There’s often a skill that seem interesting, but I can’t see doing anything for me in my day-to-day life. What have you learned that was a lot more effort than the payoff was worth?
As an old time computer nerd I have uncountable examples of deprecated knowledge. There is no use in knowing how to use the reserved upper memory in autoexec.bat and config.sys, nor how to use Napster or Kazaa.
But all these skills do shape your brain and way of thinking.
Assembly language taught me to be precise and think before typing. Flash taught me that nothing lasts forever, as big as it might seem.
Eventually, all this adds up and creates a profile that is very demanded in my career.
That said, my mom taught me to thread a needle without looking. And I can’t sew, so that’s that.
I had to learn himem.sys and loadhigh when I was about 10 years old and the family PC HDD crashed. I had a copy of DOS and a manual the size of a phone book. The only way out was to write my own boot disk.
But yes, these days it’s a bit of a useless skill.
Yeah and to think we had to learn and find out stuff reading a book. A book!!
While knowledge like that is deprecated, the foundational skills and problem-solving it gave you are still very valuable. Modern systems are still built upon old roads, so people with this base level of knowledge have a far easier time sorting out what fixes are needed. Like being an old mechanic that diagnoses a car issue almost immediately because they can hear the issue without hooking up a digital diagnostic, they already know what to look for.
I miss older computers, lol. 2000-2010-ish was the golden era.
I’m a trained electrician. Despite taking and passing a reputable school for it, I can’t get licensed to do it in my state because you have to have 2 years apprenticeship. You get an apprenticeship you have to go through a school supported by the union. The only school supported is the one they own.
Despite being fully capable of wiring a building to code, installing a solar array or electric car chargers I can’t do shit with the information and it way a year and $2k fucking wasted.
Any chance you could get licensed in another state using what you know (without an apprenticeship) then seek licensing in your own state via some kind of reciprocity agreement with your home state?
Unfortunately my state doesn’t recognize it unless you have work history in that state. If I had the ability to move to another state to work for a year I wouldn’t come back to this hell hole.
That is fucked. Aren’t apprenticeships usually paid? They expect you to pay for it instead?
The apprenticeship is paid, but you can’t have the apprenticeship until you finish school. But no, not that school, this other school that we have specifically formed a monopoly with.
Oh hell — you already did 2 years of school and they want 2 more at their school? ☹️
Yup. Fucking dumb.
Anyway to get credit via past knowledge? Like, test out of apprenticeship if you can? You may be able to prove experience via hours worked on timecards.
are you anti union or just anti this one school?
Unions are fantastic. The problem here is that after spending 2k and a year learning, I was told that the only way I could get the apprenticeship hours needed to get licensed is to spend another 2k and another year going to a different school for the exact same class using the exact same books because no one in my area will take you on unless you use this school.
I cannot test out, I cannot transfer credit, I cannot skip it. Because this is the standard in place and going against it violates their agreements with the union, I cannot work in my city. I’m all for unions, but any organization can be corrupted and this is exactly what it is.
English sheep counting, a base-20 number system. Often called Yan Tan Tethera. Lincolnshire is the best version.
Getting a private pilot certificate. Was fun, but after going to every airport within range, not sure it was worth it.
At least you didn’t go all the way through Instrument rating and Commercial license, only to realize ADHD was a thing and also not treatable while maintaining a medical.
I was already working in tech so the backup plan is chugging along fine; but goddamn the student loans…
What are the rules around flying a small plane with ADHD? I’m unclear if one needs to be off meds for an extended period to get a private license
I believe for even a third-class medical a pilot needs to be off ADHD medication for over 4 years, with additional screening/testing involved if they have been prescribed. My knowledge is limited since I have never been prescribed such meds and only realized I have some level of ADHD due to my son getting a diagnosis. He only took the meds for a year or two in elementary school before he opted to stop due to side effects and his brain overcoming that developmental hurdle.
It sounds terrible, but my advice would be that unless your ADHD is severe enough to demand medication you should never ever tell an Aviation Medical Examiner or standard doctor about ADHD suspicions if flying is something you want to do. I could technically still go fly if I found the time, and have never felt I was distracted given the degree that flying a plane engages all parts of your brain.
There is a dark side to this way of thinking though, as any sort of deviation from the norm with mental health or cognitive performance is often pushed under the rug instead of being treated due to fear of losing livelihood. A tragic example was Germanwings Flight 9525.
The cost of leaded gas alone is financially painful.
When I taught flight school, we flew planes that ran on automotive gasoline. (see also: Rotax 912). Even then paying for fuel ate us alive.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to do in my life and this is tentatively on my bucket list. Problem is it’s crazy expensive and I don’t have use for it afterwards!
How did the process of getting the cert go for you?
If I had to do it again, I’d start with the end goal and work backwards. It was a long time ago, I was single with no extra expenses, had a decent job, and thought it might be fun to learn. If I had wanted to become a professional pilot, the calculation would have been very different.
Getting the cert mainly involved putting in the hours. Having a good instructor helps a lot. Also, not making any stupid mistakes. I almost stalled the plane hard on my first solo touch and go. The hardest part was getting used to the ATC lingo and not stuttering too much. I got an aircraft band radio with a headphone and joined all the weirdos who liked to sit at the end of airport runways.
You could steal planes
I got my Realtor’s license without realizing just how much it cost to break into the business. I did it for a year, and then dropped it.
That’s the only one I can think of. Typically, I don’t learn on spec, I learn as I go, “on the job”. So, what I’m learning is directly applicable to what I need to do.
For instance, I recently refurbished an old, cheap desk. I learned to apply laminate with contact cement. It’s not hard, but it was my first time doing it. A few weeks later I’m at a counter at a business and they have laminate that is separating from the base, and I knew exactly why. They told me that someone had been hired just a few weeks earlier to repair the same problem, and it happened again. I knew how to fix it right, but I didn’t need a job so I just commiserated with them.
Probably morse code. It was required for my ham radio license back in the day to read it at 10 WPM. I put quite a few hours into learning it through the koch method.
At the end of the day I’m just not very interested in getting a lot of contacts. I just like building and tinkering with radios.
I have a full UK licence, and I’m thinking of learning it. It’s one of those things, it sounds interesting for QRP etc. However I’m the same, I rarely speak to anyone anyway!
Making tofu from scratch. Also sourdough.
I love cooking in all forms, and there are a lot of things I happily do from scratch. I love baking bread, making my own oat milk, mixing up my own seitan from vital wheat gluten, and a whole bunch of other things.
But making tofu was something I tried a bunch of times and have ultimately given up on. It is extremely time consuming, very difficult to get right, and makes a worse product than what I can buy at the store. It isn’t even cheaper to do, as the cost of the soybeans and the cost of the premade tofu are about the same. I may make it on occasion if I plan on serving it on its own as a dish with soy sauce, but that is about it.
With sourdough, I found it easy to get into, but my husband and I both prefer our baked goods to be not sour, and we both have pretty sensitive tastebuds in that regard. It is easier for me to just use instant yeast whenever I need it and make something we both prefer to eat.
Same with making ketchup! Just buy the cheap ketchup, it’s still better and less time consuming! I also agree with the sourdough. I prefer soft white breads over sourdough.
One day sourdough is not sour, and still easier than using commercial yeast. When I’m making sandwich bread I do it in a condensed timeline and the starter just works like a more robust version of yeast. You don’t have to make “the sourdough” as my kids call it (they ask for it because they like it but I do understand y’all’s preference.)
I use my starter to make bread, cinnamon rolls, donuts, once a puff pastry that was so annoying to make but maybe the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I just don’t buy yeast anymore.
I am not sure why, but my one day sourdoughs were still sour to me, and they would usually get more sour as the days passed after baking. I think it is because I live in a humid area that also tends to be cooler, as climate does impact the taste.
I am glad you got it to work for you! But for me it is cheaper to buy the yeast in a large block and use that.
People pleasing, spent nearly four decades getting so good at it thinking if only I could be just that little bit “more good” that I’d get what I want and need from people and relationships only to realize I’ve been plenty good this whole time, it’s a fools errand and I only attract people who will move the goal posts every time because it’s what I expect and have trained for
I ruined my diaphragm learning how to burp my ABCs
It was only sort of worth it
Wait, that’s a thing?
Maybe ruined is a bit hyperbolic , the diaphragm is actually tough and iirc skeletalbut it strains the muscles so i gave myself acid reflux and burp when i talk sometimes
Worth it? Only when im not having acid reflux
It got better over time though, the secret was simply to stop being a weird dork child who learned to force burp for a parlor trick
Man, I got so lucky, I managed to learn how to burp my ABCs and I can still do it approaching 40 without I’ll effect. Also it turns out it is useful as a skill for managing a trans oesophageal ultrasound, a horrible procedure where you swallow something a bit smaller than a kiwi fruit connected to a tube and then have to just choke on it for 20-30 minutes. You can deal with the sensation because it is not dissimilar to the inhale of the burp but extended for the whole time.
Even if you don’t end up using it, the process of learning something often shapes us into who we are. So it’s tough to say something isn’t worth the effort.
For example, I learned to read sheet music when I was younger and taking piano lessons. It took a while and I don’t really use that skill today since I mostly play by ear or tab (fretted instruments). However, I appreciate understanding what the notes mean and think it made me more musical overall.
The vast majority of higher math and some industry-related chart interpretation as far as aviation goes.
I guess I’m probably older than 95% of the people here, so all the “spaghetti” charts we had to figure out, the actual trigonometry used to calculate wind correction angles, all of the math used to calculate EPR, thrust, and Mach speeds. Instruction in these calculations was very demanding and unforgiving. Then it all pretty much became useless as I followed the leading edge of software development and electronics moving into the cockpit. So I learned it all only to have it disappear within a few years.
I can’t learn skills I don’t like to learn. As time wasted having fun is time well spent, I never learned a skill not worth the effort of learning it.
I really can’t think of any that weren’t worth the effort. Some took more effort than others, but even if they don’t make me any money, I don’t regret learning then.
Hold my MCSE in NT4 and Novell
Gained the year Win2k dropped
Let me think -
Mostly software training at work for systems they immediately abandoned.
My interior design skills languish for lack of money.
Most of the other stuff I can do gets some use I think.
