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!

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:SCA!

[Xerithane]

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.

Re:SCA!

[Metasquares]

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.

Re:SCA!

[squidfood]

...things like make soap...

That's not the first skill I'd associate with the SCA.

Re:SCA!

[BrokenHalo]

It is a lot of fun though!

I spent some ten years working as a blacksmith, and believe me, it's a lot more fun making those swords than fighting with them.

And yes, a blacksmith can, too, be a geek. Just check out some of the literature and mailing lists on archaeometallurgy. There are much too many to list here, but Google will find some of them.

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)

Geeks just want to learn

[captain_craptacular]

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.

Re:Geeks just want to learn

[maxpublic]

I thought geeks did these sorts of things because they couldn't get laid....

Max

Re:Geeks just want to learn

[Shadow Wrought]

Nail on the head. I have taken classes on carving stone, playing the Native American flute, and piano. I also dabble in water colors, writing, and am a licensed pilot. Next on the list is learning gardening and making a compost pile. After that I am leaning towards glass blowing and making my own hot sauce.

My theory is that geeks have more imagination than the average bear. They look at lines of programming but see not only the code, but also the manipulation of the screen. If you think about it, all a computer really is is a device for changing pixel colors on a screen. Geeks see how the pixels ought to look.

Its that same imagination that makes reading so popular within the geek community. They "see" what the words convey. That's also why SciFi and fantasy is so popular as well. Every piece of fiction written involves a choice by the author. For something like 90% of them, they choose to set their story in either the world we know or the world we knew. The remander toy with the setting. It is that, I think, which so appeals to the geeks. The boudries are no longer boudries.

The point of all this, then, is that geeks like to use their imaginations. What better way to do that than to try a variety of different hobbies each of which provides a different sort of stimulous and memory? In so doing it also allows the imagination to be that much more real when it comes to dealing with any of the skill sets involved in the hobby.

Soap?

[Anonymous Coward]

making soap

Tyler Durden? Is that you?

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.

Re:Soap?

[Anonymous Coward]

GF: Mmm, honey, I love the way the back of your neck smells.. what kind of soap do you use??

you: Purified animal fat mixed with lye. I get it from the butcher, he collects it for me over the course of a month or so.

GF: Please go far away.

Wellll

[Timesprout]

"Having just finished my first batch of home-brew beer, I've been thinking about my attraction to 'lost arts'

Drinking a skinful of beer will put these thoughts in your head. I usually solve all the worlds problems after a few. Can never seem to remember the solutions the next day though

Absolutely

[ReconRich]

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

Re:Absolutely

[istartedi]

grow food, etc

That's interesting. This is the first year that I've found the time to grow vegetables. I've got corn, pumpkins, and the one "conformist" crop that you must have where I live: tomatoes.

I never thought of this small garden as a "geek" endevour, but I must admint, because this is my first attempt to grow more than just "decorative" corn, I went online and found out all kinds of stuff about it.

A big part of the appeal for me in gardening is not to waste land, and not to get ripped off by people. The mentality that leads me to go the extra mile and grow pumpkins so I don't have to pay some ridiculous price in the Fall is a kin to the mentality that makes people edit arcane config files in Linux so they don't have to pay Bill Gates. Also, I think growing food on your land is somehow quintessentially American... OK, that's less of a geek thing, and more of a pride thing. Remember when pennies had the wheat on them, and America took pride in agriculture? OK... too much semiotics... at any rate, I've come to appreciate farmers. Don't let people tell you farmers are stupid. If they do, ask them about crop rotation and soil pH... put them in their place.

No, it's survival training

[IO ERROR]

We're all preparing for Y2038.

Why do you need to ask?

[KDan]

Hacking is just like being the One. No one can tell you you're hacking, you just do it.

Daniel

Just the negineering mentality finding an outlet

[mikerbob]

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...

Definitely!

[Moryath]

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. :)

hacking life style

[pigscanfly.ca]

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?

Add Pinball to the list

[John3]

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. :-)

Most geeks are more steampunk than cyberpunk

[ocelotbob]

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?

Curiosity

[luisdom]

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).

Rambling thoughts about this...

[TedTschopp]

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

Thirst for knowledge

[AndurilSBA]

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.

OpenSource your life!

[Tirs]

Well, I moved from a downtown appartment to a countryhouse a couple of years ago, and I began to feel the urge to start doing things like this: beer homebrewing, fruits and vegetables preserving, bread baking, furniture repairing/building, even some basic masonry. Then one day I was sitting by the fireplace (wood cut by myself), smoking a pipe (my own mix of tobacco), and meditating about my life, and this question came to my mind: Why?

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.

Re:OpenSource your life!

[refactored]

Reasoning too fancy.

Baking bread just plain smells nice. Yum!

Are you implying...

[poity]

... that the Amish are the 31337est hackers?

Intrinsic value.

[rice_burners_suck]

I often find myself asking very similar questions.

• 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.

Brewing Beer a lost art???

[Shoten]

Once homebrewing became legal again (which happened in the 80s, if I remember correctly), the homebrew industry started to regain strength. At this point, I wouldn't say that brewing is by any means a lost art...I've brewed hundreds of gallons at this point. The stuff is like zucchini...if you produce it, you produce a LOT of it...and let me tell you, nothing moves your data mining requests to the front of the line faster than giving the DBAs lots of homebrew! :)

If you live in Wisconsin like I do!

[codepunk]

If you live in Wisconsin like I do, brewing your own beer is not a lost art it is required.

Chain mail

[GQuon]

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.

Hm, I wonder how medieval style chain mail would look like?

"Hear ye! Hear ye!
This chain letter was started by our saviour Jesus Christ the day he died for our sins. And you will be forever damned if you don't follow it's instructions, as it is the words of the Good Lord.

You will all get rich because of your faithful devotion. You will earn one thousand shilling in just one year. Send one shilling to each of the people on the list. Then strike the name at the top of this list and your own name to the bottom of it. Then send copies of this letter to dozen of your friends and relatives, as Jesus had a dozen apostles.
If you cannot aford the parchment, or at least a herald, you will just have to go read this message to them yourself. If you cannot read, just learn this letter by heart.
You must do this within half a dozen moons, and keep the holy chain running, unless you want yourself and your house to be forever damned."

And yes, I do know that we are really talking about body armor.

Hacking Ananlog?

[American AC in Paris]

No, no. Building a Moog synthesizer is hacking analog.

Brewing beer is an excuse to make your apartment smell horrible, making soap is an excuse to see how quickly various household items dissolve when exposed to lye, and metalsmithing is an excuse to pretend that you're Sauron.

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.

Re:They scare me...

[PD]

Not to mention that a tremendously successful pickup line is "did you know that in the Middle Ages people use to have sex just like we shake hands today?"

Re:They scare me...

[binarybum]

that seems like a dull way to have sex.

Dear Slashdot, why are we so f-ing great?

[gripdamage]

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.

You nailed it.

[PotatoHead]

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

Re:Renaissance man.

[BrokenHalo]

but in a few hundred years the history books will .describe it that way

In a few hundred years, few books from this century or the last will exist. Since about 1850, when paper made from wood-pulp was first produced, many books have simply disintegrated as a result of the acid content. I have a number of books from as recently as 1987 which are already disintegrating.

That is what's going to make this a Dark Age.

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.