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

The Telegraph ^ | 28DEC14 | Sarah Knapton

[dfwgator]

Heh heh guess he doesn’t tell her, “Go away, ‘batin’”

[Chode]

100%...

[SgtHooper]

They’d be lost finding the hood latch.

[SgtHooper]

Yes, and especially the males.

[SamAdams76]

I just traded in my car with 158,000 miles on it and I just realized I never once opened the hood the whole time I had it.

Should I be worried?

[familyop]

This is for those of you, who indicated that you might have at least a passing interest in seeing it. It’s completely free. Sorry, if I left anyone out. For any of you deciding to build it, be very careful. Make sure that it’s fastened to the floor and well supported, in my opinion. And follow all of the usual machining precautions.

The Multimachine
http://opensourcemachine.org/

The E-Book
http://opensourcemachine.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/how_to_build_a_multimachine1.pdf

HTML Version E-Book
http://opensourcemachine.org/mm2html2/How_to_build_a_multimachine.html

Associated YouTube Video (further explains the e-book and interesting for those, who only want to see what it is without building anything like it).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eurX6r83X3w

Discussion Board (lots of useful upgrade and other info)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/multimachine/join

For hobbyists, artists and small parts makers, there’s also the Gingery Lathe, which was designed to be built at home. All kinds of information for that can be easily obtained with a quick search.

Here’s another project. It’s administered by much more highly educated young folks and has been ongoing for a long time.
http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/gvcs-machine-index/

[wally_bert]

Thanks for all the links and I will check into them.

[SgtHooper]

Bingo! Or perhaps, she just forgot the sarc tag.

[freedumb2003]

>>As a side hobby I buy and sell used construction equipment.

I never buy equipment if it says runs and operates, they go to high on the auction block.<<

Contact BRAVO and have them film you — it could be worth a lot, since any kind of flipping is apparently Reality TV gold and I have not heard of anyone who does construction equipment.

Maybe we call the show “Flip Loader?”

[Married with Children]

Wow! My Grandfather who built everything from trailers to his house (wiring, plumbing, Sheetrock, tile, brickwork,etc) did the same thing. He had a 1959 Ford and didn’t like the way the automatic shifted so he went and got a 3 on the tree unit out of a junk yard and swapped it over. This was their only car at the time so he had to get it done so he could go back to work two days later.
He could and did fix/ build anything. Made his own log splitter to run off the PTO on his tractor. There is even a story from the late ‘40s or early ‘50s of he my grandmother his mother and her 2nd husband stopping at a motel one night and the heat was out. He got his tools out and restored heat to the entire motel.

[freedumb2003]

I am good at a lot of every day repairs, but I am afraid after I was done, it would look like:

[UCANSEE2]

Quite the stunner.

[PLMerite]

“My neighbor was amazed that I had hung my own TV on the wall. What is that, about a 20 minute job, where 15 minutes is looking for the tools? “

The hard part is locating the studs in the wall. Mounting the bracket to the drywall doesn’t work well at all.

[freedumb2003]

>>I CAN build a PC from scratch, but why would I want to? Too much work, no real reward.<<

Agreed — the issue is capability, not ROI.

[PLMerite]

“...how to use tin foil to make too small batteries fit correctly...”

Next lesson, the old penny-in-a-burned-out-fuse trick.

[Travis McGee]

You can bet that they know a million arcane smart-phone tricks though.

[eastforker]

Some of the best deals are from municipalities.The battery goes dead or someone loses the key it sets, they grab another machine that works. Or if a machine is used in a remote location they don’t get it back to the yard and it sets, sometime for 5 years or more, then they decide to get rid of it as surplus. Most of the time there is nothing wrong with them except a new battery, fresh fuel and a key. I have profited about $30 K this year doing that. It is a great hobby.

[familyop]

"I just traded in my car with 158,000 miles on it and I just realized I never once opened the hood the whole time I had it.

Should I be worried?"

Most well-maintained vehicles these days can go that far or much farther with few or no major repairs. Learning to do our own repairs might be recommended, though, if we're likely to be required to do those repairs by ourselves in the future.

The vehicle that I drive is nearly 20 years old. Some subscribers here drive much older vehicles. Some of them are struggling. Others among them are well-to-do and have no debts.

[freedumb2003]

>>The hard part is locating the studs in the wall. Mounting the bracket to the drywall doesn’t work well at all.<<

And getting the holes EXACTLY parallel to the ground. I was 1/32” off and it looks to me like it is 33 degrees. But my wife asked me to keep it that way since she likes to tilt her head on the pillow and it is easier for her to see.

Next time, I use one of the up-down/left-right adjustable mounts!

[Maine Mariner]

Yes! I completely understand. I could never put together the color Heathkit TV I bought. I finally called a TV repairman, five years after purchase and he picked it up for parts.