{"id":6443,"date":"2012-10-10T11:25:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T18:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=6443"},"modified":"2012-10-10T08:04:53","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T15:04:53","slug":"news-chum-old-things-dumb-phones-old-medicine-and-building-with-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=6443","title":{"rendered":"News Chum &#8211; Old Things: Dumb Phones, Old Medicine, and Building with Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4994\" title=\"userpic=lougrant\" src=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/userpiclougrant.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"78\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" \/>Today&#8217;s lunchtime news chum presents three articles about old things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stupid Phones<\/strong>. A CNN reporter has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2012\/10\/05\/living\/our-mobile-society-stupidphone\/index.html\">an article where she defends her use of a stupidphone<\/a>. Although I&#8217;m not the luddite she is, I too have a phone without a data plan. Why? The primary reason is that I&#8217;m cheap, and data plans are expensive. Second, I&#8217;d probably waste far more time futzing around on the nets than I already do (did I say that with my outside voice?). But I&#8217;ll probably cave at the next replacement, depending on the cost of Verizon&#8217;s data plans.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Expired Medicine<\/strong>. A recent study has shown that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/health\/boostershots\/la-heb-expired-drugs-still-work-study-20121008,0,6591417.story\">most drugs are actually still good for years and years after their expiration date<\/a> (aspirin being a notable exception). This, of course, is published after I cleaned my dresser and got rid of a load of expired medicines. Still, it is useful to know. The same, by the way, is true of much food, where the &#8220;expiration&#8221; date is really a &#8220;best by&#8221; guess. Speaking of medicines, CVS has been refilling prescriptions without consent and billing insurance companies. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/money\/la-fi-cvs-lazarus-chat-20121009,0,4695648.story\">The LA Times is investigating this, and wants to know if it has happened to you<\/a>. I&#8217;ve never trusted the current incarnation of CVS &#8212; the outlet near us has screwed up prescriptions, been late on filling things, and has been uncommunicative. I&#8217;ve been very happy to be able to return to our local Walgreens.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Building with Books<\/strong>. Old fashioned books. Most of us love them; some of us are replacing them with digital books. But what should we do with the books and books that fill our house. Perhaps build another? <a href=\"http:\/\/curbed.com\/archives\/2012\/10\/09\/books-as-bricks-amazing-architecture-made-from-literature.php\">This interesting Curbed article looks at what happens when people build things with books<\/a>. The results are well worth reading.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>P.S.: There&#8217;s an election coming up. Read. Investigate. Be informed. I&#8217;m going through my sample ballot, and you can find the results of my research in the following two posts (a third should be up by this weekend):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Permanent Link to California Ballot Analysis Part I: The Propositions\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=6409\" rel=\"bookmark\">California Ballot Analysis Part I: The Propositions<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=6435\">California Ballot Analysis Part II: Federal Offices<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s lunchtime news chum presents three articles about old things: Stupid Phones. A CNN reporter has an article where she defends her use of a stupidphone. Although I&#8217;m not the luddite she is, I too have a phone without a data plan. Why? The primary reason is that I&#8217;m cheap, and data plans are expensive. <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=6443\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[459,13,166],"class_list":["post-6443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum","tag-books","tag-medical","tag-telephony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6443"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6445,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443\/revisions\/6445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}