post Office people instead of those idiots they hired for security in airports. We essentially do not have mail down here and don’t miss it except for the delivery of new credit/debit cards.

We lived on a farm so we would see the mail man drive by and we would race to the mailbox at the end of our lane. It was exciting to find a catalog, a magazine and the daily newspaper.

Newspapers and Magazines

God, I miss the Sunday newspaper. We would sit around the breakfast table reading and swapping sections of the newspaper. It was a learning experience to read Life, Popular Science, National Geographic and radical ones like Mother Earth News. The writers were well known, intelligent and they would research their material so it could be trusted. The younger generation doesn’t read the newspapers and it is not the same reading it on a screen, especially a small screen like a tablet, IPad or IPhone. Our lives have changed and we no longer have an hour to read the news, just the headlines via the Internet. For one year I subscribed to the online version of Time Magazine. It was a dizzying array of videos, click here for more info and so few pages. Not everything has improved with the Internet.

It is sad but now we need everything in tweets of less than 140 characters or a FaceBook posting. Since it costs nothing and it is difficult to sort through the trash we must now listen to and read from a noisy minority. We no longer can tell what majority views are due to the noisy minority. And eventually all of this won’t be free as we see more ads on our FaceBook and even on our Kindles. Remember when cable TV came out and for a low monthly fee, you will never see another ad? Right, that lasted about three years. Commercialism really can screw things up!

The Book

So many friends say they will never stop reading the physical book, enjoy the smell of a good book and love turning the pages. Well, books are on the way out. Reading on a Kindle, IPad, Nook or tablet has so many advantages. You can carry in your pocket or purse thousands of books, order a book and be reading it within a couple minutes, read in the dark and not be in danger of dropping a large book on your face while in bed. Sure, there will be some books for quite a while especially like reference books, coffee table books and ones to impress your friends like the entire Mark Twain series.

My mother read to me as a child which started a lifetime of reading. My personal favorite is and has always been science fiction. I resisted like so many others but once I read a book on my tablet I found it difficult to go back to books. I wear bifocals and trying to read the curled pages of a book is much more difficult. No, I enjoy reading but books will fade away.

When we lived in the states, we had almost 5,000 books in our library. When we moved to Nicaragua we brought down quite a few books and even now probably have over 1,000 books but when we move to our new home in September, the majority of books will be left behind. Having a large library showed you were literate and possibly knowledgeable but we no longer need to impress people. I’d like to say we had them to share with reader friends but I doubt if 1% of the books were ever read by others. It is easier to refer them to Amazon to get it themselves. And how many books do you read again? A few favorites but not many.

I’m not saying all books will disappear but the majority will be disappearing and for some reason, that is sad. Not having a physical book does make it seem less real. More and more things in our lives are becoming temporary.

Unfortunately, the reason for being for libraries will fade also. The only thing keeping them is that they have evolved into community centers. Few children research books anymore, they go to the Internet. Some have tried to hang on by offering electronic books but you do not need a physical building for that. Libraries will continue to exist mostly due to their free services. Libraries will continue to exist longer here in Nicaragua due to the poverty and less access to high-speed Internet.

The Land Line Telephone

Party lines used to be so much fun but the land line is fast disappearing. It is still fairly common in Nicaragua for homes and especially businesses. The problem with cell phones is that they are mobile and tied to a person while a business or other entity needs to be contacted. Many people keep it simply because they’ve always had it.

My father and grandfather loved the granddaddy of them all – the Citizens Band (CB) radio. Being into science fiction I thought it was so cool that you converse with people in other countries without a land phone and an operator. Amy was in real estate so she got one of the first mobile phones which looked like a military walkie-talkie. It was even in a green canvas bag. I love that name since it describes what it does so well, you can walk while you talk. When Amy and I got our first cell phones I would get so upset when she would get a call in a public place and start talking. I thought it was discourteous and would ask her to leave the store while conversing. Of course now, people take calls everywhere even while they are talking with you.

Corporate Music

The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It’s the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Opportunities on the Internet such as online radios and websites like Pandora allow people to listen for free and reach the masses directly without a company. To explore this interesting topic further, check out the book, “Appetite for Self-Destruction” by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, “Before the Music Dies.”

I have to admit that I am part of the problem since I no longer purchase music; just download it off the Internet. My favorite music is prior to the 90s and especially the 60-70s. It bothers me to have to purchase a song which I have bought several times before on an album or 45. I believe an artist should profit from his work but only for a few years then it should be public domain. I will not pay ITunes money for something I had purchased before. I remember when the Beatles sold their music rights to Michael Jackson. It makes no sense to me to pay his company for something the Beatles created.

Network Television

Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed to their computers. And they’re playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes.  People will choose what they want to watch online and through companies like Netflix, Hulu or the various free options.

I have pretty much stopped watching TV simply because of the amount of commercials. I do love movies, though.

Personal Files

This is referring to keeping your data on your own computer, memory stick, CD or even paper copies. Even though I have been in computers since 1967 I am a bit of a dinosaur in this regard. I do keep a physical or electronic copy of all of my data though cloud services are starting be used.   A $15 memory stick that holds 32 gigabytes of data makes this easy to do.

I love the marketing efforts by businesses. Everyone speaks of cloud services as if it was something new. There is no cloud; you are simply storing your information on someone else’s system. In the corporate world we used to call this decentralized computing meaning a copy of your data was on several systems and it has been around since the 70s.

The main advantage of these cloud services is that you have access to your photos, data and programs wherever you have access to the Internet which is quite handy. It also saves the software companies a lot of money since you can simply download a purchased program from the cloud instead of getting a CD. Sometimes the program remains on the cloud and you simply purchase access to it. For example, the programs I use to create and maintain my websites are not on my computer so I can do my work anywhere there is access to the Internet. The problem is that when the Internet is down or having problems I cannot work.

Privacy

This is the biggest problem with living in the current age. We no longer have any privacy. We have cameras everywhere, we carry devices that can be tracked and whenever you buy something online, files are being updated somewhere. This is the highest price of better technology.

Remember when you could visit a Caribbean island with just your driver’s license or any ID? No one would even know you went on a trip. Now parents spy on kids, companies spy on their employees and governments spy on their citizens. The new definition of civilization. So why can’t we catch more of the bad guys?

Fax Machine

Ever since the introduction of e-mail, the fax machine has not been needed or used as much.  The major reason remains the need for a signed document if the company cannot accept transmitted scanned images or a photo. This never made much sense since a fax is a scanner and a transmitter over the phone lines. With the Androids and IPhones being so popular now, most accept documents relayed through their smart phones. People are using their devices to display their boarding passes at airports.

This remains a mystery to me or the technology companies have a lot of political clout. Most of us now can easily photoshop a signature or just forge the signature. I’m sure it would not be difficult to alter any electronic document.

Signatures are still checked down here by the Nica banks. Several times I have had to resign a document because they did not think my signature matched what was on file.

Things That You Own

We may not own many of our future possessions though it is not an entirely new idea. Do you really own your own home before you pay off the mortgage? If you buy furniture at Rooms To Go and the interest does not start for five years, you will probably not pay it off before it disintegrates into particle board flakes. Did you really own it? Depends on the difference between owning something and possessing something.

When you sign up with Amazon for Kindle books, your agreement states you do not own the purchased books, you are simply leasing them. As we discussed previously, you simply download purchased software, music and books electronically and even then it may be on the Cloud. So you really just own the rights and nothing physical. Even then, your heirs do not get anything upon your demise except perhaps your wife. We truly are entering a virtual world and it is controlled by the corporations.

Joined Handwriting – Cursive

Some schools no longer teach handwriting which is driving many people crazy. When I first heard this I thought it was deplorable to not teach basic handwriting but other than your signature and writing a check, when do you use handwriting? It has been decades since I handwrote something and then it was usually something I printed like a sign. When do you not use a keyboard?

But I remember when schools would not allow slide rules for an exam then later calculators or personal computers. I remember when dot matrix printers were not allowed for submitted papers and even the Internet could not be used for research on book reports. These times are a changing!

I do like the typical Nica signature and it is not always the case but it is often more of a symbol than the writing out of their full name.

Conclusion

It is a changing world but it is a world we have chosen by voting with our dollars. My greatest concern is the lack of social interchange. Yes, people will get together for drinks or for meals but that is about it. If I counted the number of characters I exchange with friends and associates the vast majority would be from text messages, emails, FaceBook postings and messaging. Though the Internet has allowed me to easily converse with people that I don’t even know from anywhere in the world. That’s pretty cool!

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