Hello Mervyn,

Even though I am well entrenched in the "fossil corner" I do see such advances as email, Facebook etc. as a positive thing but mainly for one reason. Families are no longer able to remain in the same general are as their parents and brothers and sisters. This distance, years ago, meant that you would only see your children and grandchildren on High Holidays. Now with better commuications, stories and photos can be shared quickly and with Skype you can even speak with your children and grandchildren almost any time. Then there are friends living in South Africa, Australia, the UK and India (Punjab) who are only a key board away, what a great invention this email and other communications options have turned out to be. Now if we could teleport from Canada to your shop in S.A. we could really do business. Ha ha

Other than than, and this forum of course, emails and such are more trouble than they are worth for the most part.
Regards for the fossil world
Brianasorus.

Hello: Interesting posts by the two gentlemen above.
Here is a small contribution from another oldtimer ( born in 1931) who has been slow in advancing with the rapidly advancing technology or better perhaps gadgetry in some instances. Just got a cellphone for use by my wife when by herself visiting the city ( Chicago ) or while driving in emergency situations. We gave up our rotary phone when one could no longer function with it. I consider some of these advances with mixed feelings such as cellphones in use while driving even walking, leading to distracted driving ( walking?) accidents. Not mentioning a considerable nuisance effect while used in public within hearing distance. Criminal minds are shown very fertile in use and abuse of electronic devices. The number of security updates for my computer ( still on dial-up ) by Microsoft or Symantec nearly every other day is astounding.
Looking back it seems that we functioned quite well even though not "connected" all of the time.
I believe the hectic "lifestyle" of today may just lead to some shortening of life expectancy combined with certain ailments popping up more often. A pronounced impatience in everyday activities especially traffic is very noticeable. This oftentimes includes disregard for fellow humans and is very unpleasant to observe.
Just some quick observations by someone who has been around the block a few times.
Bernhard H. Holst

I think such things as cellphones and emails have been a great invention but I would be interested to see as a social experiment how people would cope today if they were withdrawn and it was back to the reliance of snailmail and suchlike for an extended period of time, especially those who have no or little experience of life without such modern methods of communication.
I remember, not so long ago really - in the last 20 years anyway - when we used to deploy on 7 month operations (I'm ex-Royal Navy) and the only contact with those at home was postal mail. Periods between mail drops could be anything from a few days to 3 weeks (and sometimes even more if the mail to the ship was directed to the wrong destination, i.e. ship is in Dakar, Senegal while the incoming mail was sent to Dakha, Pakistan!) But now those on deployments start griping if the email connection is offline for more then 24 hours and if the ship ever goes to within 10 miles of a coastline then numerous people suddenly appear on the upperdeck with mobile phone in hand.