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Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Ejected

posted by on May 9 at 6:58 AM

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Joining Woolworths and HMV, England’s biggest electronics retailer, Curry’s, will no longer sell cassettes.

And as this wisftul article in the Sun reports:


And beware, here are other devices we reckon could be on the way out next:

Answering machines
Fax machines
Portable CD players
Watches

Watches? Watches?? Aw shit, Jonah you were right.

RSS icon Comments

1

I think CD players are already headed toward extinction--and not just the portable kind.

Posted by Boomer in NYC | May 9, 2007 7:05 AM
2

nurses will keep watches alive.

Posted by stacy | May 9, 2007 7:11 AM
3

watches probably won't be used as a functional item anymore, but more of a status symbol.

Posted by konstantConsumer | May 9, 2007 7:15 AM
4

Watches, not any time soon ... like konstantConsumer said, they'll evolve into status symbols, or fashion items. Evidence: recent proliferation of super geeky but stylish watches that often make telling time harder. See Tokyowatch.

Posted by Gloria | May 9, 2007 7:21 AM
5

Watches can be sexy.

CD players...not so much.

Posted by Mr. Poe | May 9, 2007 7:55 AM
6

i can't believe any place still sells cds, let alone tapes.

Posted by um | May 9, 2007 7:58 AM
7

What #3 said. A friend of mine teaches watch repair at North Seattle Community college and it's a very hard program to graduate from (it's funded by Rolex). His wife works at Fox's Jewlers and watched make up a lot of their sales.

I look forward to the end of fax machines. A pdf file by email is so much easier and it's a lot less noisy.

Posted by elswinger | May 9, 2007 8:06 AM
8

I read it on a Sassy magazine page/ if you make a girl a mix-up tape/ she will know you dig her/ she will know/ you're in love with her

Posted by Josh Feit | May 9, 2007 8:10 AM
9

Having just finished reading Love Is a Mixtape, this makes me a little sad. Of course, I haven't made a proper mixtape myself in years.

Posted by Levislade | May 9, 2007 8:40 AM
10

Fuck, I feel old all of a sudden. I still use all that stuff.

Cassettes I can live without. I can see the end of Fax and answering machines. But watches? No way! The only way you're getting my watch is to pull it from my cold dead wrist!

Posted by SDA in SEA | May 9, 2007 8:44 AM
11

@7 -12 houses down the block during my pre-teens, a watch-repairer lived. the neighborhood was geriatric, and i would guess the house today might sell for 75k? after mowing his lawn, i'd go in and "watch";) him work. very nice man.

i'm at times relieved to get the fax noise blip zzziiiiing chuuhhhhh when i dial a number. often more interesting than what the person/recording would have had to say, or to put it more plainly, "i will now pass the buck, thank, have niceday!-zzzz

pdf's? i don't know, i've got no Microsoft suite. And because they were loading us up with the necessary ADVICE for MARKETING ourselves, must get that this thut thoot, i went out and bought a cheap scanner 2 years ago. Works begrudingly, bugs, difficult drivers, blinks for no reason, annoying options that probably don't touvchch the overload of other more 'reliable' brands. -
(I'll Post Drawings and Paintings soon on Vox)
So my resume has been scanned from hard copy into pdf. Not many employers accept or are seemingly happy with that. often i get not even a "your resume has been received"

and good riddance to cassettes. i can barely control myself at 2nd time around, half-price books and everyday music. maybe i'll scan those and post 'em on Vox for an eBid type of thing. most interesting comment gets a copy of - yeasterday's filler $2.49! Ripoff!
Midnight in Moscow choral
Glen Campbell greatest
Monster rem
Amplified Heart was already given to the street singer/guitarist I accompany for hours at a time

still, Wordpad is my fave for journal writing. does anyone need my iPode? -1200 twee songs, TIG holding case.


Posted by Garrett | May 9, 2007 9:02 AM
12

Watches have become almost as multi-functional as PDA's in the last five or six years, particularly at the low-mid price range, so I don't necessarily see them going completely the way of the 8-track player anytime soon. On the other hand, practically every portable electronic device we carry around these days has some sort of time-keeping function, so I can certainly see them disappearing on the low-end market. For example, do people even buy Swatches anymore?

But, yeah as a status symbol, I don't think Rolex or Olympus has anything to worry about; filthy-rich or filthy-rich-wannabee guys are still going to shell out big $$ for expensive self-winding, eighteen jewel, quartz action, Swiss made wrist watches simply to show people that they can. Meanwhile, I imagine techno-geeks will continue to purchase cheaper, but multi-function watches for all the gizmos they contain.

Posted by COMTE | May 9, 2007 9:10 AM
13

Oh, sure watch repairmen may SEEM nice - until they slice open your skull like a ripe cantaloupe and steal your super powers...

Posted by Petrelli | May 9, 2007 9:13 AM
14

Oh, #13 you made me spit coffee on my computer...

Posted by Stephanie | May 9, 2007 9:22 AM
15

13, true. he wasn't near as nice as his neighbors (one of the younger couples in the hood, and future head of ASU guitar dept). First bass lessons - follow tabs to "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" "Theme to Hill St. Blues"- he even did his best at transcribing Ritchie's bass solo in V Femmes "please don't Go".

Posted by Garrett | May 9, 2007 9:29 AM
16

Judging from the kids I see on the buses, Portable CD players are not going away anytime soon, and neither are CDs.

Posted by matthew fisher wilder | May 9, 2007 9:30 AM
17

Um, none of these things are going away, they're just going away from the biggest High Street retailers in Britain. There's a difference. I guarantee you will be able to buy both a watch and a new blank cassette somewhere in 25 years. Technology takes a long time to die. The last maker of 126 Instamatic film cartridges just announced they're stopping, but you can still buy them. Dare I mention vinyl records?

Posted by Fnarf | May 9, 2007 9:35 AM
18

There are still Woolworth's around?

Posted by PA Native | May 9, 2007 9:48 AM
19

There are still Woolworth's around?

Posted by PA Native | May 9, 2007 9:49 AM
20


uh, name me a band that doesn't produce a cd when they have the music together to warrant putting one out,,, ok, forget that last part.

Posted by come again | May 9, 2007 10:17 AM
21

i play in a jazzband up in Shoreline, but we've never gigged out, some recordings on cassette. we're called the Antibodies- (at least that's what I put on the flyer for one of our BBQ jamsessions about 6 years ago) The sax player, drummer, rhythm guitarist and me on bass were/are all Puget Sound Blood Center employees.

Posted by Garrett | May 9, 2007 10:37 AM
22

#16 I see a lot of poor people riding the bus with portable CD players (I even see the occasional Walkman).

Posted by elswinger | May 9, 2007 10:59 AM
23

Someone was still selling cassettes?

Posted by Gomez | May 9, 2007 11:24 AM
24

16 and @22
I see a lot of poor children occasionally walking without shoes and humming to themselves.

Posted by Yakima | May 9, 2007 11:26 AM
25

CDs offer better quality sound than mp3s. significantly. so does vinyl.

they're not going away at MY audiophile household. neither are turntables.

and my cassette deck still works.

fuck all y'all.

Posted by maxsolomon | May 9, 2007 11:29 AM
26

My mixtapes smoke the living you-know-what out of your MP3 players set to random.

And yeah, chicks dig ‘em.

Posted by Sid Vicious | May 9, 2007 11:49 AM
27

But please, PLEASE get rid of the fax machine.

Posted by Grant Cogswell | May 9, 2007 1:32 PM
28

Answering machines and fax machines I could see. Then again, knowing telephone companies, I could see answering machines coming back as customers avoid having their private messages stored on telephone company servers.

Portable CD players won't go away until CD's do. Watches won't really go away, but will probably morph into wrist-cellphones.

Posted by K | May 9, 2007 1:46 PM
29

MSN I NIIPET
MSN

Posted by Bill | May 12, 2007 7:44 PM
30

MSN I NIIPET
MSN

Posted by Bill | May 12, 2007 7:45 PM
31

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Posted by swqyt stwzfua | May 19, 2007 2:12 AM
32

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Posted by swqyt stwzfua | May 19, 2007 2:13 AM
33

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Posted by kyobarsn qkibog | May 19, 2007 2:14 AM
34

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Posted by kyobarsn qkibog | May 19, 2007 2:16 AM
35

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Posted by tngq natofmh | May 19, 2007 2:16 AM
36

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Posted by tngq natofmh | May 19, 2007 2:17 AM

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