subway flasher Archives

link to: Gadgets You Should Get Rid Of (or Not) – Yahoo! Finance.

This was an interesting post. While I suspect that some things will go the way of the DoDo Bird, others I wouldn’t bet on disappearing so fast.

For instance, I worked for a short time at Videoactive in Silver Lake (in L.A.) where, um, one of the two main draws is classic, foreign and obscure films on VHS. I still have a player, attached to my TV. I still play them, although less often, and I’m glad to have the capability. The other draw was gay DVD porn, of course.

Back to the article. I tend to agree with most of Sam’s recommendations with a couple of exceptions.

Exception #1: Do not get rid of your camera in favor of smartphone built-in cams. Those camera phones are OK for shooting the occasional subway flasher but for anything grander (for instance, see the banner photo on top of this page, which I took with a Canon PowerShot SD 450 over the weekend) you need a real camera with lenses of different lengths. Just don’t buy disposable cameras, there’s enough crap in landfills already.

Exception #2: Oddly, I think I would be in favor of chucking the alarm clock for the smart phone version. Sam’s example is the one day out of the year where there was a glitch in Iphone time calculation due to daylight savings; how often would an electrical outage or something similar deep-six a traditional alarm clock? I, for one, like the endless adaptability of alarm rings and welcoming screens, like the weather as he suggested. Then you know whether it’s worth getting out of bed or not.

I especially liked the recommendation to not get rid of books! Truly, the e-book versions are becoming more and more popular, though it’s hard to cuddle up to cold plastic and metal, or to throw your Kindle across the room before turning lights out.