▲ 152 ▼ What skills did almost everybody have 50 years ago, but few people have today? (slrpnk.net) submitted 7 months ago by SolarBoy@slrpnk.net to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world 239 comments fedilink hide all child comments I suppose it would be mostly practical skills, cooking, fixing things. Usually had to be done by people themselves. Maybe also mental things like navigating (with or without paper map) and remembering their daily and weekly agendas. What other things would be a big difference with the people today?
[+] gigastasio@sh.itjust.works 31 points 7 months ago* (2 children) [deleted] permalink fedilink source hideshow 4 child comments replies: [–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 7 months ago (1 child) I heard an anecdote that one of the reasons older structures last longer than newer buildings was until the days of using Log Tables, engineers had to round up to the nearest values to match the values in the log table when calculating complex forces, and this rounding compounded when multiplied against other rounded values. Once computers were being used with design, you could calculate the forces exactly to minimize material costs. permalink fedilink source parent hideshow 2 child comments replies: [–] HobbitFoot 1 point 7 months ago I've got a log table in the back of one of my reference manuals. The results go up to 6 digits. You aren't going to get appreciable material savings after 2 digits. And in some cases like structural steel, the built up members were far more optimized 100 years ago compared to today because the labor required to build the optimized structure was that much cheaper. permalink fedilink source parent [–] SolarBoy@slrpnk.net [S] 2 points 7 months ago I think being good at estimations and having some intuition when something doesn't match up for a restaurant bill or grocery shop is helpful though. And I don't think a lot of people would get out their phone to double check the calculation. But yeah, having this magic rectangle in our pockets is pretty nice. permalink fedilink source parent
[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 7 months ago (1 child) I heard an anecdote that one of the reasons older structures last longer than newer buildings was until the days of using Log Tables, engineers had to round up to the nearest values to match the values in the log table when calculating complex forces, and this rounding compounded when multiplied against other rounded values. Once computers were being used with design, you could calculate the forces exactly to minimize material costs. permalink fedilink source parent hideshow 2 child comments replies: [–] HobbitFoot 1 point 7 months ago I've got a log table in the back of one of my reference manuals. The results go up to 6 digits. You aren't going to get appreciable material savings after 2 digits. And in some cases like structural steel, the built up members were far more optimized 100 years ago compared to today because the labor required to build the optimized structure was that much cheaper. permalink fedilink source parent
[–] HobbitFoot 1 point 7 months ago I've got a log table in the back of one of my reference manuals. The results go up to 6 digits. You aren't going to get appreciable material savings after 2 digits. And in some cases like structural steel, the built up members were far more optimized 100 years ago compared to today because the labor required to build the optimized structure was that much cheaper. permalink fedilink source parent
[–] SolarBoy@slrpnk.net [S] 2 points 7 months ago I think being good at estimations and having some intuition when something doesn't match up for a restaurant bill or grocery shop is helpful though. And I don't think a lot of people would get out their phone to double check the calculation. But yeah, having this magic rectangle in our pockets is pretty nice. permalink fedilink source parent