As I said, circulation (and attendance) is way, way up. There’s no way you can bend the stats to say “libraries are on their way out.”
Exactly. Tech trends mean little to a non tech society. So, another question might be, when will the world be similar to that of Heinlein’s Friday?
Wow, that would make a great cosplay uniform part for lots of different book series. Anybody know a source for that particular uniform? What country etc?
I thought about this thread this morning while I was in church, and wrote out a check for the collection plate. Yes, they do take cash, but I do like the tax deduction. 
We don’t have a Square, but I was surprised to see a PayPal link on the church’s website. IDK if anyone’s ever used it.
That’s my experience, too. And the Web has made libraries much more convenient - reserve books online, get an email or text when they’re waiting for you, go in and pick them up.
You can get a cheap camera with 8x optical zoom. Does your phone’s camera have 8x optical zoom, or enough pixels to fake it digitally?
While I don’t see this happening anytime soon, I’m amazed that over-the-airwaves broadcast television is still around, outside of rural areas. ~90% of TV watchers watch broadcast TV via their cable or satellite connection as it is.
An FCC requirement that cable companies provide what are now broadcast channels to everyone, subscriber or no, would allow broadcast TV to cease in areas where cable coverage is complete (i.e. pretty much every metro area in the country, from center city to outer 'burbs), and free up an absolutely enormous pile of spectrum in those areas.
The market for them (cheap P&S digitals) may be drying up, according to some websites. Photo Rumors and Nikon Rumors were talking about that just the other day, speculating that Nikon might even get into the cell phone business in some form or another to make up for the shrinking low level P&S market.
Some of this tongue in cheek, but some is serious. The Rumors sites have a fairly decent track record, tho they do often exaggerate some things.
Rolodexes. (Aren’t they obsolete already?)
Wrist watches. (I hope not; I love watches)
How do friends pay each other in Europe, then? You know, if one friend buys two tickets to a soccer/football game, say, and the other pays him back. Or if one friend sells the other a piece of furniture he’s owned for a while. All this is done with cash? Or else arranging a wire transfer at a bank?
This surprised me, too, but unlike you, it still surprises me. My wife and I use ours a lot. Not counting work I do at home, I’d say we print something out about once a day – our weekly family schedule, a recipe (although I have cooked with the laptop next to the stove as well), someone’s long email you want to savor far from a gizmo…
Whenever I listen to AM (in the car, maybe for an hour, three or four times a year), it’s to catch a live sports event I don’t want to miss. As I search for the station, I’ll enjoy a few minutes of Spanish-language news, music, and banter.
So, if the Gummint shuts down AM radio, it will be mainly because they hate sports and Spanish speakers. :rolleyes:
Cash or online banking.
I’ve barely even seen a check in my life, and certainly never written one. I have some vague memories of them existing when I was a kid in the eighties.
Two words: Fire Code.
Interesting, thanks!
Fine for you, but there are people in the world that don’t need or want to be “online” for everything. I for one will never use a “smartphone” till they stop using cash. Why would I pay extortionate rates to have a machine I rarely use? Unfortunately, it’s becoming almost impossible to obtain a mobile that doesn’t have all sorts of crap on it that I don’t want, but have to pay for anyway.
My UK bank still issues me with personal cheques.
Nuh-uh. Compasses won’t be obsolete for a long time. If you’re a serious hiker, boater or SCUBA diver, there’s no way you’ll ditch the mechanical/magnetic compass and rely solely on electronics.
The batteries in a “hiking” type GPS will have run out on the second or third day away from a charger or a store that sells batteries, if not before during wintertime. And salt water has never been and will never be particularly healthy for electronics.
Checks, however, are obsolete already on our side of the pond. For a few decades, at least.
The sort of doors he was talking about can’t be opened without a key anyway. Fire doors would still exist, of course, but they can only be opened from the inside.
Three words: Paper, Cellophane, Banana.
How about stand alone GPS units? Tom-Tom and Garmin used to be the hottest items at retailers. Now with the feature on everyone’s smart phone or built into new vehicles display screens they really seemed to disappear.