From: malQRMassimilation@gmail.com   
      
   Like record players and VHS tapes, landline phones are being embraced   
   by nostalgic fans as an antidote to an increasingly digital way of   
   life.   
      
   By Hilary Reid   
      
   First came the rhinestone-encrusted rotary. Then the cherry-red   
   lips. After that, the cheeseburger.   
      
   By last summer, Chanell Karr had amassed a collection of six landline   
   phones. Her most recent, an orange Trimline originally made as a   
   promotional item for the 1986 film âPretty in Pink,â was purchased   
   in June. Though she only has one phone - a more subdued VTech model   
   - hooked up, all are in working order.   
      
   "During the pandemic I wanted to disconnect from all of the things   
   that distract you on a smartphone," said Ms. Karr, 30, who works in   
   marketing and ticketing at a music venue near her home in Alexandria,   
   Ky. "I just wanted to get back to the original analog ways of having a   
   landline."   
      
   Once a kitchen staple, bedside companion and plot device on sitcoms   
   such as "¢ex and the Cit"¢ ad nâSeine"",â the landline phone has   
   all but been replaced by its newer, smarter wireless counterpart.   
      
   In 2003, more than 90 percent of respondents to a survey conducted by   
   the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they had an   
   operational landline in their homes. As of June 2021, that number -   
   which includes Internet-connected phones and those wired the   
   old-fashioned way (via copper lines running from a home to a local   
   junction box) - had dropped to just over 30 percent.   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/style/landline-phone-fans.html   
      
   --   
   (Please remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)