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Old 14th Mar 2014, 1:29 pm   #141
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Knowing the difference between a needle and a stylus.
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 1:50 pm   #142
threeseven
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One bit of forgotten knowledge was having a "Penmanship" class in junior school.
Likewise, we had handwriting classes at school. Writing in lined exercise books in italic. I can still recall the smell of Quink ink now, and also the inevitable mess I used to cause to myself with spillages!
In fact I'm sure we also learned how to write with a dip pen because I can remember using the inkwells in our desks! Now I am feeling old
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 2:31 pm   #143
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Hi
When at Uni in the early Eighties the computing lecturer posed this problem:
Suppose you have a collection of, say, fifty LPs. You want a database to detail them in alphabetical order, but you will be adding new tiltles and giving away some you don't listen to any more, so the number is always varying, as is the place of each in the list. What is the best solution?
Some very eleborate databases were created, but the one earning most marks was - a card index file! Moral: the best solution is not alwas the most 'cutting edge'.
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 2:39 pm   #144
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My telephone book is often laughed at - until I point out that I could drop mine in the washing up bowl and I could very probably still read it. Can't say the same for those expensive little bricks people carry now.

While we're at it: loading a matchlock musket

Knapping a flint.

There must be so many skills that have come and gone.

It would be interesting to identify the new skills that are coming to the fore in the current age.

Now let me see... er..

Umm
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 2:58 pm   #145
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Here's an obscure one.
lapping recorder heads.I have just been having an interesting conversation today with a up specialist.
re lapping the heads on a 3M M79 multitrack recorder.
They do have a specialist but when he retires, they don't.Several major record companies have been in conversation with this gentleman suggesting he train replacement asap!!
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 3:11 pm   #146
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Hiring an L.T. accumulator from the local radio shop (and taking it back for recharging).
Charging a line of 2 volt accumulators, that was one of my first jobs when I started work.

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Old 14th Mar 2014, 5:05 pm   #147
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... Knapping a flint.

There must be so many skills that have come and gone ...
Not completely. I have a friend (a practical professional archaeologist specialising in the Mesolithic) who's a dab hand at this. When we were students he and a few of his mates improvised a stone age barbecue. They made the fire and the 'knives' (flint blades) on the spot and they'd also rounded up a few flat stones, wooden dishes etc for convenience. Then the wife of one of them appeared with the raw food - poultry meat seasoned with fresh herbs and (concessions to modernity) butter, the whole lot being wrapped in tinfoil. We popped them along with some spuds into the hot ashes. They were exquisite. However this might have been due in part to the fact that she taught gourmet cooking at a very expensive finishing school for young ladies, just over the road .

Cheers,

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Old 14th Mar 2014, 5:22 pm   #148
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Drinking a load of beer and just being happy, and having enough money left for a cab home too.

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Old 14th Mar 2014, 5:27 pm   #149
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A few more:

Sexing day-old chicks [you don't want to raise too many cockerels]

"Wiping" the soldered joints on lead pipes with a moleskin.

Glassblowing (I spent a week in my first term at college learning how to make bits of glass scientific apparatus. I was utterly useless at it!)

Being able to whistle 1750Hz with sufficient accuracy to open the local 2-metre repeater.
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 7:02 pm   #150
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I learned to "wipe" lead pipe joints, courtesy of a relative who was a plumber.

I can still manage many of the other "lost skills" as I suspect, can many members here.
But, when our generation has gone...
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 7:20 pm   #151
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Wiped joint..........tick!
Never knapped a flint. (finding stone-age tinfoil, probably Aluminium, is impressive )
1750Hz.................tick!
Never had to lap a tape head
General blacksmithing. Horsemanship.

I've got a reasonable collection of old skills.

But when our generation has gone...

As someone else's dot sig file says "If we aren't going to make anything, then what are we going to do?"

If everything is to be made in China we lose all the skills for even the modern stuff, and then it becomes China's problem too, if no one else makes any money to buy their things with.

I once wondered about this in the 1980s, about Japan. But the answer was that Japan changed. China is bigger and harder to change.

David
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 7:31 pm   #152
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Making thermionic valves!
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 7:32 pm   #153
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Hmmm Hypoid and blue.... tick!
Wiped joint..........tick!
Never knapped a flint. (finding stone-age tinfoil, probably Aluminium, is impressive )
1750Hz.................tick!
Never had to lap a tape head
Bored engines, forged a crank. General blacksmithing. Horsemanship.
My view is that if ever the Zombie-Apocalypse collapse-of-the-current-technology-realm comes to pass, those of us survivors who retain the various Arcane Technical/Magickal skills will end up either being lynched/burned at the stake as witches/wizards or promoted well beyond our pay-grades as visionaries/seers.

Imagine the fate of someone in a 16th-century world with a working battery/shake-to-power-it flashlight. Or a flint-and-liquid-gas-fuelled cigarrete-lighter of the kind you get for 10p on any current-era market-stall.
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 8:16 pm   #154
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Talking of setting - type face, not that I ever knew how to do that

Hand starting a Tiger Moth
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 8:19 pm   #155
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hand starting a tiger moth
!!sucking in!!
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 8:21 pm   #156
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Washing clothes in a dolly tub.

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Old 14th Mar 2014, 8:26 pm   #157
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Washing clothes in a dolly tub.
We had the hi tech version in the 50's - a copper, a dolly with a gas ring underneath and copper stick as the agitator! My old Mum would use the stick to keep law and order in our house
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 10:28 pm   #158
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I'm hoping to learn some glass & vacuum skills as soon as I have the time and place to do so.

Regarding China, it will change as fast or faster than Japan.
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 11:11 pm   #159
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Fitting a new leather pump washer and lighting a paraffin blowlamp, as I've just done this evening.
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Old 14th Mar 2014, 11:52 pm   #160
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Tapping a new thread. Putting new bearings in a Hoover motor.
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