Obsolete skills
Francine Hardaway is here and we’re talking about obsolete skills. Things we used to know that no longer are very useful to us. Here’s some we came up with. How many can you come up with?
1. Dialing a rotary phone.
2. Putting a needle on a vinyl record.
3. Changing tracks on an eight-track tape.
4. Shorthand.
5. Using a slide rule.
6. Using carbon paper to make copies.
7. Developing film/photos.
8. Changing the ball or ribbon on your Selectric Typewriter.
9. Getting off the couch to change channels on your TV set.
10. Adjusting the rabbit ears on your TV set.
11. Changing the gas mixture on your car’s carburetor.
By the way, the domain “obsoleteskills.com” is still available. I almost registered it, but how about if one of you does that and put a wiki there so we can keep track of all of the things we know that are pretty much useless now?
UPDATE: somebody put up a Wiki which is really cool.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
RE: No. 2
I work in the Hifi industry in the UK, and we’re currently selling turntables over CD players around 2:1. Also, i run an indie label, and like most others, we primarily press to vinyl…
February 16th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
OMFG! “Using a slide rule”? You are soooooo old, dude. ;-)
February 16th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
And here I am sifting through negatives today.
Actually, rabbit ears have made a bit of a comeback. I know people who use them to pick up OTA HDTV signals.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Reid @1: I still buy vinyl. I still have something capable of playing 78 RPM records.
I am older than dirt.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Here’s one I don’t miss….feeding the tape that got eaten back into cassettes & VHS tapes!
February 16th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Using correction fluid.
February 16th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I still have records which I listen to, and I’ve been to places where they still had rotary phones.
But I do not miss carbon paper.
Strangely enough I am actually thinking about getting a film camera again, as b/w photos are not really cutting it when it comes to digital photos.
February 16th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Watching my HD DVD movies…
February 16th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Editing movies with a cutter knife and glue?
February 16th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
David Singer @6: Students still use those pens with correction fluid. I’ve lost track of the number my kid has gone through.
February 16th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Using Windows.
February 16th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
@7 Julie: Pens with correction fluid? That’s after my time — I was thinking of stencil correction fluid for mimeos, or Wite-Out in the bottle, both of which I hope are obsolete.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Shorthand is still alive and well in the medical community. Especially with those of us who do mental health work where we try not to take notes in front of the client.
Rewinding VHS tapes, man that sucked…
February 16th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Louis: oh, let’s not go there. Even if you’re an Apple fan you have plenty of obsolete skills. Anyone remember Extension Manager on OS 6?
February 16th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Using carbon paper to make copies.
Developing film/photos.
Adjusting the rabbit ears on your TV set
are not dead for me.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
srikanth: that’s too bad. They are things I’m not looking to ever do again.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
What about just formating a floppy disk on your computer.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Skills long dead:
- making a deer fat poultice
- vending spirits of turpentine as a medicament
- making change in shillings and pence
- playing whist
Skills recently dead:
- adjusting the ignition point gap in a distributor
- adjusting a television’s horizontal and vertical holds
- operating an IBM 029 key punch
- syntax of HIMEM.SYS, EMM386.EXE
- making an answering 2400 baud modem think I am a calling modem by whistling at the correct frequency
Skills soon to be dead:
- talking to people on a “telephone”
- cooking food from “scratch”
- filling up a car with “gasoline”
- speaking any language other than English
February 16th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Chris: or using paper punch cards on a computer. Or, as I used to on an Apple II, use a cassette tape to load up your computer.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hand crafting config.sys and autoexec.bat to get things to run in DOS, especially games. Building floppy based boot disks for OS installs.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Editing movies with a cutter knife and glue?
Good one. Don’t you look forward to the day when the child in the back of the class raises their hand and asks why are the menu items called “Cut” and “Paste?”
February 16th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
And even as tedious as some of these are…I miss pretty much all of them. Give me the good ol days…and penicillin.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Just registered ObsoleteSkills.com. Sure a Wiki is the best idea? I’ll get it set up today, bit of a laugh.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Developing film and printing photos is far from obsolete. Digital cameras can not match large format film, and that is widely used for large photos. Far from dead. This is a very shortsighted list.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Great idea on the wiki… I took a look at the domain name, but unfortunately someone has “encumbered” it by querying through network solutions.
Full rant here: http://obfuscation.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/the-evil-still-lurks/
February 16th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Tankko: from what my pro photographer friends tell me you’re wrong. Hasselblad already has a 25 megapixel camera and it’s hardly the highest resolution ones. I’m interviewing some really killer photographers soon and we’ll take that issue more on then.
But for most people anyway this is definitely an obsolete skill.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
[...] evening, I happened across a post by Robert Scoble, calling for a community effort to document obsolete skills. I thought it was an interesting enough topic, and Robert mentioned that he would like to see [...]
February 16th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
“- speaking any language other than English”
Depends whether you want to talk to a) your landscaper b) the Chinese or Saudi guy who just bought your company.
Obsolete skills:
–filling in paper bank deposits slips.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
While the “skills” (I don’t know if dialing a rotary phone is really a skill) or actions may be obsolete, how long will it take for language to change? We still talk about CC: (carbon copy) even when we e-mail a copy to someone. And how can you say a cell phone “rings”?
And for photography, how much longer will we be comparing digital sensors to the size of a 35mm film frame? What happens when DSLR sensors become larger than this, will we call them *super* full frame cameras?
February 16th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Bill: digital sensors are already bigger than the size of a 35mm film frame. I’ve seen several digital medium format cameras lately.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
http://obsoleteskills.wikispot.org is up. I’ll try to get some templates going.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
@18,
Way off on a couple of counts.
Cooking from scratch will never die. It’s actually coming back into fashion in a major way. There are more and more cooking shows as a testament to this. Only this generation eats everything out of a microwave-frendly bag. Cooking is a skill.
The US has millions and millions of Spanish-speaking people, more every year, illegal or not. Spanish is growing by leaps and bounds. In my state, it’s an official language, and in some cities, almost everything is in Spanish. By 2050, whites will be a minority in the US, with hispanics the majority. Go read up on it. Americans are having fewer and fewer children. The Spanish are having more and more. English may be the language of business, but only a handful of countries speak it officially: Australia, Philippines, Canada, US, the UK/Ireland, South Africa, Liberia, India, and a couple of others. Most countries speak French, Spanish, Chinese, or Portugese as their dominant language. Most of Africa was either French or Portuguese or Dutch at one point. Interestingly enough, Portuguese is spoken by like a quarter of the world’s population. There are over a dozen African countries where it’s the dominant language, Brazil, Macau, Portugal itself and in a few other places. Chinese, French, and Spanish make up the rest. English is spoken by the vast minority of peoples.
Scoble,
as far as rotary phones are concerned, I always take the option on phone calls and pretend I have a rotary phone. I always get someone on within a few seconds rather than go through the push button hell and automaton voices.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Sometimes I think people on the East/West coast forget there is a lot of people inbetween those two coasts and they might not always be as “advanced” as some of us.
I personally know people who have or do many of the things you listed above.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Add this to the list
- having a decent conversation with people in person and w/o checking one’s cell phone
February 16th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
A Wiki has been set up at obsoleteskills.wikispot.org, feel free to visit and share your knowledge and skills.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
- Learning Morse code, although not for most folks, in the olden days everyone knew the Morse code for SOS.
- Knowing how to write a telegram
- Darning socks
February 16th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I’ve never done 8 of those things. I’m only 25!
February 16th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
@33,
Amen. Face-to-face communication is dying rapidly. People now use craigslist or any other numerous services to meet rather than just meet in meatspace.
I for one hate phone conversations unless there is no other way. I don’t really like email, either.
Whatever happened to hooking up the old-fashioned way? Yes, the net can “facilitate” these things, but if I’m going to meet a yound lady for dating/romance, I’m want to meet her while at church, shopping, at a restaurant, the library (yes, the library. they are still useful), sports games, etc.
February 16th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
er, I meant @34
February 16th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Wreck: I totally disagree. Heck, this post happened because of face-to-face conv.
February 16th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
- Making an exclamation mark on your manual typewriter by typing a period then backspacing and typing a single quote over it
- As a cashier, making change without having to punch the amount tendered into the cash register (i.e. MATH)
- Lead bodywork
- Writing a letter in cursive
- Courting
- Bagging groceries in a paper bag
- Listening
- Using your turn signal
- Merging in traffic
February 16th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I guess some of those are just nostalgic rather than “pretty much useless.”
February 16th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Robert,
You’re missing the point in a way.
What I’m lamenting is the fact that in many ways, the Internet and cellphones are “replacing” REAL face-to-face convos. People no longer leave their homes to talk with their friends as much as they used to; they do it over some device. I disagree with this. In my circle of friends, we conduct everything in meatspace. All planning is done the same way. We use the phone or email only to say we cannot make it for some reason.
It’s a shame people cannot meet each other at the mall (or wherever) anymore. We use proxies like online dating. Whatever happened to networking with people in the flesh? Hanging out at the mall? Chatting up the cute blonde at the cash register? There are whole studies done that show people are less and less interested in meeting people face-to-face for first dates or initial meetings. Sad.
I, for, one, miss the late 70s/early 80s when everything was done in the real. Hell, I’d rather be in the 50s if the truth be known.
February 16th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
More recently dead skills:
- Long division.
- Looking up a word in the dictionary.
- Looking up a phone number in the phone book.
- Finding a street on a map by finding the name in the list and then using the grid coords (like C4-6).
- WordPerfect.
- Lotus 1-2-3.
- Addressing an envelope and putting a stamp on it.
- Writing a check.
More skills soon to be dead:
- Knowing the times tables.
- Knowing how to borrow during subtraction.
- using the shift key to make upper-case letters.
- Spelling. or shud i say “teh speling”.
- Navigating the yahoo directory.
- Questioning authority.
- Voting.
February 17th, 2008 at 12:09 am
milking a cow by hand
February 17th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Putting a needle on a vinyl record is most definitely not obsolete and according to a recent WSJ article is actually on the rise.
Seattle record label The Control Group specializes in putting out vinyl for NEW albums by bands like The Killers and Kings of Leon. They also handle vinyl output for other labels that no longer deal in vinyl.
In several musical genres, vinyl is still widely released and highly collectable.
February 17th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Driving stick. (Disclaimer: I drive stick, and I think it’s way more fun, and has a bunch of other advantages, but I have a feeling that by 2015, it’ll basically be impossible to buy a new car with a standard. If better automatics don’t kill them outright, hybrids and electrics will.)
Other already-useless car skills: Cranking your engine with a hand crank. Three on the Tree. Double clutching. Pumping your (non-ABS) brakes. Rolling up a window with a crank. Reaching across to unlock the passenger-side door. Hand signals (even though we’re still required to know them).
Sharpening wooden pencils. (I think my grandfather is the last one in my family to do it well with a knife, and the way things are going, I think I may be the last to do it with a pencil sharpener, even.)
Sharpening a knive with a sharpening stone. (Everybody has those “just stick the blade in the slot” jobs now.)
Converting units by hand. Using log tables.
The dewey decimal system. (My elementary school had the only library I’ve ever seen that uses it. Everybody else uses Library of Congress.)
The British system of measures? Eh, well, I can dream.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Hello!
Here is a nice vintage USB phone:
http://www.retrothing.com/2007/01/misguided_techn.html
Cheers, ROman
February 17th, 2008 at 5:21 am
That’s a heart-wrenching list, Robert. It fair pulls at the nostalia strings.
I’ve added my addenda here: http://wiki.greywulf.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/LupusGris/ObsoleteSkills
February 17th, 2008 at 6:38 am
@Wreck (#32)… actually, cooking from scratch is on the decline. A recent “Progressive Grocer” article noted 2007 was the first year better than 50% of all dining was done “out”.
Cooking from scratch is on the decline in the US no matter how badly all the cooking shows want it to the contrary. It’s a great way for the consumer packaged goods manufacturers to get their products in front of you (since the newspaper’s circulation… you know the one you no longer take… is in the tank)
February 17th, 2008 at 6:41 am
I actually tried to dial a rotary phone the other day, just for fun. There are obsolete skills, and then there are things you just forget how to do. It took me at least 4 attempts to dial the right number.
I never did really learn how to do long division properly so I’m not sad to see that go.
February 17th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Using a Mimeograph machine.
I remember the smell these made in my first school.
February 17th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Saaad list. Am I nostalgic?
February 17th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Using a paper template underneath typing paper to estimate the spacing for footnotes (this was grueling) in term papers.
February 17th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Laying out newsletters by gluing down lines of type ordered from a print shop
February 17th, 2008 at 9:46 am
@44,
I don’t think many of the skills you listed are dying.
Any school that does not teach loads of math, including long division, is doing the kids a disservice. Kids should be well versed in math by an early age. By 8th or 9th grade, they should already be well versed in trig, calculus, advanced algebra, geometry. American schools are far behind their european and asian counterparts.
Learning how to read a paper map is essential. What happend if that precious GPS system dies for whatever reason. Knowing how to use a compass and a map should be a required skill. It’s easy to learn and remember. I learned land navigation in the military and it’s come in handy many times. Knowing how to shoot an azimuth and reverse azimuth has saved many a camper and hiker, even in recent times. People rely too much on technology.
American kids are among the least educated in the 1st world when it comes to math and the sciences. The scandinavians and europeans in general, along with the asians, consistently score leaps and bounds above American students in math and sciences. Math in the US is looked upon as a requirement to graduate, not as the science it is. Kids are taught only enough the graduate in most cases. There are exceptions to this, but they are few and far between.
Want proof? Go ask the average person where Guatemala is on a map, or even Israel. Ask these same people who Galileo or Kepler were, let alone Archimedes. Ask geeks where “moveable type” comes from and they’ll probably tell you about the blogging company rather than the Chinese and German history behind it. Sad. So much for moving the US forward. Kids are less concerned with learning and more caught up with IM, blogging, and the net in general. While these can be useful and fun, a well-rounded education includes math, science, astronomy, home economics, athletics, art, literature, writing, reading, debate, law, experiments (theory and proofs). I see very little real education in American schools. Language aside, you take an American in, say, 10th grade, and language barriers aside, and drop him in, say, Finland, they would be hopelessly behind. What we are learning in the 10th or 11th grade, they learned in what we call 7th grade. Sad for us.
February 17th, 2008 at 9:56 am
@48,
I think people are lazy at best. The vast majority of the world still cooks from scratch. The microwave has been the death knell to good, home-based meals. People would rather nuke their dinner than take time to make a meal and spend time with the family.
There is no reason families cannot enjoy cooking together and have family time at the table. The lion’s share of the planet’s people remain focused on the family and meals. Tell a Greek to nuke their food and they’ll look at you like you’re nuts. Same goes for the Chinese. Even the richest Chinese and Japanese still largely prepare steamed rice and veggies/meat/fish on a daily basis.
The US has become nothing more than a shell of what it once was. This country was at its best in the 50s, all discoveries aside. Family means less and less to the average person now. Eating with family is declining in this country. Eat and go is the new mantra. Restaurants want you in and out as quickly as possible. Back in the day, restaurants wanted you to sit, take your time, eat, be merry. Now, they remind you by bringing you the bill (get out).
Ever been to Europe, especially France, Greece, Spain, Portugal, where they spend copious amounts of time at the table talking, eating, drinking. That’s the ways it’s supposed to be. Americans rush, rush, rush. There’s no need for it. Our processed food has seen a rise in cancer, diabetes, and obesity.
February 17th, 2008 at 11:32 am
[...] 2008 (10:32am) Mike Gunderloy No Comments Blogger-about-town Robert Scoble recently kicked off an online discussion (and now a wiki) about obsolete skills: “things we used to know that no longer are very [...]
February 17th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Wreck: I totally disagree with your characterization of Europeans. I found they rush just as much as we do (I’ve been in Europe three times in three months).
I’m so glad, though, that they are starting to ban smoking. Damn, is that a disgusting habit and ruins people’s dinners.
If Europeans are so smart how come it took so long to get a clue about that issue?
February 17th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Scoble,
Smoking is a nasty habit. I had it for years.
Smoking, while nasty, has no bearing on intelligence whatsoever. Yes, it’s stupid. Yes, it’s committing slow suicide, but there are, and have been, very intelligent smokers. That aside…
The reason the EU is cracking down on smoking with a renewed vengeance because of economics. What with socialized medicine being in virtually all EU nations, no one wants to pay for the mistakes or stupidity of others. I’ve spoken with friends in the EU about this very topic.
It’s true, however, that EU/Asian kids are far and away better educated than our own kids. There are exceptions, but like I said above, they are few and far between. Americans tend to look at education the wrong way.
For example, in the US, what with this “no child left behind” nonsene, a smart/gifted kid in a classroom (with exceptions), gets taught the same boring curriculum that his lesser-minded peers get taught. He stagnates and begins to dislike school. The US is largely opposed to “gifted” programs because they see them as unfair. I’ve got friends that are teachers and school administrators. Schools receive little to no money for gifted programs, but, I learned, get about $10k per every child that has learning disabilities (special ed). Schools actually encourage teachers to pick out the special ed kids and get them enrolled in special ed. More money for the schools. Well, life can be unfair. Some people are actually smarter than others, and to not allow gifted students to get ahead is a crime. In the EU, if you are gifted, you go into a gifted program and move ahead at your own pace, kind of like the Montessori schools here in the US. Another disturbing trend in the US school system is to pull kids out of class for the slightest distruption and have them labelled “bi-polar” or ADD. Some states actually mandate that if chosen by a school to be tested for such things, and found to be “true”, the child cannot return to school unless medicated. This is an evil practice. It’s a proven fact, but often overlooked, that “bi-polar” or ADD kids are really just hyper, and interestingly enough, tend to be actually more intelligent. They get bored in class and tend to act out their boredom in negative ways. Put them in a gifted class and they would likely accel since they are not bored stiff with less-than-useful baseline curriculums.
Being gifted is nice, but not all of us are. But, the average US school teaches (and I use “teaches” loosely), uses an outdated curriculum model that imparts only the bare modicum of skills required to pass the state assessment exams. Critical thinking is not taught in the US like it is elsewhere, but you know full well that sports gets the largest budget in the school system. It’s a proven fact that less than 1% of students go on to play professional sports. And we wonder why our kids can graduate without being able to find countries on a map. They can dunk a bball or play football, but they cannot use a semicolon properly or tell you the difference between an adjective and adverb. Ever notice that the minimal acceptable grade in most schools to play sports is a C average. It should be a B- at the very least. A C average encourages mediocrity.
Talk to an Indian, Chinese, or European. They are so far ahead of us in general education it’s silly. I’m ashamed to even talk with these people about American education. India is one of the poorest nations on earth, but man do they graduate some smart kids. China, too.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Wreck: I’ll go further. I’ve been to China and Europe. I agree with you that their education systems are ahead of ours in a lot of ways.
One interesting thing is that we keep importing smart people from around the world. Ask Loic Le Meur why he didn’t stay in France, for instance.
Or my wife. Ask her why her parents sent her away to a foreign land from their home in Tehran.
And this trend continues to this day.
Yes, there are lots of smart smokers, but it does indicate some level of stupidness to pick up smoking in the past 20/30 years since every scientific study shows that’s bad for you.
Plus it just plain stinks. It’s amazingly rude to light up inside when other people who aren’t smokers are around.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Scoble,
I forgot to address one thing you brought up. You said Eropeans rush as much as Americans do. Remember, you were at a conference, hung out with geeks, that while from the EU and everywhere else, tend to have the same characteristics as all geeks: always moving, thinking, rushing around, never having enough time to do this or that.
I’m talking about real, everyday people like farmers, office workers, etc. Not geeks. Europeans tend to move more slowly than we do. The Spanish have it right. Siestas should be mandatory. Go to any major city in Spain during the workweek and when siesta time comes, the city largely comes to a crawl. That’s great. It’s good for morale and the health. I also like the fact that the EU has a 35-hor work week (UK not included), a minimum of 6-8 weeks paid time off, socialized medicine, PATERNITY leave, even. The US should have all this.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
When I left university in the late 80s, I fell axx-backwards into doing freelance radio work for the CBC (Canada’s NPR).
I started out using a Sony cassette recorder to do field work, then the big move — the Walkman PRO! Wooow. But still, what we did back then was have our tape dubbed onto 1/4″ tape, then we edited our clips with a razorblade and a yellow grease pencil, using splicing tape to hold stuff together.
I still do some work for CBC and some podcasting, but it isn’t like that any more.
February 17th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Obsolete Celebrity Tech Blogger skills
————————————–
Steady Camera Skills and Focusing
Fact-checking
Reading anything more than a summary
Researching the topic(s)
Calling up people who know the issue, to get a background
Using a source not from Wikipedia. Original souces, how time-wasting heady.
Doing independent verification of claims made by conference trade-show vendors.
Actually having a clue about anything
February 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I’ve used 8 of those skills in my life and I’m just 22. I still use shorthand on occasion.
February 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Gee, sounds to me like a lot a huff and puff here… what you REALLY seem to be talking about is MONEY, not ‘obsolete’ and/or ‘essence’ and/or smoking and/or EU educational standards etc …. Come on now - FOCUS BOYS !
‘Twill all be a bit of a non-issue when the lights go out and the ‘power’ goes off anyway and SUDDENLY we gotta start doing EVERYTHING again by hand … the TRAGEDY is that so few have a CLUE. Labour is not respected in America.
My old mum still uses a rotary phone, on principle, she REFUSES to pay the jacked-up rate for ‘touch’. And my pop often used a slide rule when woodworking. I personally REALLY like to cook - AND, o’dear, I like to have an after dinner cigarette and do my very own huffing and puffing … quel horror !
Guess I’ll just have to bumble along and try to make the best of it anyway …. Coming? Or, are you gonna STAY in HERE FOREVER fellas???
February 17th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Scoble, I just thought of another one to add
- Sending your colleagues stuff via the yellow inter-departmental envelopes. Maybe the MacBook Air will bring those back
February 17th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
[...] Obsolete skills « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger Given the current debate I suppose Dreamweaver should be in here but I love the fact that in at number 4… Shorthand. (tags: skills shorthand) [...]
February 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
[...] Obsolete skills Francine Hardaway is here and we’re talking about obsolete skills. Things we used to know that no longer are very […] [...]
February 17th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
@ken #47. Dewey decimal system is the norm in libraries here (Australia). I’ve never seen any other system.
February 17th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
#60: “Yes, [smoking is] committing slow suicide”.
It’s much worse than that. Thanks to secondhand smoke, it’s actually a really slow suicide *bomber*.
I don’t know why more isn’t being done to combat this ubiquitous terrorist threat.
February 17th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Just guessing here, but I don’t think going to Europe 3 times on business and spending your time in hotels, restaurants and conference halls gives anyone any insight whatsoever on what life is like in Europe. Me thinks one might have to actually LIVE there for an extended period of time to form an intelligent opinion beyond: “Hey!,some restaurants have banned smoking! They are making progress!”
February 17th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Ken: I’ve been to Europe dozens of times in my life. The three trips is just in the past three months. My mom was born in Germany, many of my relatives still live there. My wife’s brother lives in Wales. So, I have a pretty good insight into life there.
February 17th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Yeah, the “putting the needle on a vinyl record” has been justifiably demonstrated to be a currently in-demand skill (in fact, it could be argued that anyone who dismisses vinyl as readily now as they did 10 years ago may be a bit out of touch with the music industry).
But I understand the reasoning for including it on the list - so you could get hits for another FC video. Good on ya for your slickness.
February 17th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
@66,
Amen. When the lights do go out, the satellites fail, or we get hit with a big EMP, people with no old-skool skills are the ones going to be rioting for food and goods.
Skills that I consider mandatory, even today:
1) math with pencil and paper
2) hunting using various methods
3) fishing using various methods
4) start a fire with stuff from the forest or desert
5) land navigation, map reading, how to use a compass
6) self-defense using various methods
7) build an expedient shelter
I think Robert Heinlein puts it perfectly:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
February 17th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
While I am a necrocomputing hobbyist (DECSYSTEM-20 in the garage and all that), I don’t have to draw upon that to gainsay one item on your list.
Pilots of aircraft still use sliderules, usually called the E6B. Yes, there are battery powered calculators that do the same thing, but they don’t fit around the bezel of a watch.
Oh yeah, we read paper maps too.
It’s an odd industry. General aviation is only now coming around to such “novelties” as Full Authority Digital Engine Control. There are also more than a few carbureted engines still in service.
Even I have to admit that I prefer electronic ignition to magnetos, but there is a quaint and unmistakable reliability to that technology.
February 17th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
My daughter recently asked me why I had all these “giant CDs” in the closet. They are old records. I finally decided it was time to throw out the record *player* at least because the needle was missing. I threw out the rotary phone, too. I kept the Stereopticon. There are certain things that will be antiques, collector’s items, but I think not rotary phones from the 1990s.
You still have to know shorthand and use envelopes, stamps, and checks, however, because there are institutions and meetings where you can’t take in a cell phone or laptop to the meeting and they don’t have online payments yet.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
My 80 year old grandparents in Portugal have a rotary phone. I was there for 3 weeks recently and it was driving me mad. When i first got there my cell phone’s international plan wasn’t working so i called AT&T-of course i could not use the prompts to get to the right person, after a long time (a long distance call) on hold finally someone came on- when i told him i couldn’t hit the prompts because i was on a rotary phone the guy goes- ‘what is that?’ after explaining he probably though Portugal was a backwards country- i told him that my grandparents are just slow to change!
I have told them that it is not safe- if they have an emergency dialing a rotary phone is probably not the quickest way to get the ambulance to come. But she likes the way it looks (it is a nice old phone)!
February 17th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
How about Visual J++, Windows 3.1, and Windows NT? I can’t even sell my old books on that technology.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Other “skills::
Setting the station on a push button radio.
Checking the water level in the car battery
Using three buttons to adjust the color on the TV
Three button TV remote
Replacing tubes in the TV.
Watching music videos on MTV
Driving a manual column shifting transmission
Manually calculating change when using a cash register
Filling out a withdrawal slip to take cash out of your bank account
Dialing “O” and actually talking to an operator.
Dialing the number for the correct time
Understanding what to do about Global Cooling
“Danger, Will Robinson”
“Phasers on stun”
“To the Bat Cave!”
The code to silence the screeching sound of a modem
Sending a Telex
ride in a car without seat belts
sitting next to your ‘boyfriend/girlfriend” on the bench seat in the front of your car.
Anticipating the cartoon before the movie
Eventually..Drive-In movies
putting in that insert in the 45 record
listening to the “B” side of a 45 record
Riding in the third seat of a station wagon facing out the back window
Playing “Pong”
How to format a 5.25 floppy disk
creating a batch file via edlin
Reel-to-Reel tape recorders
Look something up in an encyclopedia
How to really “steal” music (walk out of the store with a record”
To get “porn” you had to steal if from your older brother, or bribe some homeless person to buy it for you.
Using a TV Guide to see what was on TV.
Waiting ALL week for cartoons–only on Saturday mornings
Making popcorn by heating up oil in a pan an waiting for it to start popping
February 18th, 2008 at 12:11 am
handwriting. the nuns beat it into me, and I used to turn out quite a nice and legible chicken scratch. Now, because of the computer keyboard, when I try to write with a pen and paper, I’ve actually forgotten how.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:18 am
That’s funny. A lot of the 20-somethings here in S.F. still use/buy records and at least one or two people I know use medium-format film cameras.
Also: a lot of young people still use MySpace instead of Facebook. Why? Every MySpace band lets you stream their music on your page, and you can customize the hell out of your page. Facebook is ugly and no one’s profile looks interesting.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:33 am
-Skill #1: used a rotary phone for a few years when growing up (thanks to being in rural Alaska).
-Skill #5: I own, and know how to use, a slide rule
I still use skill 10 regularly.
-Skill #8: My typewriter wasn’t even electric.
-And I regularly use skills #9 and #10 even now (old television set, lousy reception, and no cable).
How about these:
-A slideshow with actual slides
-changing the ribbon head in a dot-matrix printer
February 18th, 2008 at 1:43 am
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February 18th, 2008 at 2:24 am
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February 18th, 2008 at 2:27 am
[...] by an interesting blog post from Robert Scoble (yes, he does have them every now and then), I purchased the domain [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 2:29 am
I think a lot of dj’s and the audiophiles prefer Turntables for mixing.
And as the last generation that just about learned slide rules before switching to calculators - I must get a slid rule to keep on the desk to go with my RPN HP Calculator - though I believe that Pilots still use a special purpose slide rule.
Re Europe
Yes an no to the slower pace some areas are still some what in the 70’s (try getting Telephonica to fix a phone quickly in Spain) and its only France that has the 35hour work week though the non uk states do have more public holidays.
I used to work with some one who had managed peoplein SV and in the uk and he reckoned that in SV people spent a lot more time goofing off at the water cooler and taking long weekends to go skiing. That there was effectively no difference in the amount of work even with the 4-5 week holidays we had in BT vs 2 weeks in SV.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:34 am
I think tolerating the Modem Howl is an obsolete skill. The same goes for fluency in modem configuration for a PPP client.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:06 am
How about fast-forwarding a cassette tape while holding the Play button down slightly to listen for the gaps between songs? With CDs and mp3s, this is definitely an obsolete skill.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:24 am
[...] Scoble rozjel zajímavou online diskuzi, Obsolete Skills. Prostě schopnosti, které už v dnešní době nepotřebuje. Ať už jde o vstávání z pohovky [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 6:49 am
We’re still teaching shorthand to Journalists here at CJS in Cardiff (possibly the UK’s most renowned journalism school). Lecturers here could name plenty of big court cases that revolved around the use of shorthand.
As for film photography… Shame on you, Mr. Scoble. There are plenty of reasons that film photography will be with us for many many years, and not all of them are cold and rational :)
February 18th, 2008 at 7:59 am
How about *fixing stuff* instead of throwing it away and buying new? That goes along with @75.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:02 am
1. Using a DOS prompt.
2. Using an 8″, 5.25″, 3.5″ floppy disk/drive.
3. Using a CRT monitor.
4. Being able to locate my shoes quickly.
5. Bathing at 4 AM before my now obsolete commute.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:21 am
I get so sick of the SELF RIGHTEOUS. Every time you step on a jet and zoom off to destinations unknown for a ‘visit’ you are spewing more toxic noxious ‘obnoxious & offensive’ TONS of crappola into the atmosphere than ANY itty bitty ’smoker’. Get off your high horses and put away the whip. Smokers ae AWARE of their ‘obsessive-compulsive addiction’. Are YOU - high-end disposable gadget geeks?
Not everyone on the planet wants to live like you guys … Peas are not pumpkins, horses are not bears … Bio-diversity and individuality is essential for species survival.
And, for all of those of you who are somewhat cavalierly just ‘throwing stuff’ out …. SHAME.
WHERE do you think all that extraneous JUNK goes?
February 18th, 2008 at 8:21 am
What’s a slide rule? hehe :-)
February 18th, 2008 at 9:00 am
@87,
One of the problems with the western world in general is that we devloped a “throw-away” mentality. If it’s broken, toss it out and acquire a new one.
I remember as a kid (I’m 40 now) seeing quite a few TV and stereo repair shops. They’re all gone. People don’t repair stuff anymore — they throw it out and make another trip to their local Best Buy or Fry’s.
I know people who buy laptops and when anything breaks, they buy a new one.
I honestly do believe, though, that there is some planned obselescence in modern electronics, but not so much with older stuff.
My grandparents bought one of those huge Zenith console TVs back in the early 70s. It still works, but I replaced it with a modern flat panel because of the digital-only broadcasts coming up soon. Had it not been for this, they would still be using it. It was over thirty years old and still just fine.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Well, you know what the say about the ‘original’ lightbulb … obselescence was a deliberate ‘marketing’ ploy.
Wreck, do you have a ’site’? There’s no ‘link’ here.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:21 am
@89,
No site yet. I’m toying with the idea of starting my own blog, but I haven’t figured out what kind of angle I want to launch it from or who the audience might be.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:28 am
You Could Add
Wireing a plug/Changing a fuse in a plug
Soldering your own rs232 leads - and the anoyance you felt when you reaised you hand’t put the hoods on first :-)
I still think you can’t be a real programmer with being able to use a soldering iron
February 18th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I forgot to add that western peoples have this hangup with having the latest and greatest. For some people, it’s a disease almost.
My last trip to the EU a couple of years ago really opened up my eyes to some things I was wondering about.
How does the average European live in terms of gadgets?
How do they see gadgets compared to Americans?
Well, I visited a few home while over there, people from all walks of life and people with a range of salaries. Not one — NOT ONE — had a big screen TV. They all had average sized TVs. None of them had more than one laptop or desktop computer. One family had two, but that’s because the daughter was a student at university. Dad told me they would have never bought it otherwise.
Europeans love texting. They use it so much more than Americans do. There are phone plans in the EU that only offer texting. Everyone almost uses it. I hate it, but that’s me.
I have a plain jane phone that does calls only. I need nothing else. I have no interest in being bothered unless required.
I personally know people who buy every iteration of Mac or other computer brand that comes out, and they wonder why they cannot afford to ever eat out once in a while. They also buy every stupid tech toy they see that they like. Computers should last at least 3 years, preferrably 5, but the hardware/software companies keep ugrading stuff forcing new hardware/software if you want to use the newest stuff. No thanks.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:56 am
@99,
I agree with your assessment of real programmers. The Steve Wozniaks are few and far between.
A good programmer should know things down to the machine level. They all used to back in the day, but now, if you can type, you can call yourself a programmer.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Love this topic!
How about opening the garage door manually, popping popcorn on the stove, tea in a kettle, looking in the newspaper for movie times at the cinema, buying a map instead of mapquesting directions,……
The list is endless.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Obsolete - IBM Lotus Notes & Domino…at least not yet?
February 18th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
@75: I prefer Yamamoto Tsunetomo, who didn’t hold back at all:
“A person who is said to be proficient at the arts is like a fool. Because of his foolishness in concerning himself with just one thing, he thinks of nothing else and thus becomes proficient. He is a worthless person.”
February 18th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Wreck, pls let me know when you strike an angle … Happy Huntin’.
Setting up a blog is ‘easy’, relatively speaking. I mean, it’s not as though you have to CARVE something with the strength and finesse of your own BARE HANDS ….
You can keep a blog ‘private’ until you’re ready to ‘launch’. If unfamiliar with the basics it can be a rather steep ‘learning curve’, […methinks you do have programming under your belt…). It soon all becomes second nature. Part of the ‘fun’ here is to ‘jump in’ with others in the WordPress community. Lots of alternate p.o.v.’s, some wise, some dull, some brilliant, some insipid. Generally there is something of ‘interest’.
Alternatively, give ‘Stumbleupon.com’ a gander. Now that’s REALLY a wacky fun invigorating and interesting ride …
Then again, CARVING is a far more demanding, exacting, time consuming personal CREATION that challenges the ever-fluctuating balance between your hand, eye, mind and heart. The ‘audience’ is limited, but the net result is something you can actually GIVE your grandchildren ….
February 18th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Umm, you call these “Skills”?
A skill is Carpentry.
A skill is Autorepair.
A skill is “a craft, trade, or job requiring manual dexterity or special training in which a person has competence and experience: the skill of cabinetmaking.”
Using Carbon paper is NOT a skill.
Neither is adjusting your tv’s antenna!
February 18th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
The fact is many people every year get lost in the wilderness, due to their lack of knowledge in LAND NAVIGATION skills. BUT, how does one improve on their LAND NAVIGATION skills. There are outdoor wilderness navigators of various skill levels out there that can use these lessons, to improve their skills and introduce others (beginners and those unfamiliar) into the world of Land Navigation.
The lessons are FREE to download, informative, and can be used to teach yourself and others in the knowledge of “LAND NAVIGATION with MAP and LENSATIC COMPASS”. http://WWW.LANDNAVIGATION.ORG
Very Respectfully,
Jimmy D.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Technology-wise: Terminating SCSI cables and being worried about too many text boxes in a document in a page-layout program.
In general: Card catalogs at the library and paying 15 cents or more, each, for black-and-white copies.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Wreck, in Oz the government buys the big screen TVs for people! IT’s called a baby bonus. The govt pays $5000 for each baby born. Many folks splash out and buy a big screen TV. Consequently down here, kids born in the last 5 years are called the “plasma generation”.
Re your blog, I think you’ll do well. But it is hard to find your niche. Maybe start with something generic, just your thoughts and ramblings, and as canadada says you don’t even have to make it public. Then thru that you might find what you want to write about.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Bragging about your blood type. (I’m the last person in my family who was blood-typed at birth. Apparently they stopped that in the early 80’s.)
February 19th, 2008 at 2:19 am
Shorthand obselete? Tell that to court reporters in the UK? I trained as a journalist 20 years ago and shorthand was the most useful skill I acquired. Still use it. Wish I’d known it before I went to university (would have been a real help in lectures).
To be able to take notes that few others in the meeting can read can be very helpful, very often…
February 19th, 2008 at 9:18 am
I live in Northern Vermont, and I’m here to tell you that many of the obsolete things you listed are still alive and well here. I still write checks, make out deposit slips, use Windows and WordPerfect, correction tape when necessary. I even cook, sew, sing, and am able to put windshield wiper fluid in my car.
You people need to get a life. Sitting in front of a computer is nowhere.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Actually, several of those skills are still very useful to me today. See website if interested.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:20 am
A lot of things people list as obsolete skills are not skills at all.
Writing checks is not a skill.
Dialing a phone is not a skill.
Watching TV and hooking up DVD player is not a skill.
Skills are learned and maintained. Woodworking is a skill. Being a mechanic is a skill. Hunting and fishing are skills. Living on the land is a skill. Riding horses is a skill. Using a map and compass are skills. Gardening well is a skill. Knowing what plants and animals to eat in the forest are skills.
Skills require training, whether formal or self-learned. They are something you master or come close to mastering, and only come with repetition and making mistakes.
Programming is a skill, but it’s useful only in the context of having a computer. Life goes so far beyond tech. The vast majority of the world could care less about tech. They are too worried about eating and surviving.
We in the western world are blessed in that we have these technical things to make our lives easier and fun, but the real skills our children should be developing are not being addressed anymore. Some school systems don’t even teach cursive anymore. Shame on them.
I can tell you that my kid will learn how to fish, hunt, shoot, clean animals, make a fire with only things found in nature, read a map and use a compass, cook, change a car tire, basic electricity (compute voltage, ohms, amp requirements), and a whole host of other useful things.
I was fortunate to have been raised in an area that values the old skills — and still does. People here have computers, yet they see it as a tool, like a hammer. There is not an abundance of tech here.
I recall when living on the east coast, the power went out when I was at a doctor appointment. The entire place relied on computers and electricity. Since the doctor could not pull up my info on his laptop, I was forced to make another appointment, but I had to call in the next day to do so, because the receptionist couldn’t log the new appointment in her computer. They couldn’t even get their backup generator to work that day. I’m glad this was a clinic and not a hospital with patients tied to life-saving machines like breathers and dialysis. Losers.
Oddly enough, the same thing happened after I moved back to the southwest. I was at the doctor with my kid when a thunderstorm overhead caused the power to go. The doctor had paper records and a flashlight. He was able to see my kid with no problems. He wrote a prescription on a paper chit and we left. I made a follow-up appointment with the receptionist before leaving. She did this using a paper calander for that particular doctor. Old school? Yes. Effective? You betcha!
We will one day regret our reliance on tech and it’s going to sting mightily. Those people with the skills that the east and left coasties (and other big city dwellers) deride as being “old-skool” or “redneck” will serve well. They will eat, drink, and go about life fairly well, while their tech-reliant counterparts will be reduced to groveling for government handouts — or worse, rioting in the streets to meet their basic reqirements.
When that happens, I’ll be down at the river with a fishing pole catching bass or catfish or in the forest with a recurve bow perforating Bambie. We’ll eat and drink well. Tivos, blogs, and the Java vs .NET arguments will be useless and forgotten.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Robert, congrats on a great thread. My contributions:
- Listening
- Having equity in a house
- Paper routes
- a federal balanced budget
- Carrying your clubs while playing a round of golf
btw, I must strongly disagree with your premise that Europeans “rush just as much as we do”. I lived in Europe for 6 years. Dining out there is a wonderful, languid experience that can take 3-4 hours. Dining out in the U.S. is like being in fast forward, with those idiotic, blaring TVs mounted everywhere to ensure an actual conversation doesn’t break out!
February 19th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Cutting out a little notch in a single-sided 5.25″ diskette so that you can use both sides.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Personal Ensign: heheh, when I have a meal like that in Europe I chalk it up to poor service. I don’t try to justify it to foreigners as a “feature.” :-)
Seriously, you are eating in the wrong places in the United States. If you want to slow down and take three hours for a meal I know quite a few places to send you.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Wreck: funny enough, I have all those skills (my dad taught them to me). My son, Patrick’s new step-dad is a guy just like you, by the way. So he’s learning all those skills too.
The thing is that if there were some major disaster that took down our power and connectivity grids for weeks enough of us would self teach each other these skills that we’d fish out every single lake and stream within a three day drive of the coasts. So, what will you do then? I guess eat dandelion leaves for a while. Wonderful world you conjure up in your head.
I sure hope I never need those skills again, but if I do they don’t take more than a few hours to relearn (or teach to other people).
You also miss that I live walking distance to the ocean. So, as long as our fishing boats can go out to sea we’ll have lots of food where I live. No skills needed other than something of value to trade for the food.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I don’t think anyone has mentioned Morse code as a lost skill.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Scoble,
I’m glad you have some good skills; most geeks don’t.
I haven’t conjured up any wonderful world in my head. It’s called being prepared. I spent 7 years in the military. I learned to adapt, overcome, or die. No more, no less. I don’t dwell on the possibility, but I’ll be ready should it happen.
You have to remember the old adage, though. Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for the rest of his life.
Scoble, running out of food will never be an issue. It’s the coasts and big cities that will have issues with food, since 80% of the population lives on the coasts. Us “rednecks” in the middle of the country have far fewer worries. :) There are more cattle and fish here than humans by about 1000 times over. One benefit of living in the middle of nowhere is there are fewer mouths to feed.
Skills that you would need would have to be great ones:
- medical skills would be chief among them
- mechanic, ability to fix things right up there
- ability to actually sail a boat and fish
- ability to hunt
- self-defense
- ability to leave the coast and find a better life
Great little article on a basic survival kit that actually fits in an Altoid tin.
There are 19 slides to this…
http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/photogallery/article/0,13355,1225788,00.html
February 19th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Are dames allowed to ‘play’ survival too?
Or is it just back to barefoot in the kitchen for us wenches as we shake rattle & roll them big ol’ pots and pans ???
I STILL think that most of this post is about MONEY, one way or the other, who’s got it to ‘throw it away’ - and who don’t.
Happy Huntin fellas.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I bought a pair of circular slide rules at CONCISE (Japan). This guys keep producing them and we (old weirds) keep buying and using them. So what?
If you are interested: http://www.concise.co.jp/eng0731/circle02.html
February 19th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Don’t discount # 11 just yet. I have a 68 corvette stingray that I adjust the mixture on frequently. Anyone restoring old cars would use that skill. I don’t know if you’ve seen the auctions lately for restored cars, but they ain’t cheap.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
As for #10, I was at a biker’s house one time and the only way we were able to see the channel was when his ol’ lady was holding the rabbit ears. So, he made her hold them while we watched TV. We brought her beer and passed the smoke to her. I guess she’s out of a job now.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
She’d be good for #9 though……
February 19th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Man this is a short-sighted list… old things do not die that quickly.
I’m 22 and have done many of the things on that particular list within the last 10 years, and I know others who have more often, too. Not quite sure that allows them to be considered “obsolete”.
Don’t court reporters still use shorthand? They did when I was a kid!
Response to other comments:
In my field (engineering) we have to know how to do everything on the fly… napkins are more useful than you think… mental math is required frequently. For tests, we’re often not allowed to use calculators (one of my professors did let us use slide rules just for fun). All of Europe it seems writes ONLY in cursive… I write in cursive to write more quickly sometimes.
Anyways, many people are busy keeping up with the Joneses, but there are trade-offs involved with using any new technology, and many of us do not see a reason to switch from some old methods. Many times I’ve found it’s good I kept a “paper” copy in this digital age. And we all know how wonderful these new cars with all the electronics are to fix… but then, this is just an engineer talking, and we’re known to be a strange minority in this nation.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
How about Banyan Vines as an obsolete skill ?
February 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
or Windows NT 3.51 Print queue administrator
February 19th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
[...] Skills is a wiki inspired by Scoble’s recent post listing “things we used to know that no longer are very useful to [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I can’t believe this thing lets me keep posting comments ! I’ll stop now.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
sounds similar to one of the above:
using a floppy to boot up an apple IIe or one of those that have 8-in. screens…back in the early 90s
February 19th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
@121,
“Dames” as you put it are always welcome. :)
Women are just as intelligent as men, despite what some men like to think.
Women, however, still the hell out of me when they are behind the wheel. :)
February 19th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Just because I work with digital media all day doesn’t mean I don’t still listen to music in vinyl.
In fact my 3 year old daughter is competent enough to use my vinyl collection needple drop and all.
The reason vinyl still wins for me is that it’s an excellent user interface for manipulating music, none of this ‘vinyl sounds warmer crap’ it’s all about scratching and cutting.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I was without electricity for 10 days following Hurricane Wilma. We quickly learned to cook *everything* on a charcoal grill.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:59 am
In my office I have the LARGE Faber Castell slide rule, used in tuition, mounted on one wall as well as an IBM golf ball typewriter, a single cylinder steam engine and my IBM systems design template.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Double de-clutching!
Operating a column shift gear change!
February 20th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Developing Film/Fotos… nu-uh, not quite yet.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Though I have high speed internet and can’t live without it, I can live without television so I utilize the rabbit ear adjusting daily.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:03 am
I know how to operate all the hot-type equipment necessary to produce printed paper documents, like a Mergenthaler linotype, and I could take a pretty good swing at operating the photogravure end of the shop as well.
That’s where you prepare to print photographs on paper without a computer, by shooting a line negative and using the resulting “xx dots per inch” negative to etch zinc plates using nitric acid.
I can also milk a cow or goat, although my experience is all with cows I’ve seen others do goats and it looks pretty easy compared to a cow.
Butchering in the back yard, OK, gross but necessary if you farm and keep pigs or chickens.
Producing canned food from a garden in my kitchen? Been there, like it OK.
Hex debugging, the worst bug I ever found was an unprintable character that occurred right where a decimal point should have been!!
I could go on, this is very interesting… debugging electronics by turning off the lights and looking to see the dark tubes…
February 20th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Skills long overdue to be dead:
- Writing lameass blog articles
February 20th, 2008 at 6:06 am
I have never seen such a small-minded, parochial, ego-centric group as you lot. Look at what you’re writing: “X will be obsolete just because I don’t do it”.
Judging by a lot of the comments, a significant proportion of the posters can’t differentiate a “skill” from an activity. For example, putting a needle on a vinyl record is not a skill, it’s simply a mechanical action. Getting off the couch to change TV channels is another example.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:18 am
I dunno, some of these don’t exactly require “skill”. Maybe obsolete “tasks”?
February 20th, 2008 at 6:19 am
What about all of the rituals related to superstitions which are no longer followed. For instance…
It was bad luck to light three cigarettes with one match. Even now, I have warned people about doing this with a lighter. The theory was that if you were in a foxhole the enemy had a better chance of seeing where you were the longer the match was lit.
Another good one is finding a penny on the ground with tails side up. Long considered to be bad luck, there was a way around the jinx. If you look and consciously read the date and mint mark you would be fine. But does anyone care nowaday? Nope. Now you’re lucky to even find someone who’ll take the time to pick up a penny.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:29 am
[...] wiki can help clarify your explanation. The wiki, a continuation of some earlier projects but reinvigorated by a post from Robert Scobble, seeks to document some of the basic life skills upon which we no longer [...]
February 20th, 2008 at 6:33 am
Mr. Scoble,
Just because you are a new tech geek, does not make these older technologies obsolete.
A true audiophile does vinyl.
A car hobbyist adjust carburetors.
Shorthand has morphed to typehand.
Plenty of writers still use a typewriter.
Older folks still need rabbit ears, or those who like living in the mountains or deep in the heart of the country. Of course, they are about to have the rabbit die with the Draconian Digital Directive.
And don’t turn a blind eye to the rest of the world - most of it depends on older technology.
Next you will be telling me rolling dice is obsolete because of computer gaming; not me, I am a dedicated boardgamegeek!
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