On Thu, 15 Apr 1999, Lawrence Walker wrote:
> The advantage we have is that we are not intimidated by the technology and
> can fix them. I am heartened by some of the examples listed which get these
> machines out to people who can use them, especially the one that used them
> for teaching kids how to repair and then keep their machines.
I think more can be learned from old machines (of all types) than new
ones.
> A lot of the disposable societies glut is because the majority of people
> haven't got a clue as to how their convenience machine works. If it stops
> fuctioning toss it and buy another. I'm amazed at what I find in the garbage.
> A good percentage of the time, it's just a faulty power cord.
I've rescued a few things like that myself. Most people would toss things
out, but I tinker with them. I generally don't know what I'm doing, but
that doesn't mean I won't TRY to fix things!
My parents seem to know to let me tinker with things before throwing them
out. But if it wasn't me tinkering, it'd probably be my father... he
usually tries to fix the major appliances, and he usually manages to do
it. It's just the electronic gadgets that stump him! :)
> > >when indoor toilets were a luxury I sometimes take a reality check and am
> >
> > How old are you, anyway?
> >
> That was in a rural villiage in Manitoba in the midforties and quite common
> outside the cities.
It's still not impossible to find today, in rural areas. I'm in my 20s,
and I've certainly entered houses with no plumbing before. In rural
areas.
Heck, I used to use the outhouse at my grandparents' place (rural
Quebec) when I was a kid. The whole area where they lived (and where my
mother grew up) didn't have electricity until the late 40s or early 50s.
I think the kitchen in the farm house _still_ has a hand pump at the sink,
which pumps water from the cistern in the basement (which collects water
from the metal roof). A modern bathroom wasn't installed until the
1980s after my grandfather passed away. And all heating is by wood stoves
which appear by their style to have been installed somewhere around the
end of the 19th century. :)
No CD players or cassette players, either. Just a hand-crank gramophone.
And some of the records are single-sided!
Not everyone is in a rush for the latest and greatest.
And I'm pretty cool with that.
My uncle, who runs the farm now, finally had a phone put in in the 1980s,
but not to the house. It's connected in the cow stable. He also keeps
his old Model A running. He also has an old Case tractor from (I think)
the 1930s which is still in use.
Another uncle (same family) is a mechanic, and collects old gasoline
engines and the occasional old car. And BTW, he's a _real_ mechanic who
knows his stuff, not some lamer who plugs your car into some gizmo and
reads the printout wrong. He experiments with discarded parts and makes
his own mechanical contraptions.
Old stuff is great, and generally more interesting than more modern
equivalents, though I certainly wouldn't want to give up my indoor
plumbing and electric furnace!
Anyway, this is OT. I just came from a bad exam (made too many gaffes
from double-guessing questions, and also my memory for formulae wasn't
what I needed it to be) and I need to get away from computer networks for
a while... which must be why I'm using one right now. ;)
--
Doug Spence
ds_spenc_at_alcor.concordia.ca
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/
Received on Tue Apr 20 1999 - 03:19:30 BST