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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?"
Thats why their geeks. The thirst for knowledge need not be contained in any one discipline. I know I personally hop from new hobby to new hobby and become bored with things once I feel I have enough skill.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
I've been hacking over 30 years. I also brew beer, distill whisky, hunt, grow food, etc. These are definitely all the same expression: to know how things work.
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
The skills are not lost. They are well documented. They are unnecessary. You sound like you are pining for the "good ole days". Give me a break.
"Lost" implies that they need to be "found" for some compelling reason. They have been supplanted with skills necessary for the modern world, such as computing, engineering, math, making $100 million movies, watching TV, surfing pr0n, and building space shuttles.
Really, though, chill out. Go out and pick up a six pack of Bud and some Dove. Nobody's first batch of home brew ever turns out good anyway.
Just remember where the Unabomber went with this line of thinking...
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Engineers love to tinker, find out how it all works, rip it apart and put it back together. Whether it's mechanical, chemical, or physical we want to understand. The only expression of the Renaissance Man left...
Isn't it obvious? Hacking is an expression of our inner need. And the inner need we are expressing is for Knowledge, pure and simple. The people who hack, today, are the people who would have been working on their cars 30 years ago. :)
Just gay
For me it is just an expression of curiosity. Of wanting to know "how does this thing work" or "how the hell do they make this".
Computers are (for me) the uber-want-to-know. They are just more complex than every other thing in your direct environment, so we are attracted to them (like a moth to a bulb, if you ask me).
Tolkien thought that the further you got away from the earth and your ability to live off of it, the more and more you lost your ability to be a creative person. And the less magic you were able to see in the world.
It is a loss of this self suffency which is going to cause the greatest problems in our society. Just think of much of our food today is preprocessed or transported from someplace else.
What happens when the whole system breaks down. (When was the last time a complex system like the ones we have today didn't break down).
I think it's our mentatility to think about these problems becuase we get to think about them every day when it comes to computer systems.
I suspose I could ramble on about the philosophy and religious implications about subcreation and why good subcreators worry about this, but I think that the skills, determination, dedication, and ego that it takes to be a good programmer/sys admin/hacker are the same skills which cause us to worry about some of the more basic things in real life.
Ted Tschopp
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
I guess you could consider it related to hacking if one considers hackers to be just people who "thirst for knowledge." I know I rarely sit in one discipline for long and I want to know everything about anything. I don't consider that being a hacker, or part of a "hacker" nature though...I'm just nosy.
After giving some thought to the issue, I think that the answer is quite simple: for the same reason why I go to FreshMeat to get the source code of the programs I use. I could download the binaries, but I don't; I prefer to go through the pain of ./configuring, making and make-installing, to say the least. In other words: I want to control the process of creation as much as possible. The same spirit of OpenSource which animates most geeks is present in each and every aspect of their lives, not only in computing.
Self-made-making and Open Source are all about the same: to keep control of our own lives.
Strength, balance, courage and reason. If you know what's this about, contact me!
Is the seeking of lost skills and arts a hacking analog? Well, I wouldn't say so. Hacking is about creating the means to an end oneself, independant of any official or sanctioned guidelines. Seeking lost skills and arts is simply undertaking a nostalgic quest, much like deciding to collect Christian Archie comics from 1973 or something. The process may involve some hacking, as "lost skills" no doubt have less than perfect handbooks for them... but there's nothing that necessarily makes it analogous to hacking.
:)
One is a method -- one is an interest. I can see people who are into hacking being interested in lost art/skill revival though...
Not sure how to respond to this, but fuck you comes to ming. Without people to be "nothing but computer operators", just who in the hell are your glorious engineers and professors designing this stuff for? You have way to much contempt for others. Did you design, engineer, and produce the car you drive? Didn't think so. Did you design, engineer, and produce the television you watch? Didn't think so, but I bet you do operate the remote.
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.
Not to rain on the SCA parade, but the skills that these guys use isn't what we're talking about.
Metalsmithing, perhaps. Making "battle ready" chain mail is nothing more than time consuming, and I seriously doubt that any of them (I know of a few, one who makes most the mail in the area) actually know how to make the rings. They know how to put them together quickly.
Their swords are nothing in comparison to traditional Toledo steel (exclude The Factory, for those in the know.) or Japanese steel. It's really half-assed, industrialized-support endeavors. I've seen SCA steel, and it really isn't anything special.
The last thing that I want given the unlikely circumstance of needing to know how to do things like make soap, distil water, survive without modern devices, is SCA members running around.
I think the purpose of this ask Slashdot is not about people running around pretending their in a medieval bubble that is roughly supported by industrialization, but to just learn how worldly things work.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Urban legend alert.....The SCA was on a watch list in the 70's but was dropped when it was realized that it was not real combat training.
Although given the recent tenor of the Administration, it might be back on the list.
- Why am I so fascinated by the old computers of generations gone by?
- Why are those old mainframes that can do less than a PDA so fascinating?
- Why would I rather save up money to buy a personally crafted writing table as opposed to a $50.00 one made out of particle board by machine?
- What is so "magical" about UNIX-like operating systems?
- Why is it fun to spend a weekend hiking in the desert, where there is no running water, freezing your butt off, sleeping in a tent with all kinds of weird things crawling on you?
- Why is some really complex source code, script, configuration file, etc. so interesting?
- Why does code, highly optimized beyond readability (especially assembly) have a "feel" to it?
- Why is some PDP-11 with tape for storage so intriguing?
- What is so interesting about Lord of the Rings?
- Why is it so much fun to play games with words, making up double-meaning phrases and the like?
The answer is a bit complex.First of all, things that are crafted together by skilled hands have an intrinsic value that doesn't exist in mass-marketed consumer products designed for an excessively consuming society. It all ties together. The way yogurt is made, the way beer is brewed, the way a unique muscle car is built, the way a particularly crafty piece of code is written (whether new or old), the way an oak writing desk is made, the way a 25 year old 4-bit computer can multiply 16-bit integers faster than the newest Pentium 4's, the way the computer on Voyager II can be reconfigured from a million billion miles away without crashing, the way your personally hacked Linux kernel does something nobody else has thought of... it all happens because of craftsmanship. Yeah, those old mainframes probably crashed more often than Windows does today, but there is some kind of value (for which I cannot find a word) that exists in things made by the truly skilled... by the wizards, the gurus, the master craftsmen.
Secondly, there is something in the "hacker culture" (see the Jargon file) that draws people like us to the values that I'm describing in the paragraph above. It doesn't matter what your other hobbies are, whether they involve nature, ham radio, literature, etc. There is something about freedom, quality, beauty (even if it isn't physical beauty), correctness, practicality, craftiness, challenge... It's a way of thinking that people outside the hacker community have apparently forgotten.
That question is not whether the skills need to be used or not... it's whether the skills being used are like hacking (in the original sense of the word) in some way. I'd say that they are - it's a bunch of people tinkering with things most people don't really care too much about in order to see how they work and have some fun at the same time.
there are so many skills 'lost' in the modern 'american' lifestyle
I have lived in Belgium and Japan about as long as I have been in the States and I can assure you that the people there are no more knowledgeable about any of those skills you list than Americans are. In fact, there is a much greater outdoor lifestyle (esp. compared to Japan) in the States.
90% of skills come from the doing!
Something that couch potatoes do not comprehend.
BTW your first home brew, should if you study, will kick ass out of any shitmyster BUD that is made with rice. Most couch spuds can't tell the difference so that is why BUD seems so great.
Get off your ass study and do.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
I think hacking and pursuit of lost skills go hand in hand. After all, they're both (to me anyway,) about the pursuit of knowledge, preferrably handy knowledge.
:D
Personally, I know some obscure things like miscellaneous bladesmithing info concerning metallurgy and blade geometry, soldering techniques, Japanese language, and operation/maintenance/repair info for a wide range of contemporary firearms (fairly obscure knowledge up here in Canada.)
It's all about better living through superior knowledge. There are so many things people don't bother to learn nowadays that are just HANDY at times. Hacking is just a modern day manifestation of "tinkering" with things to learn how they work, often to repair them. The only real difference is the transition from physical to virtual.
The amazing thing about it all is that in developed world, practicioners of the 'lost arts' make pretty decent money, whilst the artesans in the developing world make very little.
:)
In Chile one can buy a 4 foot high handmade, hand painted earthernware flowerpot for all of 50 bucks. That same flowerpot in the US would probably cost (if you could find it), 300 dollars or more; all this because the artesan is practicing a 'lost art'.
Out in the country down here you can still find a 'smith' and a 'cooper'.
Knot tying is not so big here, but ohhh the cheese
You're trying to pull a "John Katz" type association, ala Columbine: "Geeks are oppressed. These kids were oppressed. Thus, these guys were oppressed geeks, like we are, and we must sympathize and condone what they did." No.
Hacking is hacking - whether it's with computers, cars, or some other technical device. You're making things work better, improving on them.
Learning "lost arts" of the likes of brewing, breadmaking, metalwork, etc. are not hacking. Doing so is simply seeking out knowledge. It is the self-enlightenment of the mind. It is the original concept of 'education' (as stated by the Greeks) fullfilled. Hacking might fall into this as a subset, but "hacking = learning" is a crock of katzism: an intellectual and logical farce.
(Thank the Maker he's not around anymore, btw)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Sure it's worthy of a slashdot article. "News for Nerds". I'm interested in gardening, cooking, home brewery, but now I'm getting to learn what hobbies other geeks pursue, and it's giving me ideas for what I may move on to next, what with my short attention span and all. I'd go so far as to say it's one of the better slashdot articles. Sometimes the best stuff doesn't come from "M$ suX0rz" articles, it comes from the more personal stuff, and the meta-chat. Some of the best stuff I've read on here has come from the polls.
do not read this line twice.
Our lives are so overly-analytical we don't know where we come from or where we're going. The analytical approach (cutting things into smaller and smaller _separate_ pieces, building walls, barriers lines etc) is so pervasive it's in danger of damaging or even destroying society.
What's great about making things ourselves is that we are connected to those things in a world where connections (real ones not electronics illusions thereof) are more and more difficult to come by.
When we learn how to do things for ourselves rather than just buying things, we get a better sense of how things work and where they come from . I would like to see neighborhood butcher shops where locally-raised animals would be slaughtered on the premises. Killing our own meat (or seeing it done) would make some people vegetarian, and others would have more appreciation of the sacrifice other beings make for us. That's just one example of course.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
For me, it's about self-reliance. I'm a do-it-yourself guy. People in modern society depend on a huge network of people, almost all of them strangers. We all learned in "Intro to Economics" that when two people specialize, they can produce more goods. However, it's satisfying to live by the fruits of your own labor, if only partially. In order to do so, you have to learn a lot of diverse, basic skills.
I went through a phase where I took this idea to its logical conclusion. I wanted to learn everything necessary to survive by myself indefinitely. This is a daunting (and mildly insane) task, and it should come as no surprise that I backed away from it. But it's still fun ponder every now and then.
irb(main):001:0>
Theres no need for super high grade steels in SCA because the goal is not to go out and KILL people. If you want to be some sort of nut it would not take a whole lot skill wise to spec some metals and make the ultimate slashes through anything sword. Forget being authentic, you aren't going to be apprenticed at 13, and work with a team producing armor until you die of prevntable disease at 45. SCA people do these things for fun. And the medeval world in reality was no great thrill. If you are totally bound and determined to live like an animal, there are still many places on earth where you can go and do just that.
People who hack have other hobbies. Big deal. Lots of people have lots of different hobbies, and hacking doesn't necessarily have to be one of them. Most total slackers I've known have been interested in things like "metalsmithing, sewing, baking bread, making soap, knot tying, brewing beer, woodcarving, yogurt and cheese." Those are the kinds of things they do instead of working.
As to this going to the core of some essential geekness, I think that is just self-centered, elitist garbage. The human race is such a diverse set, that attempting to draw boundaries around groups based on many traits usually ends up being vapor.
So now that the geeks have claimed interesting hobbies, does that mean the cool slackers will have to watch more television or something? Perhaps we could patent all these hobbies, and sue the slackers for infringing on our turf.
I don't mean to be a party pooper. By all means, all of you go ahead. I just won't be participating in the circle jerk. I hope you don't revoke my membership to geekdom. Fleeing elitism and arrogance is what made me an outsider in the first place.
I'm not trying to troll here or anything, but what does it matter? If you like doing it, keep doing it, it's basically the same with hacking (or any other hobby.) Some people like working in their yard, some people like doing weird science projects, some people like hacking. It's not the same thing, but they're both good hobbies.
I do have to say though editors, can't we get some more relevant questions? I thought this site had "Stuff that matters."
I do these things because I want to be in control. There is nothing worse than a stupid situation that you *know* you could get out of with some basic skill...
This is one of the greatest attractions OSS currently holds for me. I know that anything I learn to do with OSS tools, I will continue to be able to do for a long time without getting permission, paying fees, or dealing with silly restrictions that only benefit companies who have enough already.
On a personal level it makes sense as well. Taking the heat for something you are not directly responsible for sucks.
Anyone willing to stick their neck out in order to champion some proprietary software is just gambling with their career. You think they really care?
They don't, it is just about revenue and nothing more. If your problem is shared by many you can be safe in the knowing it will be addressed. You can even look like you are on the ball while advocating your marginal 'standard' in the box thinking. The real truth is you are more lucky if you stick with the crowd.
This attitude promotes strong in the box thinking combined with a healthy and well refined finger pointing and blame shifing skills. Innovation? forget it. Competitive advantage comes down to how hard you can make your people work and how big of a ball buster you have for a purchasing agent. Boy, that sure makes me want to come to work early... (cough)
I once worked in a shop where one of my job duties was to make sure that what I made was correct and within stated tolerances. This shop had a quality assurance department to help make sure this was true, but it was expected that you had tools, knowledge of the machine and the ability to read and understand the specifications because the quality people sometimes made mistakes too.
Well, one batch of rather large and expensive parts was found to be defective one day. It was right after I had complted my stage of the work.
I was found to be at fault for not making sure the guy before me did his job right. I was pissed at first, but thought about it and it made some good sense. Afterall I had the information and tools to evaluate the work done before --why not?
I made damn sure afterword to have the skill and information needed to evaluate both my own work and those before me just to make sure I had the ability to deal with what I was responsible for.
So take this ethic in the context of systems being sold and used today. It's scary.
On one hand you have to trust the software is designed well and does what it says because you cannot actually see the work of others before you --even if you have the skill.
On the other, the company that pays your way wants you to be held accountable for what those same systems do. You did ok the purchase right?
The creator of the software takes almost all of your rights through the legal wrapper that comes with the package while you take the heat and have to deal with the issues.
So you can evaluate basically nothing, must pay blood money for fixes and updates out of your control and take the heat for the fuckups of one of the most cash rich companies around?
At least with Open Source you can examine what you are getting. You can learn how it works and why it does so. You can implement how you see fit and act in a responsible manner.
I was called the fool for hosing up so many parts. I was asked why I worked so hard at doing the right job on parts that were wrong.
Today when I see all the win32 problems I shake my head and wonder at the foolishness of it all. Who in their right mind would actually step up and take that kind of responsibility understanding that they are more or less powerless to act on it?
I guess ignorance is really an excuse in IT. Can't find any other reason for it.
Franky, the whole mess makes me sick.
So, back to the skills. I like knowing that I can go into the woods and make fire, shelter weapons do just fine. Sometimes th
Blogging because I can...
Perhaps you think I should spend more time building skills that will allow me to earn more money or better secure my intended path in my career?
- The only blacksmith I know makes about $60k and spends more time with his kids than any other 40 year old I know. IMHO, that's real wealth.
- I schedule time to learn new professional skills during work hours and I spend plenty of time exploring new databases, playing with new languages and language features. We're talking about things to do after hours and on the weekend.
Since what we're talking about really is leisure time, perhaps you're bothered that I'm choosing to do something outside the ordinary with my leisure time? Perhaps you'd prefer it if I spent a lot more time in front of the television (currently only hooked up to a DVD player). Perhaps I should not find things I enjoy doing in my home (where the rest of my family resides) and I should spend time in clubs and bars pursuing one-night stands and reinforcement of my self-esteem from strangers more interested in style than substance?Perhaps not.
I make certain that I have leisure time in my life and what I pursue with that leisure time may suprise you. Like many other people on here, I prefer the taste of a beer that I have made to one that I bought, I prefer to sit on a chair that I crafted from wood to one that I bought, I enjoy sitting in a garage on my chair drinking my beer after completing a valve adjustment on my motorcycle.
Learning to be self-reliant by picking up new hobbies that I enjoy is not a waste of my or anyone else's precious time. If anything, it is one of the most rewarding things that I do with my time, not only because I enjoy the challenge and the exploration, but because most of these can be enjoyed with others who are important to you. If you have a spouse and/or children, ask them if they'd rather you do what you first thought of when writing your post or spending it with them making cheese? The answer might suprise you.
Regards, Ross
Computer hacking is just one way to reclaim self-sufficiency.
It's been my experience that hackers are fiercely self-reliant. Not only do they resent being micro-managed at the office, they hate being "consumers". They hate depending on others, because they are, by nature, distrustful.
All hackers I know embody the "if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" mentality. This is why they learn to code, for when the system fails them. This is why they learn to defend themselves, for when the system fails them. This is why they learn to hunt/make food and basic essencials of life, for when the system fails them.
Hackers are, in very many ways, survivalists, adapted for the "Information Age".
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Why? Because hackers see themselves as artisans, not consumers.
Artisanship is, in my experience, a strong influence in the makeup of many hackers. The best ones remind me of my father, who was a master calligrapher: in their love of making beautiful things, and in the scrupulousness with which they treat their "mystery". I dare say that hacking is the last bastion of artisanship left in our consumption-oriented McSociety.
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Most of those things are good to do as a hobby, and you can make most of that stuff cheaper than buying it. I think that we need to keep that knowledge in case something happens to the world and we need to start over again. Also it is good to see how things used to be done.
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