Developing new skills in technics

[Lark]

Do you actively try to do this? Where does your motivation come from? If you buy something and are able to use it are you satisfied with that or do you want to know more about what software and hardware is involved and makes it operate as it does? Do you ever think that you could improve something which you have bought but know you dont have the skills involved in engineering, programming or design to do so? If you do, what do you do then? How do you try to develop the skills or do you even bother?

 

[Coriolis]

Do you actively try to do this? Where does your motivation come from? If you buy something and are able to use it are you satisfied with that or do you want to know more about what software and hardware is involved and makes it operate as it does? Do you ever think that you could improve something which you have bought but know you dont have the skills involved in engineering, programming or design to do so? If you do, what do you do then? How do you try to develop the skills or do you even bother?

I am constantly doing this. My motivation is to be able to do things I want to do. The biggest example is that I use linux (Ubuntu specifically) on my computers at home. I am no expert on this, so when something goes wrong or I want to add a capability, I look up online how to do it and learn. I am similarly teaching myself Python, more for work use, and learned to program an arduino because I wanted to do a specific task with it. Before any of that, I learned how to build my own computers, mostly by doing it, with some tips from more knowledgeable friends. The skills I choose to develop, then, are the ones I need to get something done. Once I have learned the skill, I use it.

 

[Lark]

I am constantly doing this. My motivation is to be able to do things I want to do. The biggest example is that I use linux (Ubuntu specifically) on my computers at home. I am no expert on this, so when something goes wrong or I want to add a capability, I look up online how to do it and learn. I am similarly teaching myself Python, more for work use, and learned to program an arduino because I wanted to do a specific task with it. Before any of that, I learned how to build my own computers, mostly by doing it, with some tips from more knowledgeable friends. The skills I choose to develop, then, are the ones I need to get something done. Once I have learned the skill, I use it.

You mention more knowledgeable friends, do you think its possible to learn things simply from watching youtubes, reading free content online etc.

Kind of like that character in Nightcrawler.

Also, how did you go about building computers, I take it that it was a desktop you are talking about? I AM interested in doing that at some point, I've bought two or three books on the topic and read about it but experimented with anything so far, I think I dont have the room to do so at the moment.

 

[Jaq]

You mention more knowledgeable friends, do you think its possible to learn things simply from watching youtubes, reading free content online etc.

I'll weigh in on this, there are plenty of guides and resources out there online for learning new skills. I'd say practice would be a good factor depending on the skill. Other than that, if you're going for something like programming, I'd try to find a community out there of people who are interested in the language you are teaching yourself. Might be a bunch of jerks, but you might also find a few people willing to talk to a newbie.

 

[Madboot]

I am constantly doing this. My motivation is to be able to do things I want to do. The biggest example is that I use linux (Ubuntu specifically) on my computers at home. I am no expert on this, so when something goes wrong or I want to add a capability, I look up online how to do it and learn. I am similarly teaching myself Python, more for work use, and learned to program an arduino because I wanted to do a specific task with it. Before any of that, I learned how to build my own computers, mostly by doing it, with some tips from more knowledgeable friends. The skills I choose to develop, then, are the ones I need to get something done. Once I have learned the skill, I use it.

I agree with this. Part of my motivation is my career path, as I work in the Electronics industry. But that only covers the hardware aspects. I learn whatever software that is needed for my job, or to upgrade and maintain my home network (all of which I have built). When I have time at work lately, I am trying to learn microprocessor programming.

 

[Obfuscate]

i only progress my knowledge in directly applicable ("i need to fix this") ways or in areas beyond my daily experience... any other learning is incidental and due to the way i retain information by "osmosis"...

 

[Coriolis]

You mention more knowledgeable friends, do you think its possible to learn things simply from watching youtubes, reading free content online etc.

Kind of like that character in Nightcrawler.

Also, how did you go about building computers, I take it that it was a desktop you are talking about? I AM interested in doing that at some point, I've bought two or three books on the topic and read about it but experimented with anything so far, I think I dont have the room to do so at the moment.

It is very much possible to learn things just by watching videos and reading, whether online content or books, often from the library. I figured out how to fix my washing machine this way, and how to make custom roman shades for my bedroom. I took a class at the local arboretum to learn about composting, and I got a friend to show me how to make yogurt. So, it is all based on what resources are available when I need or want to learn something. There are probably some things that are easier to learn if someone shows you directly, but especially with youtube, that can be overcome.

As for the computers, first I read up on building them online, then made my list of requirements and and browsed websites that sell parts for computers. Then I showed my "shopping list" to a friend who has built quite a few computers, to make sure I was getting something reasonable and components that were compatible, etc. That was my biggest concern. He told me it all looked good, I bought the things and put it all together, and it worked. Yes, it was a desktop, but it really didn't take that much room to work on, just a corner of the dining room table. (Of course I did monopolize it for over a week.)

 

[Lark]

It is very much possible to learn things just by watching videos and reading, whether online content or books, often from the library. I figured out how to fix my washing machine this way, and how to make custom roman shades for my bedroom. I took a class at the local arboretum to learn about composting, and I got a friend to show me how to make yogurt. So, it is all based on what resources are available when I need or want to learn something. There are probably some things that are easier to learn if someone shows you directly, but especially with youtube, that can be overcome.

As for the computers, first I read up on building them online, then made my list of requirements and and browsed websites that sell parts for computers. Then I showed my "shopping list" to a friend who has built quite a few computers, to make sure I was getting something reasonable and components that were compatible, etc. That was my biggest concern. He told me it all looked good, I bought the things and put it all together, and it worked. Yes, it was a desktop, but it really didn't take that much room to work on, just a corner of the dining room table. (Of course I did monopolize it for over a week.)

I like the youtube videos because you can rewind and rewatch, sometimes I'll like important points to be repeated a couple of times and when someone is teaching me something and I ask them to repeat things it can just piss them off or they think I'm not listening or having a joke because I smile a lot or feign amusement when I am unsure of things.

There was a local electrical store that I went to and talked to a guy about building my own gaming desktop once, it was interesting and he showed me a model in which sound cards, graphics cards, different component parts, just slotted into or plugged in like legos. It was all very interesting but what I was thinking of more was straight up engineering and soldering fare, like you see in some of the Ben Heck videos online or similar ones to them. Its all dream stuff at the moment but some of the things I have seen friends be able to do with Raspberry Pie technology and games emulators and downloads is impressive, although that said I do know someone who tried to "hack" a NES mini and "upgrade" it and they just managed to totally break it.

 

[Lark]

For reading later:-

Could an Exclusively Right-Wing Society Ever Be Truly Happy? - VICE

Ok, read it.

Unfortunately there's a lot of really, really estabished tropes and cliches in this article, although maybe that's a sign of the times and I do see it mirrored on the right wing. In fact, I see a lot mirrored on the right wing. I dont believe that much of what is considered alt right or right revivalists or whatever you choose to call them is a sort of bastardisation of modern, niche and special interest liberalism.

This cant simply be a consequence of "bad faith" application of niche liberalisms' tactics either.

In part I think its reflective of reaction, which is the gut instinct or basis of much which is right wing, however, I think its a curious situation because most of the reaction is in response to the niche liberals own version of reaction, ie outrage. I just see a bunch of people being triggered perpetually, complaining about others exhibiting the very thing they are most often guilty of themselves.

Although, that is some how to examine things on the symptomatic level, there are greater trends going on, of which the outrage/reaction/triggered thing is just indicative. A friend of mine a while back who have, unfortunately, been suckered into a lot of the far right thinking (though I think he remains on the fringes) was saying about how he thought most liberals or protest groups were made up of people with mental health issues. I just thought, "yeah, no shit, that was a right wing trope in the nineties, earlier maybe" but also "Isnt everybody?".

What gets me about this article though (yeah, coming back to that), is that its written in a sort of self-congratulatory, conceited way, very sure that it can accurately and completely sum up the right wing, without much in the way of self-examination required as a self-appointed pundit of "the left". I see a lot of that. I see too much of that. Maybe its just that I like reading Orwell so much and he was set on training himself as a sort of "loyal opposition" toward his own socialist ranks, I think Hitchens described it as a "too clever for the conservatism he may have found appealing" or something like that. For instance, much of what the article writes about the actions of conservatives, the creation of exclusive and exclusionary thinking, the questions of what is a "true muslim", "true british", "true conservative", I remember those being the hall marks of many socialists and marxists in the nineties (those things were on a slower wane were I live than elsewhere I have found).

I also think its a little bizarre that the text appears quite conciliatory, sort of "the poor troubled, frightened conservatives" and is then presented alongside pictures of some anti-fascists kicking the shit out of someone. The AFA and the people they fight with in the UK are pretty different to elsewhere in the world, especially the US, I really have to say that, or at least I could have said that when I was in my teens, all sides of that equation were drawn from football hooliganism or similar scenes, ultimately I just think of them as all made for each other, if they want to be at that then among them be it. However, I just found it strange that the article was presented in that fashion.

The thing is that I know my perspectives on politics have been forged over a long, long time, doing an immense amount of reading, in politics, ancient, modern, older and more recent sources, and a lot of thinking long and hard on most topics. Its really unrealistic to expect others to be reaching the same conclusions when its obvious they havent performed the same sort of exercise or have as many miles on the clock. Still. I wind up reading the stuff all the same.

 

[sLiPpY]

Soldiers of Odin have developed new skills techniques, cleaninging out AFA mess.

 

[SurrealisticSlumbers]

Soldiers of Odin have developed new skills techniques, cleaninging out AFA mess.

We're talking about IT and programming/coding here.