I was surfing around the web, and I came across this site called obsoleteskills.com, where it lists certain skills which most people don't use anymore, such as the following:

Adding water to car batteries

Blowing the dust out of a Nintendo cartridge

Calling a phone sex line

Converting a single-sided 5.25 inch floppy disk to double-sided

Operating a ditto machine

Hand cranking a car to start it

Setting the correct time on a VCR

You can see the whole list at obsoleteskills.com.

I actually did the first one on your list last weekend and the second one today! So at least they're not totally obsolete.

In order to make the floppy disc double-sided you cut out a square hole on the side, right? It's sure been a while since I did that...

A few skills I have that are now basically obsolete:

Breakdancing

Skateboarding

Remembering phone numbers

Actually talking to people and asking them questions when I need info about something

Walking up and talking to a woman spontaneously instead of first vetting and getting vetted through Facebook, Twitter, MSN or some other crap.

Living life IRL

ask my wife.

I can use a bromide machine

draw with pen and ink

yoken marker rendering

basically everything I learned in college isn't useful to me (and pretty much wasn't as soon as I graduated )

stoooopid computers!

this is only sort of on-topic, but i was talking to a young person about how i used to have foreign penpals when i was a teenager--i'm talking about handwritten letters here--and how magical it was to have a letter from another country, even though one often had to wait a month or more for a reply.

i got that patronizing 'how quaint' look in response...

whistle said:

this is only sort of on-topic, but i was talking to a young person about how i used to have foreign penpals when i was a teenager--i'm talking about handwritten letters here--and how magical it was to have a letter from another country, even though one often had to wait a month or more for a reply.

i got that patronizing 'how quaint' look in response...

pen-pals is how I explain visiting my internet mates to my mum before internet I was off travelling the world visiting pen-pals

retina said:

I actually did the first one on your list last weekend and the second one today! So at least they're not totally obsolete.

In order to make the floppy disc double-sided you cut out a square hole on the side, right? It's sure been a while since I did that...

A few skills I have that are now basically obsolete:

Breakdancing

Skateboarding

Remembering phone numbers

Actually talking to people and asking them questions when I need info about something

Walking up and talking to a woman spontaneously instead of first vetting and getting vetted through Facebook, Twitter, MSN or some other crap.

Living life IRL

How are those 2 obsolete?

ZombieKitten said:

whistle said:

this is only sort of on-topic, but i was talking to a young person about how i used to have foreign penpals when i was a teenager--i'm talking about handwritten letters here--and how magical it was to have a letter from another country, even though one often had to wait a month or more for a reply.

i got that patronizing 'how quaint' look in response...

pen-pals is how I explain visiting my internet mates to my mum before internet I was off travelling the world visiting pen-pals

It just dawned on me, how pen-pals used to seem like such a big deal. Almost on par with communiating with an alien or something...Now it's nothing to be chatting with a pal in Austrailia

I don't know why, but that is just now hitting home

bboy87 said:

retina said:

I actually did the first one on your list last weekend and the second one today! So at least they're not totally obsolete.

In order to make the floppy disc double-sided you cut out a square hole on the side, right? It's sure been a while since I did that...

A few skills I have that are now basically obsolete:

Breakdancing

Skateboarding

Remembering phone numbers

Actually talking to people and asking them questions when I need info about something

Walking up and talking to a woman spontaneously instead of first vetting and getting vetted through Facebook, Twitter, MSN or some other crap.

Living life IRL

How are those 2 obsolete?

I was thinking the same. I wish I could do both!

thekidsgirl said:

bboy87 said:

How are those 2 obsolete?

I was thinking the same. I wish I could do both!

Well, you guys are too young to have experienced the real heyday of skateboarding and breakdancing. They used to be these exciting phenomena that everybody was into, and now they're only for a select few enthusiasts. So it's just not the same anymore. And who would want to see some dude in his mid thirties slide down a railing or do the robot anyway? I'd probably need a hip replacement afterwards.

Speaking of obsolete skills, I used to lay out a tabloid newspaper manually. I could size and calculate halftones for photographs, set type, and use a waxer to get it all on the page.

Now it's all done on a computer.

I'm guaranteed to be the only person on The Org who knows how to make, install & repair a roller shade with a spring-operated wooden roller...

Genesia said:

Speaking of obsolete skills, I used to lay out a tabloid newspaper manually. I could size and calculate halftones for photographs, set type, and use a waxer to get it all on the page.

Now it's all done on a computer.

that's the stuff they taught us in college, waxing the backs of bromides and stucking them on the grid paper the minute school finished NOBODY was doing that any more