Obsolete skills
Discussion
Stick arc welding is not an obsolete art. If nothing else it's good for removing wheel bearings. I have the technique and use it once or twice a month.
No, a proper skill that's no longer required is finding and understanding the breakage origin on an old fashioned glass CTR TV.
I spent 2 years of my life trying to understand how to find that. I eventually cracked (!) it It earned me a lot of money and credibility - but that was 2004, and I don't think I've used it since.
I once found the source of the break in an oven with 240 broken screens in.
No, a proper skill that's no longer required is finding and understanding the breakage origin on an old fashioned glass CTR TV.
I spent 2 years of my life trying to understand how to find that. I eventually cracked (!) it It earned me a lot of money and credibility - but that was 2004, and I don't think I've used it since.
I once found the source of the break in an oven with 240 broken screens in.
jas xjr said:
Mental arithmetic. Nobody seems to bother at work,they reach for a calculator instead.
Letter writing,when was the last time anybody wrote one of those ?
I work with a girl who has just passed her Maths A-level with an A-star, and uses a calculator constantly. She watches with amazement when I add up a column of numbers in my head, in not much more time than her machine (I'm 65, old school). I was useless at maths (just scraped through my O-level) but basic mental arithmetic isn't anything to do with ability at the subject. I was taught speed-adding by a resident tax-calculation guy at work - you just look at a column of numbers and separate in your mind any 2 figures which combine to make 10.Letter writing,when was the last time anybody wrote one of those ?
My own skill? Double-entry bookkeeping. By hand. Written ledgers. Faster in my day than anyone I knew. So what, they all cry..........
As an aside, do you think anyone these days could do the old typesetters job in a newspaper's printing room? Feck me, but those guys were quick.
21TonyK said:
Don said:
I can code in 6502 Assembly Language...
And a few others, long lost and now useless skills that at the time were super cool things to be able to do.All my skills seemed to finish in 1989.
jas xjr said:
Mental arithmetic. Nobody seems to bother at work,they reach for a calculator instead.
Agreed. Well, generally. I don't work where you do. 
That's why I got this app: http://amzn.to/1Iv3LQkNot exactly the most fun game but it challenges my maths skills. Geometry!? Equations!? Probably more than I need to use these days but, still, it gets the mind thinking.
Morningside said:
21TonyK said:
Don said:
I can code in 6502 Assembly Language...
And a few others, long lost and now useless skills that at the time were super cool things to be able to do.All my skills seemed to finish in 1989.
Do everything in C# these days.
nicanary said:
My own skill? Double-entry bookkeeping. By hand. Written ledgers. Faster in my day than anyone I knew. So what, they all cry..........
Me? I got 9% for my Maths 'O'level. I think that was for knowing my own name.In College we had to learn the Kalamazoo System, very cutting edge.
There you go, every Management shindigg should be shown how to be a dick all at once, saves time and money.
Don said:
Morningside said:
21TonyK said:
Don said:
I can code in 6502 Assembly Language...
And a few others, long lost and now useless skills that at the time were super cool things to be able to do.All my skills seemed to finish in 1989.
Do everything in C# these days.
I loved the Sage II and Sage IV. You never see them now. I used to know where one was but it was scrapped years ago.
Also remember and used the Pinnicle computer again in UCSD but cannot find much info about it.
I suppose I'm pretty handy in a couple of programming languages that are all but extinct if that counts? Actually I suppose it's sort of a built in thing with IT - I've probably got the knowledge to do hundred of IT things that just aren't even remotely relevant to anything you'd encounter today (fine tuning config.sys and autoexec.bat anybody?)
uncinqsix said:
Developing and printing photographic film (in a darkroom). Not a skill I expect to use again in a hurry...
I have a Russian (USSR days) 'Zenit' enlarger that I used to use in my bathroom once upon a long time ago... The cheapest auto-focus enlarger available in the 1970s.OP - rather surprised that you think stick welding is becoming obsolete. Working in the construction industry, mostly the oil and gas side of things, stick welding is essential. As long as we keep using metal products, we will be welding them together. Sure, new technologies have seen many fantastic automated processes, but the stick is still needed for some of the finer and more difficult welds as well as the fit up work before the automatics come into play.
Another lost skill - mammoth hunting, skinning, then eating it
Another lost skill - mammoth hunting, skinning, then eating it
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 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
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