grylliade.org Free minds. Free markets. Free beer.

A cab from a bar.

Yes. I used the chair that I made out of spare phone books that I took from the University when I lived on campus. Surprisingly comfortable.

(to comply with the spirit of the poll, yes, I also used the listings inside on a non-furniture book.)

In 2009, I used a printed phone book no more than twice.

Only because I was in a place with no Internet access (my apartment, for the time being).

Nope. Although I did dance the Charleston on more than one occasion. (What, you're surprised?)

Once or twice, tops.

Yes to phone book, no to the Charleston and the cigarettes.

This is mostly at home, however, where it is a lot handier to flip open the book than turn on the computer and wait five minutes for the startup to complete. [The latter is my own fault, due to the installation of excessive security software.]

Yeah, that was my reaction, too.

I voted no but on further reflection I think I've used the dead-tree yellow pages to peruse local restaurants at least once last year. Search engines are hit and miss when it comes to hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants and pizzerias which may well not even have health code inspections let alone websites or third party notice posted online.

And there, in a nutshell, is the real digital divide. It isn't so much that there are younger people who don't have access to computers as that the younger generation in general is largely oblivious or unwilling to use research techniques that don't involve electricity. (That may not be true of Rachel, I'm only riffing off her comment which I took as somewhat tongue in cheek.) Every first year law student is taught how to use the actual dead-tree library and every second year law student, unless he's on law review, promptly forgets how to do so. Tons of relevant material in the two disciplines I do know a bit about, law and philosophy, remain undigitized and probably always will. The internet has created a new sort of tunnel vision where, like in the movies, if it ain't in the frame, it doesn't exist.

Yes, because the card catalog was long ago replaced by a computer database, so you have no real choice, anyway. I'm not against computer assisted research, I merely think the "terrain" is vastly larger than its "map" leads some to believe.

Math is moving more and more to the point where dead-tree is completely irrelevant. A surprising fraction of textbooks can be downloaded free of charge from the author's website. Almost all papers get put on the ArXiV at some point, often long before they're actually published. And can also often be downloaded from the authors' websites. I give it twenty, maybe thirty years before reading a math paper on dead tree means you used a printer at some point.

"21 hours/day"? I assume you flipped the digits, but still, man, that's a lot. :P

The latest thing is the "metaphysical phone": One communicates telepathically. EDIT: It has great "hands free" features.

Tom Cruise is doing the marketing, I believe.

I did. He implied that he spends at least half his day not at his computer. I'm a bit puzzled, honestly.

Pshaw, after commuting home from my job at the county sanitarium on my velocipede, I barely have enough energy to doff my top hat and groom my enormous mustache much less do the Charleston. As for "jazz cigarettes", well I am afraid that I am simply not "23 Skidoo" enough to know what you are implying.

As for the Phone listings, my 13 year-old is always on the computer. I barely get on it anymore (except for now , of course). If I am going to order food from the local Siamese delivery service, I must use the Yellow directory.

In addition, in some online debates, if you can't "provide a link" that supports what you are saying, you might as well be making stuff up. "I read it in an actual book or newspaper during the 1980s, and I remember it" sounds like a lame excuse.

I turn mine off. A powered-down machine doesn't wear.

I've used the phone book for the same reason as Aresen -- looking up a local number is quicker than waiting for my computer to boot up.

My building gets great stacks of phone books...most of which go directly back into the trash still wrapped. I should collect them and use them for insulation or something.