The 5 1/4″ floppy disk. Holding just over 1 megabyte of information, they were the proverbial shit. Until 3.5″ floppies became all the rage! Somewhere in a closet, Christopher has an old tape drive…and even better: a Zip Drive.
Yes, there was a time when you could hold 100 megabytes of information on single disk!
Of course, all those storage methods are now obsolete. We can now access well over 100 gigabytes on a micro SD card that’s a choking hazard to a two-year-old kid. (The past was such a safe place…never had to worry about a child choking on a copy of Zork!)
This week, we talk all about obsolete things. We really had a great time with this episode!
We begin by talking about the first thing we owned that ever went obsolete. After that, we jump to things that were around when we were younger — that doesn’t exist anymore…but we wish did.
Consumer products come and go (and a few lucky ones stick around a long time). We discuss our favorite failed consumer products, as well as those we wish succeeded…and those we were glad to see become obsolete and go away. Also: we talk about the consumer product we wish had failed, but still lingers on.
But it’s not just things that become obsolete over time. We talk about places we went to when we were younger that no longer exist. After that, we talk about people you don’t see anymore — and the type of person we wish would fade away.
There are more things made today than any other time in history. We discuss whether new things have a shorter life span today, or if it’s still about the same as it’s always been. After that, we talk about the “next big thing” we were surprised to see fail.
Things are becoming obsolete right now. We talk about recent memories of things fading into obscurity and wrap up this episode discussing the next things to vanish from our lives.
There might be a day when comment sections on blogs are obsolete, but as of today, they are still a thing. We’d love to hear your thoughts about obsolete things in the comments below.
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I remember listening to Don Ho on my grandmother’s 8-track, and playing kid’s records on her record player. 🙂
I’d like to see religion become obsolete, as well as factory farming and all forms of animal torture…
My prediction: So-called “non-virtual” reality will eventually be made obsolete by so-called “virtual” reality. I’m pretty sure on this (barring nuclear war, global plague, alien invasion, grey goo, etc).
Don Ho!
Yes, once we become physically linked to a network and can move about in the places we create…there’s no coming back from that. It’s something that fascinates me — I’m sure there will be some people who still log out and go hike on “real” trails…things like that. But if I can wander dreamscapes and fly and stuff…that’s going to become people’s reality.
New Coke tasted like poison. Almost as bad as Pepsi. On the other extreme, I miss Teem, the most refreshing of the citrus soft drinks. And I actually tried Jolt cola, more than once.
Here’s a fan page (not mine) of the most under-rated actor of ’79 and the 80s: http://chrismakepeace.homestead.com/ 🙂 I had a huge crush… 🙂
Chris Makepeace in Meatballs was a childhood hero. My Bodyguard…I related to that movie.