Things that people don’t know how to do anymore

[Evitzee]

hen

Education is expensive, it takes money from tax breaks for the well to do. Its a problem no government have found a solution to.

Well, that's the problem right there, the more government gets involved in something the worse it becomes. Look at the Department of Education in the US, created by Jimmy Carter back in 1980, can anyone claim that education has improved since then? Same with the government getting involved in student loans....result, astronomical prices. Education doesn't have to be expensive, we have just chosen to make it so.

 

[STANDY]

Waltesefalcon

Summer is here, so I guess it's time to start hitting the pawn shops, yard sales, etc looking for old planes.

Check this place out…some are going for $650

https://vintagetoolshop.com.au/collections/hand-planes-plane-irons-blades

Here is a list of brands to look for

 

[efauser]

CPRwatch

Light a fire in a fireplace .

See OP

 

[CBM1590]

Make moonshine back in the Appalachian mountain woods. One of two old still sites I found today. Very likely prohibition era. The horseshoe fire box made of stacked stone and the remnants of a barrel ring or two are dead giveaways. They fed their families and put shoes and clothes on their kids with that extra money.

 

[BlackTalon]

Plenty of people still know. I have a quart in my bar a roofing contractor distilled a few years back. And a friend who moved out to Route 81 started distilling this past year. Moonshine ain't dead in the Shenandoah mountains west of DC.

...although I believe many make a LOT more $ making/ selling meth...

 

[CBM1590]

BlackTalon

Plenty of people still know. I have a quart in my bar a roofing contractor distilled a few years back. And a friend who moved out to Route 81 started distilling this past year. Moonshine ain't dead in the Shenandoah mountains west of DC.

...although I believe many make a LOT more $ making/ selling meth...

Oh, the old timers still run it, they just aren’t making it back in the woods. Dear friend of mine is at least a 4th generation distiller of the clear liquid. He gave me a half gallon a few months back. Some of the best made in these neck of the woods.

 

[ghce]

CBM1590

Oh, the old timers still run it, they just aren’t making it back in the woods. Dear friend of mine is at least a 4th generation distiller of the clear liquid. He gave me a half gallon a few months back. Some of the best made in these neck of the woods.

A couple of years back was getting a half gallon at a time for NZ$20.00, sadly the distiller has shifted northward to a warmer climate.

I sure miss it but to tell the truth I was drinking it at probably an unhealthy rate, double distilled and likely the best whiskey I have had.

 

[hen]

Evitzee

Well, that's the problem right there, the more government gets involved in something the worse it becomes. Look at the Department of Education in the US, created by Jimmy Carter back in 1980, can anyone claim that education has improved since then? Same with the government getting involved in student loans....result, astronomical prices. Education doesn't have to be expensive, we have just chosen to make it so.

That is no law of nature, its just a talking point from all the guys looking for tax cuts. The same guys that buys our cheap corrupt politicians.

An example from another field health care; Norway have a system run by the government, that is much more efficient than The system in the US that is run by private businesses. Is the Norwegian system perfect? Far from it! I have had both parents and brother in hospital with long time terminal illness and only payed my taxes (about 30%).

 

[Pvt-Public]

Tying shoes

 

[The Father]

Can’t laugh.

Listen to comedians and laugh your ass off.

Now the new generations look for shit to be offended by as they scamper to their damn safe space.

 

[Waltesefalcon]

hen

That is no law of nature, its just a talking point from all the guys looking for tax cuts. The same guys that buys our cheap corrupt politicians.

In the US we have had the idea of a socialized health care system bouncing around for fifty years. The Nixon, Clinton, and Obama administrations all seriously considered it as a strong and viable option for the public.

Our biggest problem here is that we allow corporate lobbying, which always sways our politics in favor of corporations. I think the 2009 push for a single payer system is the most famous illustration of this, despite having overwhelming majorities in both chambers of Congress and controlling the White House, instead of passing legislation to create a single payer system Democrats crafted legislation which forced all Americans to buy health insurance. I wonder who the Affordable Care Act truly benefited the most?

While this is only a short read, and so is not all that detailed it gives an interesting break down of the history and evolution of health insurance in the US.

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/how-he...d-from-protecting-patients-to-seeking-profit/

 

[pdxleaf]

A video on Instagram showed an old guy with an old truck who asked several young mechanics to guess the function of the high beam button on the floor. Most had no idea. One thought it was a remote starter and another wanted to open the hood to search the engine bay.

 

[pdxleaf]

One more. People no longer know how to duck and cover.

In case this is too obscure, it's when we used to hide under our desks in elementary school to practice what to do when we saw the flash of a nuclear bomb.

I miss the simple, old days.

 

[DaveK]

pdxleaf

One more. People no longer know how to duck and cover…

I’ve been known to, on occasion, sneeze quite loudly. A few years ago my wife and I were downtown when one of my super-sneezes erupted. Some poor guy crossing the street ahead of me dove to a crouch on the ground and scanned around for the source of the “threat”. Everyone but him, including his girlfriend, thought it was pretty funny. But I did feel a bit bad wondering if he had issues with the sound of gunfire.

 

[pdxleaf]

DaveK

I’ve been known to, on occasion, sneeze quite loudly. A few years ago my wife and I were downtown when one of my super-sneezes erupted. Some poor guy crossing the street ahead of me dove to a crouch on the ground and scanned around for the source of the “threat”. Everyone but him, including his girlfriend, thought it was pretty funny. But I did feel a bit bad wondering if he had issues with the sound of gunfire.

I wish I had been there. Not to see the poor man crouch, but just to have heard that sneeze.

 

[DaveK]

pdxleaf

I wish I had been there. Not to see the poor man crouch, but just to have heard that sneeze.

Anytime! We’ll go out for beers and sneezes

 

[DrmexicoII]

A fellow loud sneezer! I regularly hear cries of "Jayzus!" after I've sneezed around people who aren't used to it.

 

[Doc Savage]

hen

Maybe by choice, but the smart phones helped a lot. Knowledge is, "out" only acceptable behaviour is consuming without thinking. You may know; sports results, fashion brands and celebrities. Any thing more you are a nerd. Yea, I work in education

There has been substantial research over the past 10 years documenting how smartphones (and social media scrolling specifically) have had terrible effects on young minds. They squash creativity, drastically reduce attention spans, and (especially in women), have driven rates of anxiety and physical self-harm off the charts.

If anyone wants to know more, there is a new book by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist who has been at the forefront of the research in this area. The book is The Anxious Generation.

 

[Doc Savage]

Waltesefalcon

I was just having this conversation with a colleague last week. The percentage of students who are functionally illiterate has sky rocketed in the past few of years. High school has to bring back some kind of rigor in the classroom, if not college is going to turn into what high school used to be. It's been four years and we can't keep expectations low and blame it on Covid any longer. It's a scary situation to watch unfold.

Like most big problems, this one has several driving forces. If it were just a matter of increasing standards in high school, I don't think we would be in this mess.

I have several good friends who teach high school and middle school, and they have seen the lowering of student preparation for more than 10 years. They warned me I'd see it in college, but Covid hit before I could notice the pattern. It's not a Covid-generated problem, but Covid did make it worse by teaching an entire cohort (all 12 years of students) that they could turn in anything and not fail a class.

Another factor is the rise of the cueing method (or visual recognition of words) technique replacing phonics. Instead of learning to sound out words via the sound each letter means, students are taught to memorize the "shape" of words and try to guess what each one means. If a student sees "truck" and they say "car", they are counted correct.

Full disclosure - I don't teach reading, and this is my very cursory summation of what the cueing method entails based on conversations with teachers forced to use it instead of phonics. However, the results prove it is a big problem. It's the reason a lot of students don't like to read.

 

[Doc Savage]

Dsloan

How do you find them performing on assessments and quality of work? I have some younger colleagues who use AI for research and summaries, but it seems to actually let them move more quickly, but with sometimes more superficial understanding. But, that sometimes might be an acceptable trade-off in some of their work.

I won't sugarcoat it. The quality of work in college today is atrocious. The Introductory Literature class I teach to college sophomores uses the same tests I got from a private high school teacher from their HS freshman class. The only difference is that I have had to simplify the vocabulary on the tests because young people have a vocabulary 50% smaller than they did 20 years ago.

With exceptions for the most selective universities, college today is what HS was 20 years ago.

Edited: May 16, 2024