What modern invention/innovation do you wish had *never* been developed?

[Stearmen]

When I painted my living room last month and re-hung the mantel, I noticed it's almost two inches off level. Right now I've got the low end shimmed up with two folded squares of cardboard and several pieces of a Sherwin-Williams paint stirrer. My house is built on the slope of a hill, but I never realized it sloped *that* much. Does explain why it's hard to keep the mantel clock running right.

How does that old saying go? Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution.

 

[sheeplady]

I have an older style flip phone, and you wouldn't believe the people I work with, that would love to get something "simple" like this one again. It has a camera, but no "I" anything, or apps, and when I close the phone I know the conversation is over.

It's pretty much the closest thing you will get to slamming down a receiver too.

Pushing a little touch screen just fails to give the same level of satisfaction, doesn't it?

 

[jamespowers]

I have an older style flip phone, and you wouldn't believe the people I work with, that would love to get something "simple" like this one again. It has a camera, but no "I" anything, or apps, and when I close the phone I know the conversation is over.

You have the same thing I do.

 

[Matt Crunk]

I have an older style flip phone, and you wouldn't believe the people I work with, that would love to get something "simple" like this one again. It has a camera, but no "I" anything, or apps, and when I close the phone I know the conversation is over.

One thing that impressed me when I first met country music artist Vince Gill in a Nashville music spot I used to frequent, was his phone. Obviously Vince could afford any of latest and greatest new "smart" phones on the market, but instead he carried a very simple old-style flip phone. I think it's little things like that which say a lot about a person.

 

[Gregg Axley]

Well Sheeplady, it's as close to slamming down the phone as I can get.
But turning it off gives me even more satisfaction, and letting my calls go to voicemail.

Earlier today, a coworker told me that many phone plans with a 3g will have to go to a 4g or they will be dropped.
Fine, I found another flip phone that will work on 4g. :eusa_clap

 

[jamespowers]

Well Sheeplady, it's as close to slamming down the phone as I can get.
But turning it off gives me even more satisfaction, and letting my calls go to voicemail.

Earlier today, a coworker told me that many phone plans with a 3g will have to go to a 4g or they will be dropped.
Fine, I found another flip phone that will work on 4g. :eusa_clap

lol lol

 

[Mme Dariaux]

I apologise in advance, for even I do understand this is really quite partcular and nit-picky, but it would have been better if the raschel knit apparatus had not been invented. Many unpleasant synthetic knits are produced by it, and especially horrible plastic laces which simply should not exist. The few passable articles produced by raschel could perfecty well be substituted with products of other machines.

 

[AvavanBlythe]

really ...well...

you like your cell phone you can keep your cell phone...

eace:

laughing so hard here.....

Lol, well I was thinking about needing a tow on a country road, late at night. No pay phones available. Worse if it's raining. If you're having an emergency, it's good to have a cheap, prepaid phone with just enough minutes to make a call.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The homeowner's insurance industry. Redlining is alive and well in a working-class neighborhood near you. But I'm not gonna make it easy for them.

 

[Zombie_61]

Lol, well I was thinking about needing a tow on a country road, late at night. No pay phones available. Worse if it's raining. If you're having an emergency, it's good to have a cheap, prepaid phone with just enough minutes to make a call.

I concur; cell phones can become an invaluable tool in an emergency situation. Unfortunately, the moment you need it most is usually the same moment when you can't get a signal. lol

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

Yeah I'm thinking of getting a phone just for emergency use, but don't want the temptation of pecking away at the "keyboard" every spare moment that most folks seem to do who own them. Nor do I need an expensive calling plan for something I'd use maybe once a year.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I concur; cell phones can become an invaluable tool in an emergency situation. Unfortunately, the moment you need it most is usually the same moment when you can't get a signal. lol

A flare pistol in the glove compartment can serve a similar purpose. Never any signal problems with that!

 

[Stearmen]

Yeah I'm thinking of getting a phone just for emergency use, but don't want the temptation of pecking away at the "keyboard" every spare moment that most folks seem to do who own them. Nor do I need an expensive calling plan for something I'd use maybe once a year.

I have had this smart phone for over three years. The other day I noticed the green light flashing telling me I had a call. I checked the recent phone calls, nothing, checked my missed messages, nothing, then I noticed the Text symbol, sure enough, I had gotten a text message. I didn't even know I had that, and people, apparently have been texting me for three years! I still don't text, don't see the point when I can simply call them.

 

[jamespowers]

I have had this smart phone for over three years. The other day I noticed the green light flashing telling me I had a call. I checked the recent phone calls, nothing, checked my missed messages, nothing, then I noticed the Text symbol, sure enough, I had gotten a text message. I didn't even know I had that, and people, apparently have been texting me for three years! I still don't text, don't see the point when I can simply call them.

I disabled the text feature.

 

[Stearmen]

I disabled the text feature.

I thought I did?

 

[1mach1]

A flare pistol in the glove compartment can serve a similar purpose. Never any signal problems with that!

 

[Edward]

I still don't text, don't see the point when I can simply call them.

It's a fascinating thing, texting. When I had my first phone, there was nothing in the design to facilitate user texts. I remember a friend first showing me how to text with it in the pub one night... a wondrous thing. SMS were only ever designed to be used to check for line faults - it hadn't occured to the networks that there was a consumer use for them until it took off. The second phone I got, as every handset since, was designed for texts. They took off in the UK primarily because for many years it was so expensive to call across networks, and at any given time at least two third of your friends would be on different networks. A text, on the other hand, was relatively cheap, and price did not vary by network. Also, on-peak (8am-7pm) calls were lethally expensive in those days too. Things are very different now, but texting is still a popular means of contact - much easier than leaving or retrieving a voicemail (the first thing I've done with any phone account has been to disable voicemail, won't waste my time with it), useful for communicating phone numbers or email or things that might get lost in the speaking on a voicemail, or even for when one needs to communicate information to omeone but simply don't have the time to get caught in a communication.

Interestingly, texting volume has dropped off in the UK in recent years. The consumer research people say it's because the way kids are communicating is different. Teenagers tend to be on pay as you go contracts, and with smartphones now are much more likely to do much of their messaging via free apps such as Skype. Especially cheap given how many places nowadays offer free wifi.

The days of the landline are definitely numbered (British Telecom, then still the state monopoly GPO Telephony, were prediciting this in the early eighties); once home broadband connections become better and cheaper via 4G, there will be no longer any practical reason to have a UK landline. It's less than a decade away.

 

[sheeplady]

Gamergate.

Although I guess the roots of Gamergate are as old as humanity itself.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The days of the landline are definitely numbered (British Telecom, then still the state monopoly GPO Telephony, were prediciting this in the early eighties); once home broadband connections become better and cheaper via 4G, there will be no longer any practical reason to have a UK landline. It's less than a decade away.

It's going to be a lot longer than that here -- vast swaths of the US are still served primarily by copper wire lines, not just for telephone service but for internet as well. Even cell towers, to an extent, are still dependent on this system.

Telecommunications change comes to the United States very gradually. There were still manual telephone exchanges in rural sections of the country well into the 1970s -- and the last of these didn't get cut over to dial service until 1982.

 

[vitanola]

It's going to be a lot longer than that here -- vast swaths of the US are still served primarily by copper wire lines, not just for telephone service but for internet as well. Even cell towers, to an extent, are still dependent on this system.

Telecommunications change comes to the United States very gradually. There were still manual telephone exchanges in rural sections of the country well into the 1970s -- and the last of these didn't get cut over to dial service until 1982.

The last big city manual exchanges (New York City) were cut over to machine switching only in 1978. The last local battery (magneto, or "crank") exchange (Bryant Pond, ME) cut over to 2ESS in 1982. The las t multiple board local battery exchange (Kerman CA) cut over to a DMS-100 only in 1991. Heck, the last step-by-step (Strowger) dial plant, a Western Electric 355A in use here n the 'states was only replaced in 1999.