Sad but probably true...

9 things that will disappear in our lifetime ..?

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to
them. But, ready or not, here they come.

1. The Post Office... Get ready to imagine a world without the post office.
They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to
sustain it long term. Email, Fastway, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped
out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your
mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Cheque / Check ... Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with
cheque by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to
process cheques. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the
eventual demise of the cheque. This plays right into the death of the post
office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by
mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper... The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper.
They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may
go the way of the milkman, butcher, baker and fruit and veg man. As for
reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile
Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine
publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the
major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription
services.

4. The Book... You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold
in your hand and turn the literal pages. Many said the same thing about
downloading music from iTunes because they wanted hard copy CD. When they
discovered they get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to
get the latest music they changed their minds. The same thing will happen
with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview
chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book.
Just think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the
screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't
wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget
instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone... Unless you have a large family and make a lot of
local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because
they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra
service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the
same cell provider for no charge against your minutes

6. Music... This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music
industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading.
It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the
people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The
record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over
40% of the music purchased today is "catalogue items," meaning traditional
music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is
also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and
disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for
Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the
Music Dies."

7. Television... Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just
because of the economy. Many people are watching TV and movies streamed from
their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things
that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows
have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable
rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30
seconds. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery.
People will choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The "Things" That You Own... Many of the very possessions that we used to
own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future.
They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive
and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is
on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that
is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest
"cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet
will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS
will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open
something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to
the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider.
In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your
whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will
you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at
any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be
disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the cupboard and pull
out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and
pull out the insert.

9. Privacy... If there ever was a concept that we can look back on
nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long
time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and
even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that
24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS
coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is
put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those
habits. "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.

All we will have left that can't be changed are "Memories".

And then Alzheimer's might take that away from you too!