I don’t miss dial-up internet, I just don’t. I don’t even like the sound because it’s just digital screeches and it’s a sound that makes me cringe a little upon hearing it. Because I remember the times when I’d be listening to music with headphones with volume high and then that fucking digital screech just blares into my ears.
I don’t miss waiting 30 minutes to load a page. I don’t miss a bit of it.
Cars that would vapor lock when driving in the mountains.
As flatlander: I need some clarification. Why was this, why is it no longer something?
Vapor locking is an interplay between a mechanical vacuum based fuel pump and carburetors that causes the engine to get starved of gas and stall out. It’s made worse at high altitude and particularly when ascending rapidly like driving up a high altitude pass such as Wolf Creek. If you’ve even needed to pop your ears several times while driving you’ve been in a situation where it could have happened.
Back in the day, the fix when it happened was to stop the engine and wait for air pressure to equalize through the system, which generally took about 30 minutes. Of course, this was on the side of a narrow twisty mountain road and people would sometimes get impatient or not know what was going on and flood their engine in a panic.
It’s pretty rare now due to electric fuels pumps and fuel injection.
I work at a place that pumps several million pounds of liquid a day. As such, I know all about vapor locking. However, as a flatlander, I had no idea this was a thing. Thanks for the TIL.
I’ve never heard of this but I didn’t grow up near mountains. I did however grow up in the Midwest and couldn’t stand anti-lock brakes — one time I hit a car because instead of allowing me to control the sliding the car refused and just went straight into the car ahead of me.
These days I live nowhere near snow (unless I choose to drive into the mountains) so I’m not sure what the situation is with modern cars. I did go up into the mountains last years when the temperature dropped to 39°F overnight and my car freaked about tire pressure — that wasn’t a fun lesson to learn.