Is the Seeking of Lost Skills/Arts a Hacking Analog?

bigattichouse asks: "Having just finished my first batch of home-brew beer, I've been thinking about my attraction to 'lost arts', and collecting books on 'how to do stuff'. Some I try, some I just read: metalsmithing, sewing, baking bread, making soap, knot tying, brewing beer, woodcarving, yogurt and cheese.. there are so many skills 'lost' in the modern 'american' lifestyle... but I find my fellows tend to have books on these subjects lying around, too. Is this common in geekdom? Is this an expression of 'hacking' outside of machinery/engineering?"

Comments

SCA!

[Ignorant Aardvark]

I think this guy's right. If you really want to see a bunch of nerds going crazy with esoteric endeavors, look no further than the Society for Creative Anachronism. They're pretty much the only people left in the world who make battle-quality chain mail, scale mail, and plate mail in the medieval style.

Re:SCA!

[Goldsmith]

I don't know who you know in the SCA, but the group I used to run around with in San Diego was nothing like that.

The first thing you had to be able to do to be considered a "real" member was learn how to sew. Then, you had to learn some woodworking skills. Third you had to learn to cook. This was because everyone was expected to help out around camp and generally keep things going. We were very much about being self sufficient, but self sufficient within the level of being able to pick up tools and raw materials at Home Depot.

We had a few projects we were well known for. We did things such as build a bridge, portable showers (heated, I might add), and our own trailers.

No one I know in the SCA pretends that we're doing everything on our own. I joined the SCA because I wanted to learn how things work. In the process I learned how a lathe works (at the take it apart, put it together level), and machine tools in general. I learned how to judge a piece of wood and do some basic woodworking. I learned how to cold shape metal, how to cook, how to sew, and how to make and build a large number of small, simple devices. I learned the basics of brewing beer, making soap, and making cloth.

Most of all I learned to appreciate the modern world and that it makes it so easy to do all those things.

As far as steel goes, I never heard anyone in the SCA talk about making it, but I have that covered too. I'm working on a PhD in Materials Physics. (I agree with you on the chain mail thing... I don't see why anyone would WANT to do that)

Re:Soap?

[linuxwrangler]

You know, the Simple Object Access Protocol?

Seriously, I remember helping my dad (an electrical engineer) making a batch of soap. Of course this involved many side tracks like measuring the temperature changes when the lye was added to the water and testing various ways to improve the purity of the fat.

In 5th grade a bunch of my class visited to learn how soap was made.

My dad stopped when he realized that he had enough to last the rest of his life (it is quite hard unlike store-bought and each bar lasts quite a while).

He still delivers a bag when he visits so it's the soap I still use as well.

an excellent book on the subject...

[reimda]

of is "The Forgotten Arts and Crafts" by John Semour. Amazon.com has it and lets you look at lots of it online. Check it out.

It's full of how to do "outdated" arts like thatching a house, making fences with hand built tools and materials gathered in the forest, and blacksmithing, in addition to household type crafts such as making cream and butter and soap. I bought it a couple months ago after finding an enormously positive review on the net somewhere. It is full of enough diagrams to satisfy the average geek.

As for why seeking lost skills is an attraction to geeks, I think it comes down to problem solving. Problem solving is a trait universally desirable in geeks. It doesn't matter if the problem is how to get your program to run in less than x seconds or how to get information from here to there quickly over the phone system or how to make your own yogurt. It's all problem solving.

Books like this appeal to geeks because they open a new (old) world of problems and give elegant solutions to them. The solutions are time-tested and have come from the collective mind of thousands and thousands of clever people. It is a natural geek thing to do to admire their elegant solutions to their problems.

There's also a huge feeling of escape from the headaches of technology when you imagine life without computers, electricity, etc. I'm not sure about all of geekdom, but I enjoy understanding and imagining a technologically simple life that doesn't include depending on a keyboard and screen for a livelihood.

FOXFIRE!

[gcondon]

I hope I'm not too late in this thread but I am surprised that nobody has mentioned the Foxfire books (at least I haven't seen anything modded up yet).

The Foxfire Fund was established to preserve the vanishing folkways of Appalachia and, let me tell you, those people knew how to provide for themselves.

There is an extensive series of books covering such diverse utilitarian topics as wood lore, blacksmithing, instrument making, weaving and so on.

Check it out at The Foxfire Fund.