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

Posted by Cliff on from the hack-the-world-without-a-keyboard dept.

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?"

4 of 796 comments (clear)

  1. Re:SCA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We are on watch lists with the FBI because of that also. They consider us a "paramilitary" training group even though the tactics we teach are not necessarily useful against modern weapons. It is a lot of fun though!
    Stephan Von Ardenwald
    Pirateship Beltis

  2. hacking life style by pigscanfly.ca · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes I would consider that part of the hacking life style . Trying to understand everything around you , maybe even doing it your self is part of the "life style" . Most hackers I know (traditional use) are very keen with not only computers and electronics , but chemistry (read explosives) , metalworking , and a few are interested in nature (they even go out while the "day star" is still outside). The hacking life style is really one about knowledge and understanding so any activity/tool (reasonable priced of course) you can expect a hacker to have at least a passing interest in (and some times more so than one) . That being said , is this worthy of a slashdot article?

  3. Add Pinball to the list by John3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, I think you're on to something there. Not only do I brew beer, but we also sell homebrew supplies in my hardware store. My informal observations of the customers who shop for home brew supplies leads me to the conclusion that most hombrewers are geeks (That's a compliment!).

    Getting back to my subject, I've also discovered that my passion for pinball (started at MIT in 1977) is shared with numerous folks on the net and around the world, and there is definitely a connection between the lost art of pinball (face it, pinball is dying, especially electromechanical machines) and geeks. I own an old Faces EM pinball machine myself which I've been restoring to it's former glory, in between brewing batches of homebrew and playing Asheron's Call. :-)

    --
    "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
  4. Most geeks are more steampunk than cyberpunk by ocelotbob · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Yeah, they like nice fancy new things, but they also like the old. The figuring out of where we've been, why a certain path of tech wasn't taken. I think it also has to, at least partly, deal with a want to escape. Most geeks are in front of tech that was unimaginable a few generations ago, and want to get away from it at times, clear the cobwebs and see something else.

    Am I this way? Of course. I love blending the old and the new, the modern with the retro. Hell, my ideal computer case design would be something that would look like it belongs in a victorian parlor. Geeks love the anachronism, because if something from the past Just Works, why not use it?

    --

    Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses