March 2010
58 posts
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The Jobs Of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations →
NPR put up this excellent piece about obsoleted jobs the other day. I think there are some more contemporary professions they could’ve mentioned, but maybe that’s a job I’ll just have to tackle here… stay tuned!
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Paper Maps: Obsolete? Miller-McCune Online... →
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Not Impossible: The Rebirth of the Polaroid
Just read this excellent Wall Street Journal piece about The Impossible Project’s attempt to rebirth the Polaroid. I don’t know if that is a correct usage of the word rebirth—you can be reborn, I guess, but are you ever rebirthed? I know have the image in my haead of a vintage Polaroid camera coming out of a big gaping…uh, never mind. I’ll leave that image in my...
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A review of an obsolete book...
You know what’s fun about obsolescence as a meme? I can write about anything old and I don’t need to peg it to something going on now. It’s anti-news! This is a really good excuse to not feel guilty about not reading today’s paper. You know?
Here is I piece I just did for Vice Magazine’s Motherboard.tv
Some people sleep walk. Some sleep talk. I sleep shop....
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WatchThis Alfred Hitchcock Presents is about half an hour long, but the first minute or so is the part that I thought was Obsolete blog worthy: it features Alfred Hitchcock talking about how a record player could be made to be much simpler and user friendly. All you have to do is turn it into a gramophone! Duh!
Don’t get me wrong: the rest of the episode is definitely worth watching, too. It...
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WatchPart of the list of things I’ll miss about magazines when they become completely obsolete:
193: Getting paid to write for them
194: Finding something other than bills in my mailbox
195: Reading articles longer than 500 words
196: Rolling them up in order to bludgeon attackers
I’d like to say something like “Magazines are so much better than reading on screens because you...
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Nikola Tesla, Antonio Meucci and Andrew Leonardi
I just got this email from Andrea Leonardi of Italy. It’s pretty rare to get emails that mention Meucci, or, for that matter, Tesla. Sweet, no?
“I bought your book ‘Obsolete’ and I found it great: the guy in me (I’m 28), who grew in the late 80s and ‘started to think’ in the 90s, found all the stuff that belonged to his past! What a nostalgia!
“I...
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RSVP, RIP
Every now and then, one reads something and one thinks, “Sheesh, whoever wrote this is a real asshole.”
As a flawless human being, I am of course usually above thinking such thoughts. The world is full of beauty and kindness. I’ve learned this from observing Amos, my dog. If you look deep enough into anyone’s eyes, you’ll see that brightness. And if you smell...
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The Life and Death of the Rolodex
Just a few years ago there were no virtual social networks, no synchronized address books, and no smartphones. But people had social networks and phones, and they had to memorize and organize thousands of contacts. Or have a Rolodex.
When I was a kid, my dad had a Rolodex. Actually, my dad still has a Rolodex. My dad is one of the least organized people I know. In his apartment, he is good at...
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“Twitter seems like a busman’s holiday: just more writing. I have no plans...”
– Tina Fey - Esquire
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WatchI just came upon some info about this movie about the last year of Polaroid film. How did I not know about this already?!
Anyway, the trailer isn’t super informative but it has me intrigued. I hope to see the full shebang soon…
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Gizmodo asks: Is It Time To Consider Life Without... →
Book lover Rosa Golijan earned girl crush points today when she posted an obsolete computer that was made into a water pipe. Get ready for a braingasm, folks.
But, more importantly, she asks a question I get asked nearly daily: are paper books going the way of Fahrenheit 451?
This usually leads me to ask the only natural follow up question: What will happen to all the world’s book...
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WatchThis video about OBSOLETE, which was made by Mike Kravinsky of NextNik.com, was featured last week on ABC News Now. I posted the video when he first made it, but that was before it was featured on old school teleovision! Thanks again, Mike!