Posted on 12/28/2014 12:12:37 PM PST by familyop
Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at the University of Manchester, claims that the under 40s expect everything to ‘just work’ and have no idea what to do when things go wrong...This year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are entitled ‘Sparks will fly: How to hack your home’ she is hoping it will inspire people to think what else they can do with common household objects...Ideas include using a magnifying glass and shoe box to turn a mobile phone into a rudimentary projector; how to use tin foil to make too small batteries fit correctly and how to turn a bottle of water into a lamp.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Very impressive! We live on a little 1/4 acre ourselves and in the past we’ve raised rabbits and chickens and still grow food from our garden, make jams, etc. I would love to move to a larger property and go all out. But it’s only two of us as our daughter will be off at college in a year and a half. Homesteading is hard work—fulfulling work—but you need a lot of hands to do it well.
Spinning and making your own fabrics is incredible and definitely a smart cost-saving move if you have the time and ability! The cost of cloths is so ridiculous that sadly in many cases it makes more financial sense to just buy clothes, unless it’s a special design you’ll never find in shops. Good luck to you!
Yes, it makes sense to just buy clothes, just as it makes sense not to try to repair modern electronics when they fail.
It’s not 1890 or 1920 or 1950 or 1980 anymore.
I remember Heath kits and tube testers. My grandfather had a television sales and repair business. Radios too. The neighbors build a Heath kit TV. He was an engineer and it was his winter project.
You’re correct, but why not have generational poop throwing thread# 12,396,682 on FR...
Needless to say that you couldn’t buy replacement parts for most of the stuff even if you were willing to pay the moon.
But it does not change the fact that Young people have been stuplified to the point of being unable to fix anything or create anything.
Thought we could start Sunday night at the FReepers thread!
If you didn't know exactly what you were doing the old tv's would knock you flat on the floor. LOL The High Voltage rectifier was not wise to get around even when unplugged.
It’s on!
I remember the back of the set being a no-mans-land for kids. My father worked for a while installing aerials.
I remember the smell of the tubes warming up and the orange light they cast.
I think the boys of 50 years ago would love to see our throw away culture, and thrown out gadgets and electronics, they would be building a mountain of super cool spare parts and building incredible devices for themselves.
That lesson is a little farther down the list, but I agree.
As long as people still acquire & maintain skills that can provide for their needs that's fine. It could become 1890 again technology wise real fast though either by terrorism or by natural occurrence. There are way too many eggs in one basket so to speak in critical infrastructures such as electrical power grid and communications grid. Just as there is way too much dependence on satellite communications. The microwave system point to point Ma Bell relied on took longer but would do the job. When I was a kid Ma Bell networked the TV networks as far as national coast to coast broadcast went through them.
I still use TV aerials for police scanners. It's simple all you have to do is adapt a mount for the elements to be in a vertical position rather than horizontal then run it through an analog TV amp.
My daughter’s 4 year old i-pod broke - no headphones. The Apple store said it wasn’t repairable, but would give her money towards a new device.
I did a youtube search and figured it was probably the headphone jack. It was a fun project to watch a couple of videos and use the best ideas of both to take the i-pod apart and put in the new $4.50 part. Spent perhaps an hour doing research, and 45 minutes doing the repair with her help.
My son who I thought never paid much attention had some gal at his college tweet something like “Fixed my closet with a paper clip, and screw from my desk” #myhero
Tomorrow we tackle the struts on his car.
Thanks! We still have a few young tinkerers around these parts, thankfully. One of my granddaughters is dating one, another is engaged to one. (Makes Christmas easy—tools or gift certificates for more of them).
I think the boys of 50 years ago would love to see our throw away culture, and thrown out gadgets and electronics, they would be building a mountain of super cool spare parts and building incredible devices for themselves.
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Being on hand held devices has taken a lot of creativity out of the culture. A lot. People who used to tinker, now constantly are interrupted by their device.
I remember my father looking at a pile of needlepoint seat covers saying that my grandmother was making them for the dining room chairs and stopped right there, as he pointed to a half finished seat cover with the needle still in it, the day the television came into the house. For one could still create and produce and listen to radio, but television paralyzes many.
More than anything I would like to be able to get good fm reception for my house. I wish I could turn my whole house into an aerial. I like stand alone shelf stereos and to use the tuners on them to receive the great classical and vintage music stations would be great! I get them all in the car in the driveway.
“When I was a kid Ma Bell... “
I love the look I get when I tell kids I once worked for the only telephone company in America!
I went into factory maintenance when the old equipment was controlled by either delicate mechanical ‘brains’ or huge discrete electronic ones.
Then came the microprocessor and the computer.
When I retired the first question in troubleshooting was “what is the computer thinking?”.
That is correct, I believe, what really changed was that they quit showing up.
It wasn’t lack of things to build, fix, take apart, strip for parts, it was that they are still sitting in their bedroom watching their own personal TV, or playing with some device in their hand.
The boys of today are not doing anything, they are watching some distraction on a screen.
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