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25 things about to become extinct in america

RE: CFL bulbs, these things have only a few milligrams of mercury, barely enough to cover the tip of a pencil. Your thermometer is 50x more of a hazard, if you're going by mercury content.
 
if you swim in Galveston, or any other beach around these parts you're swimming in a giant, unflushed toilet

Remember that is where your drinking water comes from too


Thats why we call the Mississippi River "The Colon of North America"
 
# 9 Hand written letter. I just bought my first fountain pen and love it. I will now hand write letters to loved ones rather then e-mail as much as possible. There is something special about handwritting. If I look at my mothers handwritting over the years, even though I haven't seen her...you can see her aging by the her handwritting...and I am more appreciative of her wisdom and advice.. unlike an e-mail.

I could not agree more! There is nothing like getting a hand written letter from a friend, alas, it is an ultra rare thing today. :frown:
 
also becoming extinct are:
small independent book stores and record stores.
pay phones/phone booths, soon to be museum pieces!
sandlot baseball fields
ice cream trucks
 
9. Hand-Written Letters

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't helped keep the hand written letter alive at all.

I write well enough and my vocabulary is great but my hand writing is atrocious at best. I don't like to hand write anything ever. My handwriting is actually so bad I'm ashamed to show other people. About the only time I put pen (or pencil) to paper is to write a short personal note to myself. I email family like crazy and when I'm away from my kids for extended periods of time I type numerous letters from the heart but I just can't bring myself to force anyone to have to try and decipher the hieroglyphics I scribble. I even con my wife into writing my thoughts in most greeting cards.

I think the computer is the reason for my terrible hand writing. I'm young enough that we had computers in school and I had teachers that preferred type written or computer printed assignments. The last 5-6 years of school I wrote very little. My penmanship slowly started to decline. All of the practice typing has led to a rate of over 100wpm which is great for the day to day administrative functions of my job but has led to my hand writing deteriorating severely over the past 15-20 years.
 
My mother has been talking to a lot of local beekeepers, and they say that CCS is really only a problem with the large commercial operations that consistently move their swarms. The small, family operations are largely untouched.
Do you find that to be the case?

Yes this tends to be the case for ccd. However honeybees face a lot of other nasty things that is causing their numbers to decline. Twnety years ago there were a lot of feral or "wild" bees around, nowdays if you see bees in the wild they are a swarm from a beekeepers hive. There are no more feral bees. The mite varroa destructor has killed more bees than ccd probably ever will. This is a parasite imported from Asia that has done more harm to honeybees (and small beekeepers) than anything else.
 
Yes this tends to be the case for ccd. However honeybees face a lot of other nasty things that is causing their numbers to decline. Twnety years ago there were a lot of feral or "wild" bees around, nowdays if you see bees in the wild they are a swarm from a beekeepers hive. There are no more feral bees. The mite varroa destructor has killed more bees than ccd probably ever will. This is a parasite imported from Asia that has done more harm to honeybees (and small beekeepers) than anything else.

tell that to the killer bees we have around ranches in south texas, could use some mites to help control that population IMO.

hand written letters, written one in the past 9 years (like one that was mailed and such). my handwriting is not something i want to be sending to a lot of people, not the best skill i have.
 
Yes this tends to be the case for ccd. However honeybees face a lot of other nasty things that is causing their numbers to decline. Twnety years ago there were a lot of feral or "wild" bees around, nowdays if you see bees in the wild they are a swarm from a beekeepers hive. There are no more feral bees. The mite varroa destructor has killed more bees than ccd probably ever will. This is a parasite imported from Asia that has done more harm to honeybees (and small beekeepers) than anything else.

It's my understanding that CCD is a mix of stressors one of which is, in fact, the Varroa mite. So, just as a nerdy bit of grammar nazicism, to say that the varroa mite kills more than CCD is a tautology, as CCD includes deaths of hives due to the mite.

But, that said, the varroa mite is likely to be the primary factor in most feral bee deaths.

Reminds me of a poem:

Insects got fleas,
and Bugs that bite 'em,
and so on it goes ad infinitum

I always think of that poem when I hear the varroa mite because I never knew that bees have "fleas" hehehe
 

Isaac

B&B Tease-in-Residence
Movie Manners

That is something that is really going away. I cant remember the last time I was in a movie where someone wasnt talking away, checking their cell phones, talking on their cell phones. Its absolutely horrible IMHO.
 
RE: CFL bulbs, these things have only a few milligrams of mercury, barely enough to cover the tip of a pencil. Your thermometer is 50x more of a hazard, if you're going by mercury content.

Your teeth could be 100X more hazard if you have amalgam fillings IMO.
 
Taking a peek at No. 22 on the list blockbuster is going to close 900 stores this year. Don't forget about redbook those kiosks outside of major dept. stores and McDonalds.
 
Movie Manners

That is something that is really going away. I cant remember the last time I was in a movie where someone wasnt talking away, checking their cell phones, talking on their cell phones. Its absolutely horrible IMHO.

I don't see that too often. I'll politely(usually) say something, or get the staff on it. I didn't pay 6 or $9 to listen to some idiot jibber-jabber or be blinded by their LCD screen.
 
I think the demise of the family farm, as romanticized by so many, is pretty much inevitable, for the same reasons that mom & pop shops are/were doomed.

The main reason is economies of scale. Think of it this way: If two farmers have setups, yields, etc... that are completely equal except for the acreage they farm, the guy with the larger spread will flat out beat the guy with the smaller one, for economies of scale.

They pay the same amount for equipment, gasoline, etc... but ultimately, the guy with more land makes more money because he can sell more crops.

On the flip side, the guy ordering more seed can get a better deal on it, and pay less per acre than the smaller guy, saving himself further money.

It's the same process as Wal-Mart vs. Dad's Electronics in Smalltown, USA. Wal-Mart buys 10,000 TV sets at $50 each, while Dad is stuck buying the same model for $100, because he orders 10 at a time. Dad has to charge $125 each, while Wal Mart can charge $75 and still make the same absolute profit. Where are people in Smalltown going to buy their TVs?

Plus, having known a few small farmers, I think that life is highly romanticized, and the reality is a lot harder, stinkier, dirtier, unstable and less lucrative than the fantasy.
 
L

Lo'Tek

'AND - PEOPLE - STANDING - IN - WATER!!! - OOOOOH - I'M STANDING IN WATER!" - Mr. Gumby, Monty Python
 
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Saddening? Which of those things actually serve a purpose? Other than the bees, I see nothing on there that is relevant or that technology has not beaten.
 
Movie Manners

That is something that is really going away. I cant remember the last time I was in a movie where someone wasnt talking away, checking their cell phones, talking on their cell phones. Its absolutely horrible IMHO.

You should try working at a movie theater. If you think people are rude when you are a guest, wait until you are an employee.
 
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