Dial-Up internet. Unfortunately, it’s still here because the ISPs continue to fail to deliver on the promise of expanding broadband over and over.
And because of that, it’s no wonder internet isn’t expanded to everywhere in the country of USA.
TIL: People are nostalgic about some odd stuff.
I mean, I recognize some memories as good when they occured, but I don’t wish to return to them. And others, I mean, sheesh.
Paper filing of taxes.
But this is the only method I trust to not surprise me with fees for a “free” service.
“Free-free-free, free-free, free. That’ll be $39.95.”
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Smoking. Black and white movie stars of the 40s and 50s made it look elegant and sophisticated, but you can’t smell a movie. And I don’t want to smell cigarette smoke.
I miss the smoking indoors. As a child who would attend political events with my parents, it gave rooms a misty haze of mystery and intrigue. Plus, you could always tell where the real political tables were by the density of the fog hanging over the table.
When people think men look “cool” smoking in those (which honestly, who thinks that anymore), they never think of the following 40 years. When I think of smoking now it isn’t the movies, it’s grandma and grandpa hacking and coughing, their sickly yellow walls of their house permanently stained with nicotine, and low gravely voices. Maybe you think you look cool for 5 years or so, and then it’s all downhill
I have very strong memories of fast food and going out with my family to restaurants like Applebees and Chilis. Family meals that I remember sitting together and ordering, the crayons at the table, bits and pieces come back.
As an adult, never try to relive those memories. The people are what you’re remembering, not the food or the atmosphere, and even then if you are the food and atmosphere are just gone. Leave the memories in the past, make new ones now. At better places.
VCRs.
Spent my childhood merrily taping things off the TV, and thought it was the best thing ever. i love those nostalgic whirring and clicking sounds as the tape loads.
But digital media is just the best, and tapes can stay in the past where they belong.
DVDs too. If I never burn another DVD again, that will be A-OK with me. I hate having to babysit those. Give me a hard drive, USB, or server to move data all day.
I don’t doubt it exists, but I’m kind of curious about workflows that still involve burning optical media in 2024.
The US military uses tapes for long term storage still
Tape is still the best long term storage medium though.
Burning DVDs was really a thing there for a hot minute. I remember buying them in big spindles of 50 at a time, and burning at least two or three a week.
Back then I already had my first ever USB flash drive, but they were still very expensive and small - 128MB was great for some documents, but no good for large files. And my PC’s hard drive was still only about 120GB or something.
DVDs were in their element. 4.7GBs of storage, and super cheap. I was using them to back up data and clear apace on my hard drive, and I was loading them up with content for friends, where I could just take a disc over their house and leave it there for them.
Then flash drives got bigger, and hard drives got bigger too, and that sweet spot the DVD occupied got squashed from both sides until poof, in just a few short years the age of the DVD was over.
… I still have probably 100 blank DVDs and a hundred blank CDs.
But I also have a 3.5" floppy drive so I’m not a good measure to go by on these things.
