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Ask Slashdot: Educating Kids About Older Technologies?
ProgramErgoSum writes "Horse carriages, vinyl records, telegraphy, black and white television are all great examples of technology that held tremendous sway decades ago and eventually faded away. Other systems such as railways and telephony are 'historical,' but have advanced into the current age, too. I think not being aware of the science behind such yesteryear technologies (or their histories) is not right. I feel it would be most beneficial to encourage kids to explore old technologies and perhaps even try simple simulations at home or school. So, what websites or videos or other sources of information would you reach out to that teaches the basics of say, telegraphy? Or, signalling in railways? Etc. etc." Do you (or do you plan to) educate your kids about any particular older technologies?
Actually, it's not a bad idea. Many of our modern technologies have roots in these old technologies.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
A lot of basic farming came from (or was first invented) in China too. There was a good documentary on all this on the History channel but be damned if I can find the title.
So what's with the focus on the 19th century and it's communication/travelling tech?
Just wondering.
This controller doesn't have the sticks, and there's only two buttons!
People need both common ground and unique perspective. Some things everyone should know (what does that square icon for save really mean). Other things, we need each person to come at things uniquely (a system where all of the components react the same is a broken system, eg computer viruses on shared standard systems). It's easy to find inspiration in old technology which applies to technology today. EG, Tesla motors took an old forgotten engine design by Nick Tesla and implemented it in the modern age.
I will expose the kid to as much as they have the attention span for. Probably teach each kid different things. EG, one kid will learn basic even though it is outdated. Another will learn one will learn logo even though it is outdated. Both will learn HTML.
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
...you mean to tell me that the Save icon was designed to look like a physical item?
I wasn't taught about "old" technologies when I was young and I can't say I missed out on anything. There might be a few moments of interest when an under-20 is confronted by (say) a typewriter, but that's about as relevant to today's "kids" as a music-box or valve radio was to me. Yes, these things exist, but they've been superceded and their relevance is long gone.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
i think your asking a more basic question then you may be aware...
i think if what your saying is "should we try to instill into our children a general interest in history so that they may come to understand the powerful forces and the geniuses that have lifted this world out of superstition, poverty, starvation, and disease?", i think most would agree.
if what your saying is that "son/daughter, i think you should really play Pong instead of xbone for this month so you can come to understand the roots of modern video game technology", well, not so much (at least for me).
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Older technology is a part of human history, and necessarily a part of human culture. We have to remember that learning is not all about knowledge, it is also about critical thinking applied to that knowledge. If we fail to teach subjects that we deem unimportant, we are neglecting to give our children a complete perspective from which to perform critical thinking. The subject of outdated technology is just one example that applies.
"Do you (or do you plan to) educate your kids about any particular older technologies? "
I was never taught how to knap rocks in to spear heads so I don't really think it's necessary for me to teach my kids how vacuum tubes work.
That said, my kids are pretty curious on their own. My daughter at age 10 modified a gear kit to turn a spiral in a tube to dispense dog food on a timer (not for real world applications, but for a science project) and built a circuit to set off an alarm when her drawer is opened -- granted, that started out as a kit, but she learned a bit and modified the alarm to be louder and the photocell to be more sensitive. She's also a fairly steady hand with a soldering iron now, too.
My son is more interested in how to work things rather than how things work, if that makes sense.
We invoke the past every time we use one of those old maxims like 'turn up the volume' (implying the physical act of turning a knob) or 'you're like a broken record' (referring to a stylus on a record player stuck perpetually in the same groove, replaying and replaying the same sounds). Kids almost always infer the gist, and if it matters enough they'll ask for a more specific meaining. Think about the last time you heard someone say that someone was "pulling out all the stops" to achieve something. Did you immediately think of a mighty pipe organ, about which that line is meant? Probably not, so it didn't matter to you. No harm done, so no need to research pipe organs unless you really want to.
This time its okay to *not* think of the children, but just let them come to you. Also make visits to museums a fun thing for them.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
How do you teach evolution without mentioning the Dinosaurs and other fossils in general?
Older tech is actually easier to understand, that's why it was invented first. Unless you're just instructing future consumers of black boxes from supermarket.
These days, even some of my coworkers don't understand computers very well, and I'm a software engineer. They don't know about ferrite memory, and they don't know the difference between static and dynamic RAM, they don't imagine writing bits as sound on a cassette tape. They skip the whole layer since it's too complex.
I feel it would be most beneficial to encourage kids to explore old technologies and perhaps even try simple simulations at home or school. So, what websites or videos or other sources of information would you reach out to that teaches the basics of say, telegraphy? Or, signalling in railways? Etc. etc."
Seriously? That's it? Just "I think" without even an attempt at justifying that statement? What difference would it make in a kid's life to learn about older technology?
It's already hard enough to get kids interested in education, and adults pushing their ideas of what's important onto young students with no regards as to the relevance the "education" bears to the kids' lives is why. If I ever have kids I'm leaving it up to them to decide what they find interesting, and will do whatever I can to educate them on it, even if it means I have to learn a bit about it myself. I certainly wouldn't force my kids to learn about something as arbitrary as older technology.
History is very important, and I want to teach them as much as I can about world history and technology. In the case of computers, they will be able to learn hands on as I am building a collection. I'm limiting myself to ones that have displays / keyboard input / etc., but it will cover a huge variety of architectures and operating systems. I'm not sure how I feel about letting them have access to the internet at a young age, but I want them to learn about the evolution of computers, and also enjoy some great games from time to time.
They don't care, cant relate, nor do they really need to. Once you get to college age, then 'history' becomes more relevant, but younger kids, it really isn't.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... to learn. Looking back on my own life as a kid, I was fascinated with technology and not much else could come in the way of that. Kids develop their own interests and it's really against the laws of nature for every person to be interested in the same things and the same values. Each kid builds their own reality from a combination of genetics and environment, it's largely out of your control.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. People, like horses, will only do what they have a mind to do. It's the same reason you can't get everyone interesting in politics.
... Christmas Eve on Sesame Street gave me the chance to educate my children about typewriters :)
(Cookie monster thought that the round spools of ribbon looked like cookies, so he ate them.)
they can see obsolete things at museums, like the cylindrical wax records I saw and and heard demonstrated. Any basic scientific principles can be taught with current technology, no need to forage for old junk or simulate such. Horse carriages and buggy whips, scanning CRT with one color of luminecent coating, telegraph key sending dots and dashes? They're not coming back, even were global economy to collapse for decades we'd not go back, we'd know better ways once recovery was possible.
When did we start considering the railway as a "historical" technology? In many parts of the world it's still in wide use, unlike other "historical" technologies, like VHS, 8Tracks, telegrams and typewriters.
Do you (or do you plan to) educate your kids about any particular older technologies?
Not really. I might babble about old technologies in daily discussions if they pop up in my mind, but I do not see a clear need to systematically educate kids about them.
It is okay to teach someone old ways of doing tasks. Such ways might not be optimal, but may function if the new method doesn't work right now.
It's not okay to teach someone obsolete ways of doing tasks. Such ways have been superseded for a reason, and there's no reason to keep them around anywhere other than a museum.
Obsolete technology is obvious. You can let them know they exist, but it's never worth the effort to teach them.
Come on, man, that's just replicating the problem you're trying to solve.
The basics of telegraphy are dead simple: Build an electromagnet by wrapping some wire around a nail, add some kind of spring or rubber-band mechanism to a piece of steel so that it clicks when the magnet is turned on or off, add a couple of batteries and a push button (momentary) switch. Et voila, a telegraph. If you don't want to build the electromagnet yourself, buy an old-fashioned doorbell or buzzer from your local hardware store, and take the cover off to show the innards.
You can do interesting things with wire and iron filings to demonstrate how a current generates a magnetic field, too, which is the basis of all that tech.
Hands-on experiments are the way to go. Videos don't "prove" anything about the real world any more than they prove cartoon physics is real. Gets the kids more actively engaged too, rather than just passively watching. (Even "interactive" web sites are still mostly passive, you can't try something the programmer didn't think of.)
-- Alastair
[A typewriter is] about as relevant to today's "kids" as a music-box or valve radio was to me.
Case in point: "Valve Radio? Is that what Gabe N. is giving us on the Steam Machine instead of Pandora or Spotify?"
Yes, these things exist, but they've been superceded and their relevance is long gone.
Typewriters' relevance continues today. The QWERTY layout was originally designed to alternate keystrokes from the sides of the keyboard. In the old days, this alternation helped the type bars not jam; nowadays it creates more distinct corners for swiping soft keyboards to recognize.
Try searching on How stuff works or
Or look up "How Things work" books in the library. There is a 23-26 book illustrated version (pictures). And older line drawing versions 3 - 5 book.
The online ones that works the best for me are:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/differential1.htm
http://www.wikipedia.org/
Or you could get a broken version and tear it apart.
If you want to learn about horse and buggy I would go pay the Amish for a tutorial.
What you're saying is very true, especially when it comes to hipsters. I'm mainly talking about the hipsters who've weaseled their way into the software development industry over the past few years, but I think it applies to most hipsters in general.
They're concerned with "the now", and nothing but "the now". They don't care about the past, because to them it's all "old hat". They don't care about the future, because they only care about what's "obscure" or "ironic" at the present.
Just look at how these hipsters do software development. Ruby is basically just Perl. The differences are quite cosmetic. The same goes for web frameworks like Ruby on Rails. All of its ideas were implemented in one form or another using Perl at least a decade earlier. The only reason Ruby and Ruby on Rails seem like novel ideas is because their proponents aren't aware of anything that happened before 2004.
And then there are the NoSQL hipsters. They're a funny bunch! They don't realize that their NoSQL ideas were first implemented in the 1960s. In fact, their ideas are inherently the first step in the development of database technology, when one comes from knowing nothing at all. The rest of the industry reached that point in the 1960s, and had moved on to real databases by the 1970s. The hipsters, due to their ignorance of history, just don't realize that they're 50 years behind the times.
History is important. Smart people understand this, and thus study history. Hipsters, on the other hand, are not smart people. They hate history. That is why they repeat its mistakes time and time again, but are so ignorant that they think they're doing something "innovative".
By the way, if you're more interested in the social effects of e.g. telegraphy technology rather than the science behind it, I heartily recommend Tom Standage's The Victorian Internet.
-- Alastair
Make it a "living" process, take away all post WWII technology and ask them how you'd do electronics. Physics is still the same, learning about electrons, energy levels, thermionics, etc. is still relevant. You're not too far off when you learn about solid-state physics.
There really isn't that much technological progress in the last few decades. Nothing like electrification, interstate highways, air travel, was back then.
There are 2 ways that I have used...neither of them was all that successful.
(1) Have them build the ancient technology and use it. Before they can learn to shoot daddy's AK, they need to be able to build and use their own bow. Before they can get a cell phone, they need to learn to use a ham radio, and pass the licensing exams.
Boy scouts are really good at #1.
(2) Take them to a museum. (As a kid, all I learned at the railroad museum was that they were big, scary things.)
Is "The Ascent of Man" still available?
God, one thing really pisses me off about ALL (almost) historical dramas and documentaries, and this is how LIGHTING TECHNOLOGY is laughably shown to be 'candles' for ALL periods before the invention of electric lighting. And this actually includes most depictions of the period when gas lighting was state-of-the-art.
The modern candle isn't even an ancient invention, for heaven's sake. And the various solutions to the problem of illuminating dark Human living spaces represent some great forms of practical engineering. But as far as the mainstream media is concerned (INCLUDING so-called educational cable channels), the lamp never existed, only candles.
Or take documentaries about how non-Western people built anything. All of a sudden, you are told that people had no better skills than cavemen, and perfectly obvious techniques like scaffolding didn't exist back then.
Even our very recent history (the last two centuries) is shown in VERY inaccurate ways. The Great Victorian Engineers (all over the world) achieved miracles WITHOUT the use of electric power or the combustion engine. But their methods are almost never depicted, because the visual media is almost always a creation of 'ARTY' types, whose understanding of engineering history is around zero.
And how many here, for instance, are familiar with the MECHANICAL computing devices that were widespread before the spread of microprocessor based electronics onwards. I mean, TV has endless dramas set in the 40s, 50s and 60s, but you will almost NEVER see state-of-the-art equipment being used in those dramas. It gets worse. When a TV show is set in the late 1950s or early 1960s, any TV set watched by the actors will be of an early 1950s design, because of the WRONG cliche that TV before 1965 meant watching a tiny round picture.
How many people here know that the earliest telephone services offered DIRECT LIVE connections to the local theatres, so telephone owners could listen (by subscription) to theatrical performances as if they were in the actual audience? How many times have you seen such a thing depicted in a TV show? Try NEVER.
In truth, engineering is NOT about respecting history, unless the historical record of engineering actually still teaches something useful. Engineers are highly pragmatic. Engineering is of the NOW. There is a near infinite amount of engineering curiosities from the past, and the investigation of any part of this history tends to be more intriguing than useful. And good engineers lack false sentiment.
The best education for a child is informing him/her that engineers are largely 'timeless' and therefore in any period an engineer would not be so different than now. So, while depictions of past engineering methods are usually laughable, the actual truth would be people finding and using the most common sense solutions, with the skillsets being treasured, respected, and taught to like minded enthusiastic people. Just because the arty writer/painter types of the age ignored the engineer (meaning that we lack good historical depictions) , just as they do today, does not mean that the engineer was any less skilled, dedicated, or resourceful back then.
Show your kid the Antikythera mechanism, and teach him/her that according to the lousy historians/archaeologists, such a thing was utterly IMPOSSIBLE until a real-life example proved to be undeniable. No writer wrote, and no painter drew any depiction of any engineer working to the skillset of the Antikythera mechanism builder, across the multiple centuries when such engineers existed, and were solving problems of this level of sophistication. Therefore, historians and archaeologists stated definitively that no man had such engineering skills during that period- total bulls**t. A lack of so-called primary sources simply reflects the fact that engineers lack the ego to leave the same form of records that arty-type wasters do.
When Man was first building the complex structures of antiquity, long before we have decent written records, some men were fir
Clarity: Education has to be about something that has already happened or was already discovered.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
There's an alphabet book themed with "retro" items.
OpenTTD -- available at http://openttd.org -- is a FOSS train simulation.
One thing about non- electronic DIY projects is that they force you to become familiar with the older technologies. I don't think we should be setting up websites or school courses to teach kids things like, 'before mobile phones there was the telegraph'. The shame is not that kids are losing touch with old technologies, but that they don't get the benefits of producing something with their own hands-- which would incidentally require the use of those old techs. Make kids communicate without mobile devices and they will rediscover the 'old' science behind telegraphs. And tell them stories about AG Bell and Edison, and they will learn the history behind telegraphs. Websites and new school curriculum won't accomplish this; people learn from other people. Old tech and science can be kept alive by simply building something with your own grand/kids.
Somewhat related to what your asking.
A ten part series on how some present day tech got here.
The shows don't delve deeply in to how it all works, but interesting none the less.
It may spark an interest in older technology.
Many things that were once only available in a lab I can now recreate in my garage.
There are many books for children and not so young as well, with very detailed pictures, art and historical images. Technology and its principles, historical and current infrastructure and life in general can be found beautifully and precisely illustrated. Go to a well equipped book store, ask some specific questions and be prepared to order to store.
I once taught my son how to build a tin can phone. At the time, he knew about cans (somewhat old tech) and he knew about string (really old tech), but he didn't know about tin can phones. He played with that thing with his friends for quite a while after that.
FWIW, he plans on studying engineering when he goes to college next Fall.
(funny thing is, that primitive toy we built all those years ago might be the only "wired" telephone hes ever used)
1. Kids today know very little about current technology and school systems are 20 years behind (for example, computing science is not even a required subject and it will probably take another 10-15 years before it is so in the US. In contrast, in the larger centres of india, before graduating high school, it is mandatory to already have knowledge of 2-3 programming languages behind you.
(Note: if you disagree with 1. because "kids today know lots because they are on Facebook, Twitter, and play lots of games, then you know so little about technology that you don't even know what technology is - I'm not talking about being a software user).
2. Teachers in general have no idea about current technology and it is difficult if not impossible to bring them up to date. It feels great to talk about what you know, so if what you know is completely outdated then this is what you think is important to pass onto the next generation - be self-aware of this very human trait.
It's not that technologies from the past may not be useful for kids to know, it's that it will be 100,000 more useful for them to know today's technology so this is where energy should be placed. Instead of stroking your ego by recanting what you know about vinyl records, learn something current and teach this to the kiddies (like programming simple programs on a computer in a simple language - something we could have been doing in the school system in the 80's). There is only so much time so use it well.
We in the US are falling so far behind and we don't even know it (did you know that the level of technological sophistication of the AVERAGE US BACHELOR'S DEGREE GRAD is about the same level as the AVERAGE JAPANESE HIGH SCHOOL GRAD?) Read: OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills from: http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/publications.htm. (or just skip that read and say to yourself "USA #1" like all of us are accustomed to doing)
The following series are great for both children and adults. Fantastic production quality, packed with factual information, but lacking the terrible sensationalism typical of American documentaries. I challenge you to watch even a single episode and not learn something awesome!
I used to teach a technology related course at a local college, and I liked to show an episode of the 6-part BBC documentary Victorian Farm to show students how advances in technology during the industrial revolution had a massive impact on day-to-day life. Off the top of my head, I can remember seeing demonstrations of technologies like basket-making, clamps, black-smithing, steam trains, horse-powered machinery, straw-plaiting, etc.
The same group of academics who did Victorian Farm were part of the 12-part BBC series Edwardian Farm. There are cool technologies like early fish farms, brick kilns, tractors, automobiles, vacuums, bicycles, leather-making, stoves, mining, fertilizer, pesticide, wool mills, etc.
There's also the 8-part BBC documentary Wartime Farm which is a recreation of the English farmer's life during World War II. Technologies like canning, paraffin range cooker, electric clothes iron, and linoleum flooring are just a few of the things covered in this series.
There is also a 12-part documentary with the same people called Tales from the Green Valley but I haven't seen it and can't comment though it's probably also really good.
I have a significantly higher interest in older technology than my kids. But my workshop is always open to them, on the off chance that they're interested in learning hand tool woodworking. Of course, that's not really old technology. It's still the way that fine furniture is made. It's just that they're unlikely to see solid wood furniture outside of our house. Unless you've got money to spend, you'll be buying the termite vomit from Ikea or Value City.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
Um, if you're suggesting that those "young people" don't know about vinyl records you're pretty much so far out of the loop that you likely don't have much to offer.
But hey, what do I know, at 58 years of age...
Three Squirrels
It seems to me that working from the abacus to a modern day computer through evolution would promote a greater understanding and eliminate the "magic" of things. Otherwise we're too likely to dismiss things as too complicated to understand (god) and put them on some untenable pedestal.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I think it's an excellent idea to teach children about antiquated technologies, often such technologies can be exciting and relatively simple DIY projects that can artistically incorporate elements of the old technology in modern contexts, also should something happen to knock us back into the dark ages, those who know how to recreate old technologies out of whats laying around will certainly be valued over those who can't even manage to open a can of peas because their Sharper Image electronic can opener doesn't work anymore.
Kids should get some basics on where things come from. How steel is made. How farming works. How electricity is generated and distributed. How cars are made. Where tap water comes from, and where sewerage goes. How houses are built and what's inside the walls.
At the micro level, they should learn basic electrical circuits, basic gears and mechanical linkages, basic hand tools up to an electric drill, and basic woodworking up to building a box or birdhouse.
Not Z80 programming.
Infrastructure is mandatory. Nostalgia is optional.
Take your kids to the nearest science museum, they've got all these technologies + more on display. Kids can touch or interact with many of the displays which is much better than passively watching a video. Take them there once a year or two, as they get older they'll absorb different information.
If they get really into something specific like telegraphy, then you can search the web for more info.
Don't just simulate them. Let them work with real tools. For example, it's really easy to build a telegraph. This could make a fantastic class project. Divide them into small groups, and have each group build a working telegraph key. Connect them up in pairs, give them a Morse code chart, and have them try to send messages to each other. Now hook them up to a central switchboard and teach them the basic principles of networks and switching mechanisms. Finally, explain how "the internet" is doing exactly the same thing as the network they built, just automated and on a bigger scale.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Show them the adventure. Then have (easy) classes on how to make one of each. The carriage could be a small one. Maybe just a working model kit. Using wind-up "animals". It would be PI do use small live animals, nowadays. Unless it's cockroaches in a science class, of course. :) ... nails or needles, cardboard, plastic bottles, wax or resin ... even clay. "Recordings" were recovered from ancient clay pots that were inscribed in a spiral automatically (apparently) with an iron "spike".
"Demo" garage-version telegraphs and gramophones can be made with
Don't stop there. Remember the first "optical telegraphs", in Europe.
There's even more options "out there".
Do you (or do you plan to) educate your kids about any particular older technologies?
HA! They're going to learn them all whether they like it or not, and everything is going to start with "Back in my day..." and end with "...both ways, uphill, in the snow!" Dag nabbit!
Back when we used to be able to make a call even miles from a tower.
Have gnu, will travel.
Lets see you do this in a Prius.
Have gnu, will travel.
I think that this is absolutely critical for continued innovation. There was a show on I believe the History channel called "What the Ancients Knew" it's an older show, but they still air reruns on occasion. In that show they do almost exactly what it is that you describe. They take the history of a given culture (Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) and talk about the inventions and innovations which built it, then connect that history to how it impacts our world today.
One of the most fascinating episodes was one in which they chronicled Japanese history. I recall one example called the Magic Mirror. The Magic Mirror was a technique used to help Christians identify each other secretly while avoiding detection by those who persecuted Christians during that period. The simple technique relied on the principle that reflected light can show micro details in a mirrored surface that is otherwise invisible to the naked eye. That simple concept led to what is today a modern version of the magic mirror that also uses reflected light for check for imperfections but today it's used on wafers in microchip manufacturing. It's both cheaper and more effective than virtually any other method, and is being applied to great effect today.
It's that kind of critical knowledge of the innovations in our past that will allow us to reapply that knowledge for the future. I completely agree that the knowledge of our technological history show continued to be taught to our future generations.
... was to have a historical aspect (my proposal from around 1999): http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...
"The OSCOMAK project will foster a community in which many interested individuals will contribute to the creation of a distributed global repository of manufacturing knowledge about past, present and future processes, materials, and products."
The idea goes back into the 1980s:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/prin...
Can't say I've gotten very far with it in the past quarter century (so many unrelated distractions just to make a living), but it is good to at least see all the scattered piecemeal efforts around the web with so much great content. The general adhoc Maker movement has the momentum now, and might someday converge on something like this. In any case, it would be good to have standards for encoding this knowledge so we could then apply tools to look at all the complex web of interdependencies. NIST has done a bit in that direction.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I'm getting older and now have 2 little kids of my own. The oldest is 3 now, so just about ready to really get going with learning. My history with computers starts with the Commodore VIC-20 around 1982 or so, then the Apple ][. then DOS, then Windows/Linux. So I've had the privilege of seeing the evolution of personal computing through a very interesting time period. In my opinion, anyone starting out with Windows or MacOS as their primary OS has lots of the early complexity of PCs abstracted away. Linux is a little more connected with the actual machine, but modern distros do a really good job with this same abstraction.
I was thinking about this very thing last week. It was in the context of dealing with lots of legacy tech at work (I work in the air transport business...the core of everything is positively ancient with all the cool stuff layered on top.) I think the answer has to be yes -- so much of our technology builds on basics. Plus, a lot of early decisions regarding computer hardware, etc. only truly make sense in a context of a previous era (examples from the PC side include serial communications, the 640K real mode memory limit, the architecture of BIOS, and all the backwards-compatibility stuff that modern people just learning this would scratch their head at.) It's almost like you have to start out at the DOS level to just explain that the actual machine doesn't do all that much without a complex OS. The current crop of students doesn't have to deal with stuff like serial port settings, memory management when writing software, etc. On one hand that's actually a good thing but on the other hand, it's hard to explain stuff like that when you actually need to know why something doesn't work.
I'm a systems person rather than a software developer, and jumping back into dev at this point would be a big shift for me because of this fact. Every time I look at a language, Web framework, etc. there is so much abstraction from what actually happens that it's confusing. And I know that's funny since all the object oriented stuff was meant to make things easy and hide that complexity. But lately, unless you're writing raw C++, so much is done for you in libraries and the language itself that you find yourself asking what you actually have to write. Facebook is insanely complex under the hood, sure, but the end users don't see any of that. Even on the back end, it's written against frameworks that do so much for the programmer.
This same thing transcends computers. It's amazing what ingenuity earlier technology employed to get around the fact that cheap, ubiquitous computing resources weren't available. Things like signaling systems, electromechanical telephone switches, etc. come to mind. I read a particularly interesting article about how Readers' Digest used to run their direct mail advertising campaigns without the aid of computers, and it involved a mechanically controlled system that picked up stamped name-and-address plates to print peoples' information on envelopes. From my area of expertise (airlines,) the carriers had a mechanically controlled filing system to reserve and release seats on aircraft. A lot of the logic behind stuff like this directly translates to solving problems with computers, and having a good grasp of stuff like it can only help people be better problem solvers.
I figured they'd just eat into my xbox time.
Being an Old Fuck I recall when I became interested in even older tech. Folks who dig that are a self-selected group and always were.
Most people are drones who do the minimum, resist learning more than the minimum, and that's never been different.
What has changed in a wonderful way is the AVAILABILITY of information on technology old and new on the internet.Want to teach the interested about a particular technology? Make an engaging, informative Youtube video. There are many such covering old tech such as blacksmithing.
Leave out music (no one else want to hear distracting shit) and leave out the narrators face which conveys no useful information and is only ever included out of vanity. Add links to online sources interested viewers can use if their interest is piqued.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Do you know how:
A substantial portion of our increased standard of living is due to productivity gains from specialization. Instead of everyone having to waste time learning and become experts at making fire, hunting, farming, weaving clothes, etc., we specialized and traded the resulting goods amongst ourselves. The extra time saved allowed us to become even more expert in our specialization, advancing the state of the art for even more productivity gains. And freed us to have more free time for leisure and entertainment activities.
Reversing this and forcing kids to waste time learning stuff they don't need to know will decrease productivity and lower the standard of living. If the kid wants to go into the transportation industry, then he should learn about horse carriages and how the parts worked. If the kid wants to become a network/communications engineer, then he should learn about telephony. If the kid wants to learn about electron beams and phospor displays, then he should learn how old TV sets worked. Forcing all kids to learn this stuff just wastes time they could be spending learning what they will eventually do for a job.
Yes, they should absolutely be taught about historical technology. Steam engines are nearly useless today, but they are fascinating machines that teach us all sorts of mechanical principles and concepts. As others have said, it also lends perspective to today's technology.
Though it hasn't been mentioned, teaching historical technology will also help prevent re-inventing the past technology. It will show that it has been done, what the issues were, and how new technologies overcome those issues. Something today's programmers desperately need.
Concept/Theory
History
Advancement
Is to show them your old VHS porn tapes
I've made sure to discuss numerous technologies that were quite serviceable; perhaps optimum; but banned due to regulatory overreach, as follows:
1. Incandescent light bulbs in applications where you need and want the important incidental heating, and the fact that if your home heating source is less than 95% efficient, use of the hi-efficiency bulbs will INCREASE your heating bill.
2. Gas cans, and how it used to be possible with the aid of a vent hole, to pour gasoline without spills, whereas the newfangled jimmied up crap spouts result in far more spills and attendant vapor loss than was ever experienced in the past.
3. The use of R-12 refrigerant, and how it resulted in less system leakage due to larger molecular sizes, and how it achieved lower vent temperatures, and how the science that resulted in its demise was later discovered to be faulty.
4. Two-cycle engines, whose power-to-weight ratio is still unmatched, but which will soon be banned (almost certainly)
5. 100% gasoline phase-out, whose replacement by 10% ethanol mixing has been unequivocally proven to represent a net loss in system-wide production efficiency and a net increase in atmospheric carbon release.
Was about the time the #5 Xbar system came about. It was the very first Common Control switching system. The way it works is fascinating. The crossbar elements too - a single crossbar frame could switch multiple calls due to holding magnets activated by the system.
Of course the era spans to about 1970 when the first electronic switches were put into place.
that her daddy and I had to:
a- get up to change the tv channel by turning a dial on the set
b- that there were only 7 channels (9 if you count uhf)
c- that some tv programs were in black and white
d- that tv stations "signed off" the air and there was only static
rotary phones were another issue
I am currently making videos of oral histories of people who were involved in early computing efforts; our oldest subject worked on the Whirlwind project at MIT in the '50s. Whirlwind was the forerunner of SAGE, which the US Air Force used to direct and control NORAD. I have a number of acquaintances who worked with mainframes, data pack storage units, and other archaic systems. Also some people who were early adopters of hobby computers like Commodores and Sinclairs. It will take several months to film all the histories, then I'll edit them and publish them on YouTube. Stay tuned.
Not in detail, but in principle.
Not enough to actually build one, but I know quite some details.
Not in detail, but in principle.
Only that you have to kill it and then cut the meat out. ;-)
Not in detail, but in principle.
Not in detail, but in principle.
A what?
No.
I think you do something with flintstones. But no, not really. I thought several times I should find out, but only at times when I hadn't internet access, and I'd forgotten about it by the time I got internet access again ... maybe now is a good time to learn more about it.
Expecting everyone to become an expert in everything is of course nonsense. But expecting everyone to understand the very basics of the most important technologies, yes, that's something one should at least try to reach. No, not to the point of being able to do it yourself. But to the point that you have a basic idea of what you would have to learn to do it.
You should never ever restrict your learning to what you need for your job. Doing so is the second-most stupid thing you can do in that regard (the most stupid thing being learning nothing at all).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Do you know how:
your car's transmission works?
... perhaps I should ask a chiruge to remove half my brain?
a steam engine works?
how to cultivate a farm crop?
how to butcher a cow?
how paper is made?
how ink is made?
how to weave cloth?
how to create a mortise and tenon joint?
how to track wild game?
how to start a fire without matches or a lighter?
Yes to all that above.
Most of that is easy, so I don't get your point. I should specialize in one of those, why?
Reversing this and forcing kids to waste time learning stuff they don't need to know will decrease productivity and lower the standard of living.
So the more you know the lower is your standard of living?
That is an interesting concept
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
As a kid my family and school took me on many trips to the Henry Ford museum/Greenfield Village. The museum is full of old technology, some of it even operational. For example, I remember trying to use morse code on a telegraph made with real antique keys/sounders with my Grandpa once. The village is a bunch of old buildings you can walk around with exhibits of how people used to live in various times.
Today I love technology and I love to build/repair/hack things. I think my visits to the museum/village as a kid were an important part of this. That old tech was much easier to understand, you could see how things worked just by looking at them. That taught me that technology is NOT a bunch of magic black boxes, it is something I can comprehend and even alter as a normal human being.
and the latest series: Tudor monastery farm.
Did you learn those things in class or on your own? Most well rounded people did it the latter way. I believe the argument was against having that much historic detail in the class load, not against maintaining the classes for people who are interested.
So let's look at the other side of that premise. We don't need to know anything about the war on terror/drugs/piracy, because it's the job of politicians and police to understand what terrorists do and make laws, policies, battle-fronts and a resource base that will keep everyone safe. This leads to another version of "Trust me, I'm a doctor". That is something that most slashdotters seem to avoid when dealing with politicians and the police.
Watch the series "The Day the Universe Changed" and "Connections 1, 2, and 3"
Old movies help a lot. Kids see unusual piece in technology and ask about them, sometimes even thinking this is new stuff.
When I saw carriages in the post, I was all excited to talk about trusses and levers and adzes and pins. But old technology to the slashdot crowd is the apple II. Hilarious. Pick up a copy of Diary of an Early American Boy and read it and look at the pictures. Great book on how colonists did things. Only like 100 pages. And it has a love story to boot, which is really great for about 95% of you.
Right. DO NOT let kids explore the world. That would be a complete waste of time. In fact, our whole educational system is screwy. Why do we bother teaching people how to read and write? They should be able to get along with only one of those two skills right? And history? I mean, come on, who gets a job that has anything to do with history? It only takes specialization to be marginally useful.
What you have said, although it has some merit (I think it's important to master something useful), I don't believe mastery should come at the expense of knowing a little bit about a lot. Otherwise, what you get are people who think that hydraulic cylinders are magical.
The New Way Things Work
by David Macaulay
It's a phenomenal book that not only tells the history of some older technologies, but shows how they work in kid-friendly caricatures. My favorite book for sharing technology to kids.
Most people are drones who do the minimum, resist learning more than the minimum, and that's never been different.
indeed
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” Herbert Spencer
They just need an explanation of why the world was black & white & TV looked like crap before the early '60s
Connections, ConnectionsÂ, ConnectionsÂ, and The Day the Universe Changed.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Sure, it can be taught with modern tech. But the older tech can be learned by looking at and manipulating it, even at a young age. Look at a modern digital audio chip and you'll still have no idea how the sound happens. Look at an old music box mechanism and it becomes clear without anyone saying a word. Similarly, there's nothing to observe with a CD, but a record player uses discoverable technology.
I understood more or less how those things worked before I could read.
I can't find anything about class rooms in the summary.
And yes, a lot of such things I learned from my parents.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
That is an interesting concept ... perhaps I should ask a chiruge to remove half my brain?
Just turn on Fox News instead.
Learning about old technologies might spark an interest in a few--an interest to become an inventor.
One massive solar flare and knowledge of that old technology is in high demand again... Because its going to knock out high tech society back to pre-industrial stage if were lucky, if were not lucky we end up right back to stone age...
Focus on stuff basic EM stuff. Its pretty much the foundation of which all modern electrics rest upon. First build a little electric motor, an iron ring some a dowel for the shaft some Farris nails and wire for manually winding. They will get the concept of EM. Then build a simple wired telegraph, a couple code keys and battery. Next talk about radio. Trying to talk to an 8 year old about radio propagation is tough, but building a crude wireless telegraph (keep the power low) is something that will stick with them.
To introduce computers build a little quiz show buzzer system with some nice big loud clanking relays, that lock everyone else out after someone buzzed in, until its reset, that's an AND gate, then show them a chip with some number of similar gates on it. Make a bread board version of that game where you have the fox, the chicken and corn and have to cross the river.
If you introduce these concepts along side simple exercises kids will love it. If they don't understand all the physics of it right away don't worry, they will make the connections later with more complex technologies and it will greatly accelerate their understanding of those.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I am very much looking forward to the day when I can teach them about an antiquated and no longer used technology called "Windows"
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Teach them that while we now can communicate planet-wide by using a small device on your pocket, that wasn't always so. It used to be that when you ventured into the wide, wide world, you was essentially cut off from your family and friends. Mailing a letter took weeks if not months to reach the outer colonies and/or foreign countries.
The telegraph helped with medium distance communication, wireless transmission took care (after a lot of trial and effort, and a lot of smart people pioneering the technology) of the long distances.
Teach the kids that not everything is as it always was. They figure out the rest on their own, if they so desire.
I don't think that there is much point in teaching Morse code, for example. The important this is understanding how technology usually develops from things that came before and how the technology transforms culture and culture then in turn transforms technology. James Burke's 'Connections' should be mandatory viewing for anyone in technology:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/james-burke-connections/
Another great resource was the magazine 'Invention & Technology' which folded in 2011. It told the stories of great and not-so-great inventions as well as the people who created them. Any innovator should consider this required reading as while technology has changed, people are more or less the same. Thankfully, someone has digitized much of the content of this magazine and you can find it at this link:
http://50.57.231.74/IT/
Hopefully you'll find these resources as mind-expanding as I have.
Plucking a guitar string can teach about sound. or even stretching a vibrating rubber band. Anyway music boxes don't qualify for our discussion, they are "still current tech". There is something to observe with the CD, but you'll have to crack out the microscope
I found your post a bit depressing. Not all acquired knowledge has to relate directly to job productivity to be valuable. It also isn't necessary to become an expert to know how to do something.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Sure, guitar strings and rubber bands are good too. You can look at a CD under a microscope, but you can't see it work. No young child is going to be able to rig up a laser and DtoA converter on a CD, but a fingernail (or sewing pin in a paper cone) on a record is doable.
Most music boxes for children these days are digital.
People who know nothing about auto mechanics end up spending $800 to get their canooter valve replaced. There is value in knowing about things even if you don't do them day to day.
Understanding specific older technologies may not be necessary, but older technologies tend to offer a MUCH more intuitive grasp of first principles than most modern technology (with some exceptions). It also teaches that technology doesn't succeed because it's "better", but because it scales cheaply and easily. The Romans knew how to make steel, but their bronze technology was advanced enough in comparison that their best swords were made out of bronze; they used steel for the cheap mass produced swords. Tube amps sound better than most solid state amps, but solid state amps are cheaper to produce and maintain, so they dominate the market. Additionally, some knowledge that has been superseded may become useful in the future. Very few people have the kind of knowledge of analog electronics that was commonplace in engineering 50 years ago (slashdot is probably an exception), but if you want to create a solution that is optimal, rather than "good enough" (special projects, etc.), there are a lot of analog optimizations that can improve the performance of digital equipment (by lowering the noise floor and isolating ground loops, and far more esoteric things that I've never heard of). Last of all, the current legal state of affairs is set to quash innovation except in very specific directions, and that combined with the pressing need for consistent standards means we'll likely see innovation in many fields grind to a near standstill, though of course new fields will open up. TL;DR technology is not a march forward so much as a drunken, weaving stagger, and understanding it and the forces that drive it provides a much more firm knowledge base than knowing how to work [tech du jour]. People with this type of knowledge also seem to pick up on how to work new technology faster, rather than being stuck with what they learned how to operate in their youth.
The problem with scientific power you've used is it
didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read
what others had done and you took the next step. You
didn't earn the knowledge yourselves, so you don't take
the responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders
of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you
could, and before you knew what you had, you patented
it, packages it, slapped in on a plastic lunch box, and
now you want to sell it.
history will always be forgotten
school is for teaching kids critical thinking so they can filter out all the garbage in google search results
Be kind, rewind. How many kids get that?
Older technologies (almost) never actually go away.
For instance, there is a working telegraph within a block of my house. It is a fire alarm call box, and as far as I know it is still working.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
All but the tracking and butchering. Wouldn't want to rely on my paper, ink or fire making skills but I know the principles and have the basics of implementation. The mechanical systems are more familiar, I can describe the operation of all 5 types of car transmission for example but designing any from scratch or a condensing steam engine would involve a lot of trial and error to get the details right. Most of these I learned as a kid for fun. I agree that they shouldn't be taught in detail but nearly all of these can be introduced in a few hours or less. The survival skills take a few days if taught properly with lots of practice if you want to get any good.
A child should learn about the basics of civilisation, technical, social and political even if they don't learn enough to earn a living from any of them immediately. Specialisation is for insects.
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