Young people are 'lost generation' who can no longer fix gadgets, warns professor

The Telegraph ^ | 28DEC14 | Sarah Knapton

[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.

[ansel12]

Do you listen to Pandora?

[cva66snipe]

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.

Do what I was talking about it should work. An old analog outdoor TV antenna if you mount it with the elements vertical should work. You may need an analog TV signal amp. FM IIRC without going to see is roughly 88MHZ - 108MHZ. Well within the range of that antenna and amp. BTW you may have to aim the antenna toward the desired station. TV antennas are YAGI antennas meaning directional. You get lots of gain mainly in the direction it is aimed to receive from. You may not even need an amp for it.

FM radio is much easier to get than the old analog TV signals and the bouncing doesn't bother it like it did in TV. The bouncing caused Ghost usually. IOW you were getting the signal from the tower and as well from a nearby ridge where the signal also had bounced.

[ansel12]

LOL, I think the boomers did their share of creating, designing and building the electronic world you live in.

[Revel]

Good Job!

[cva66snipe]

“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'm a Bell Brat LOL. My dad worked much of his 45 years in what was called 4-A which was the forerunner to Electronic Switching or ESS. It was the mechanical switching center for long distance in the Knoxville, TN area. I spent lots of evenings there.

His equipment took up two stories of the building which each floors spaces was about the size of the older Walmart stores. It was replaced with two computers that would take up the average living room. My education in electrical trouble shooting began there LOL. The trouble recorder would go off and I'd read the IBM card and know where to go look :>} On nights when it was quiet he'd take me up to the 5th floor where the TV Network switching was done.

[CodeToad]

“How many over-40s can repair or re-purpose electronic gadgets now? Answer: nearly none.”

All my friends are handymen in various forms. Very few under 40 I have met have been. In fact, I’ve not met an under-40 that even has a tool box.

[familyop]

"What a crock.

The under 40 crowd is designing the very gadgets that have Boomers on the phone with tech support when they can’t figure out how to make them work.

I work with under 40s in an engineering setting every day and they are sharp."

That's a good point. Well said. Thanks!

[Chickensoup]

No occasionally spotify but I like airwaves.

[steve86]

"The older girl is making progress with DIY resourcefulness and can do some maintenance on her motorcycle".

Yeah, checking valve lash, changing tires and tubes (it's a dirt bike), put in a new friction plate and right-side main seal almost entirely by herself.

[ansel12]

Read post 183.

I hope you also read post 118.

[Chickensoup]

I will talk to a friend about this. I had some sort of idea of using the house electrical system as a whole house aerial. Thank you.

[mrsmith]

Meant to add that the best maintenance technicians were consistently ex-navy and people who grew up on farms.
Showing that ‘necessity is the mother’ of technical prowess IMO.

[cva66snipe]

Meant to add that the best maintenance technicians were consistently ex-navy and people who grew up on farms. Showing that ‘necessity is the mother’ of technical prowess IMO.

Last job I had was a large nursing home five stories. We had an air handler motor burn up. It was three phase and a six wire motor. We had a motor same frame code, rpms, and HP, but it was a three wire motor.

My boss said well we're screwed we'll have to wait for the bad one to be rewound. I told him lets bolt it up then give me about thirty minutes and a guy to stand close by with a 2X4 LOL. I made the controller hot and energized then identified the phases of the controller leads coming to the motor and tagged them. Another thirty minutes I had it running and a very puzzled boss LOL.

[cyclotic]

The last house I bought came with a big workbench. My realtor said that he’s noticed that almost no one under 40 has any tools in their house.

[familyop]

"Spinning and making your own fabrics is incredible and definitely a smart cost-saving move if you have the time and ability!"

I was thinking in terms of finding a free county (without a zoning ordinance against manufacturing) and building a larger machine or two to help someone start a business. She already makes quite a few items for extreme cold weather by hand (skinny fibers, densely knit). :-)

It's true, that some clothes are cheap now. But good winter clothes for an extremely cold climate (like my place) are more expensive and harder to find. When debt repudiation time comes ($18 trillion national debt now), the flow of products from China and other countries will slow way down. Those products will also probably be much more expensive for us then.

Wool prices are sky high. Here's another example of good clothes that are hard to find: parkas for extreme cold weather. Most are very expensive and very cheaply made. Ours are made by a mill up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. They have double-sewn with rivets, long, heavy duck shells, thick insulation and big hoods. Great for work. We order them down here at about $100 each plus shipping. Most other warm parkas are priced several times higher and not nearly as well made.

[mrsmith]

My last “piece de resistance” was on a 5 million dollar packaging line that tore a conveyor belt during a rush order.
No replacement so I used tape to crown the rollers so the very irregular belting remnant would track to exactly where it was supposed to.
Yeah, not so original on my part but It was amazing that none of my fellow overpaid techs comprehended the concept- it was magic to them.

[The Cajun]

Yeah, but it helps to avoid our kids hearing a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.

Heck, that's part of the fun, cussing out what you're working on when it's being cantankerous :)

[familyop]

"Read post 183."

"LOL, I think the boomers did their share of creating, designing and building the electronic world you live in."

Sure, by way of being bosses of American-"based" manufacturing on Chinese soil. Most of the earlier components made in the U.S.A. were designed and made by our fathers.

"I hope you also read post 118."

That was answered well enough in the comment that you replied to. The generation before us did much more of that kind of work, and so will the generation after us.

[ansel12]

My realtor said that he’s noticed that almost no one under 40 has any tools in their house.

Even this thing called a "Man Cave", is about TV and sitting on a couch, it is rarely about going out to work on their project involving tools and skill.

[cyclotic]

I taught myself how to sweat copper pipe one day. The next day I began replacing the entire plumbing system in my house.

I recently added a basement room and needed to move a duct. On e I got started, it was pretty straightforward.

On the flip side, a guy from India once hired my brother to come attach a hose to a spigot.