Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Obsolete skills

Re: Obsolete skills

Beren1hand — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:11:18 -0000

1. Using "White-out"
2. knowing how to "mimeograph"

Re: Obsolete skills

Vickie — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:51:19 -0000

I hope you're wrong about film becoming obsolete. I prefer working at capturing a great picture to the easy does it approach. Shoot, view, erase, retake. Where's the art in that?

Re: Obsolete skills

Sol Young — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:46:10 -0000

Personally filtering the noise by reading every tweet and feed...

Really, Google Wave and Twitter's Search are about to make our over-friend-subscription tendencies a thing of the past. I'm subscribing more and more to search based feeds instead of individual bloggers. My news consumption is now an aggregation of search based aggregations.

Re: Obsolete skills

Bryan Anderson — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:59:23 -0000

I wonder how many still use abacus, telex machine and DOS...

Re: Obsolete skills

Lisa — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:45:06 -0000

I completely disagree with the needle on the record player one. There is no better quality method of sound reproduction out there yet. Digital may be more portable but the quality just isn't quite there. I have a turntable, use it often, have hundreds of records, and am only 26 years old. Some artists still produce vinyl for those with ears that know the difference.

Vinyl forever!

Re: Obsolete skills

John Markos O'Neill — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:08:50 -0000

I was thinking about how the middle of generation X (born in the late 60s and early 70s) is a transitional cohort with regard to digital technology. Although we were children in a mostly analog world, and learned many of the obsolete skills in this list, we were exposed to microcomputers as children, too. We're natives of both the digital and pre-digital worlds.

How do you know you're part of this lucky group? Identifying obsolete skills include playing Space Invaders on an Atari 2600, and programming BASIC on a Commodore whose programs load from cassette.

Re: Obsolete skills

Gerard — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:28:30 -0000

Just a quick note to let you know I was very much inspired by this posting, just last friday I launched a Dutch wiki with obsolote skills, http://www.nuttelozevaardig...

Re: Obsolete skills

Dean Huster — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:49:11 -0000

For some of poorer folks who couldn't afford a mimeograph machine, there was the hektograph. You bought a can of this liquid you poured into a large, flat dish and it gelled. Then you used an indelible pencil or a spirit master on a typewriter and made an original. This was "blotted" onto the surface of the gel and subquent sheets of blank paper were pressed onto this transferred image in the gel to create your copies. Slow, crude and CHEAP! I remember using this thing every year when as a kid, Dad sent out reminder cards to members of the community to send in their dues for the volunteer fire department. You could by the gel liquid at office supply stores.

Dean

Re: Obsolete skills

Jeanss — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:15:12 -0000

thats it, brother

Re: Obsolete skills

Dana — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 07:32:38 -0000

Geez.

Fishing? Do you know how to design, build and repair a boat? Make fishing line from animal gut? Carve hooks? Make a stone or metal tool to carve the hook with?

Cooking with charcoal for 11 days :rolleyes:? Do you know how to make charcoal?

Do you plan to eat anything but fish and meat, or do you know how to sustainably garden? Do you know how to make hunting weapons?

What about digging a safe well? Constructing a pump? Making pots to cook food and purify water? Making baskets to gather food?

Tanning animal hides? Retting or combing, spinning and weaving fibers?

It's amazing what passes for "survival skills" among people who've never had to do it for more than a couple of days. I guarantee you each one of the skills on this list takes more than "a few hours" to learn.

Re: Obsolete skills

Lesley Pescod — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:00:36 -0000

I have a rotary phone in my living room...I rarely use it, the cordless gets all the attention. It still works just great! I hated it as a teenager we were the only people I knew who owned one. We keep it around as a conversation piece, and my kids think it's funny.

Re: Obsolete skills

John D L Davis — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:53:52 -0000

@87 Tuning a crystal set radio. Most of you do not even know what I am talking about since that was about 82 years ago. Enjoyed the comments.

Re: Obsolete skills

H. Michael Karshis — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:32:16 -0000

Proficient in both Freehand and Pagemaker...

HMK

Re: Obsolete skills

Charlie — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:01:34 -0000

how about kickstarting a motorcycle? rapidly going out of style this one.

Re: Obsolete skills

kah — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:17:18 -0000

I'm raising teenagers here in america, and am embarrassed to admit that since velcro replaced laces/grommets, my daughter took her time learning how to tie her shoes. When I was a youngster, that was an acknowledged mileston.
Also, my kids, until they were fairly old, would double check an analog clock with a digital. They stiil aren't comfortable with the "to" or "til" side of the clock. It's 9:45, NOT a quarter to ten. Yikes. And these kids have brains the size of planets, excellent teachers, and two old fart engineers for parents!

Re: Obsolete skills

magicbean — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:02:09 -0000

This list is halfway to idiotic. It represents the can't-do list of a couple of coastal American white boy geeks who live in a tiny world whose world is limited to the computer screen. These people think they are in some position to declare something obsolete because they themselves don't use a skill in their tiny, uniformed world? Can you spell h-u-b-r-i-s or is that obsolete? The skills on the list that are truly obsolete are limited to the flash-in-the-pan world of computers. The rest are things the boys are just not familiar with. Duh.

Re: Obsolete skills

SnakyPoet — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:45:36 -0000

The Dewey Decimal System is alive and well in Australia, but drive-ins are long gone, and I haven't seen a rotary phone in decades.

Re: Obsolete skills

jrsq — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:04:40 -0000

Rabbit ears are back with HDTV

Re: Obsolete skills

Carl Phelps — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:24:08 -0000

I enjoyed reading this. Check out this site...
www.carlsonestopmall.com

Re: Obsolete skills

Annalie Killian — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:36:13 -0000

Laugh...reading through these comments that contradict your list...methinks its evidence of the looooooooong tail!

Re: Obsolete skills

chezjake — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:03:56 -0000

I've got one genuinely obsolete skill. I know how to adjust and repair all the old purely mechanical (non-electric, non-electronic) vending machines.

Re: Obsolete skills

wil — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:13:02 -0000

1. manually clicking over to pick up someone on the other line of the phone.
2. paying attention to how hard you hit your brakes.
3. pinball. real pinball.
4. presets on an old car radio

Re: Obsolete skills

Terresa — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:25:21 -0000

Where's the beef?!!

Re: Obsolete skills

Chuck — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:24:58 -0000

Roller skate keys

Re: Obsolete skills

Larry — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:08:23 -0000

But I enjoy adjusting the Holley 650 on my 65 mustang!