Obsolete skills
Discussion
Prompted by a post in the trivial thread, I have the following skills, among others :
Drafting (pen & ink on film)
Stick arc welding
Hand splicing wire rope
All of these took time and effort to learn, earned me money at the time, and are now totally obsolete.
What collection of useless skills do we have on PH?
What should we do with that power?
Drafting (pen & ink on film)
Stick arc welding
Hand splicing wire rope
All of these took time and effort to learn, earned me money at the time, and are now totally obsolete.
What collection of useless skills do we have on PH?
What should we do with that power?
I have a few skills.
- Fast navigation off a paper chart, @ 80/100 knots across water with my own inner GPS.
- Ripping through coral reefs, just reading the water at speed.
- Reading a Prop. A fast boat's prop size, pitch, blade is a black art, not many people have it.
- Getting a yacht's lines/look right. No computer can get a tumblehome right, even with the very best 3D surfacing.
DervVW said:
map reading is fast becoming a lost art... bad thing?
People still read maps. What they don't do is triangulate their position from known landmarks anymore.I can code in 6502 Assembly Language. Unless you have a BBC Micro or Commodore 64 that's utterly obsolete.
Edited by Don on Sunday 30th August 07:27
had ham said:
Fishtigua said:
- Reading a Prop. A fast boat's prop size, pitch, blade is a black art, not many people have it.
Genuine question, not trying to be arsey...
With marine race props, only the lower half is in the water doing work, the top half is just spinning in air and putting up a roostertail.
Finding a balance between the two in a certain rev range/sea conditions is a real black art.
Very, very simplified.
Edited by Fishtigua on Sunday 30th August 09:10
Fishtigua said:
When a prop on a fast boat passes through water it acts as a screw. Think of a wood screw, a meatier open wood thread goes in quicker than a thightly spun self-tapper, that's why you have variable speeds on your drill/driver.
With marine race props, only the lower half is in the water doing work, the top half is just spinning in air and putting up a roostertail.
Finding a balance between the two in a certain rev range/sea conditions is a real black art.
Very, very simplified.
Every day's a school day! With marine race props, only the lower half is in the water doing work, the top half is just spinning in air and putting up a roostertail.
Finding a balance between the two in a certain rev range/sea conditions is a real black art.
Very, very simplified.
Edited by Fishtigua on Sunday 30th August 08:58
Don said:
DervVW said:
map reading is fast becoming a lost art... bad thing?
People still read maps. What they don't do is triangulate their position from known landmarks anymore.I always love it when I'm out running with my gps watch and iPhone and I see some old couple out there with a lovely old weatherproof OS map.
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