I had a look at this test and think I would do reasonably okay. The only flaw in PM’s headline is that it refers to skills that men should know, but I would have thought this applies as much to women. As my wife likes to point out, she’s much smarter at changing a tyre on a car than most men we know.
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Mechanical skills people should knowNovember 9th, 2008 |
 27 comments to Mechanical skills people should know |
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Just because those skills may be useful to women in some circumstances doesn’t mean every writer has to kowtow to political correctness every time he picks up a pen. They would be useful to chimpanzees, too, but the vast majority of chimps just get men to do the work for them. Hmm.
I disagree. Unless you know what you are doing, you can really cock up (not sure what the phrase should be when it pertains to women).
It’s Popular Mechanics, for Pete’s sake. How many women read that? There’s too much in Heat and Now! and Hello to get through.
A significant proportion of men are not mechanically minded either. Point and laugh at them.
Jonathan: have you read the comments there?
In addidtion to Robert Spier’s comment above, we should also note the the phrasing in the headline is not exclusive. It does not say “that only men should know”, merely that men should know them.
The hairtrigger denial response, that bell going off in one’s head demanding an immediate denunciation to dissociate oneself with the Damned Thing is as clear an indication as there is that political correctness, whatever you wish to call it, is a dogmatic faith system. The central element of such things is that the person must be constantly applying them in everything they do- I must eat in a Jewish way, defecate in an Islamic way, write in a politically correct way. To do otherwise is to be party to evil. The belief system doesn’t use antiquated words like heresy or blasphemy, it uses words that end in “ism” and “phobia” to distinguish its unthinkables.
But in Johnathan’s defence, Ian, the penetration of the politically correct reflex begins to colour perfectly sensible observations with the taint of being dogma. You don’t need to have been brainwashed to say what he did. But because, as you say, such statements have been so alienated from the process of proper thinking by the judgemental eye of PC, one often sounds vacant and patronising when adding ‘and women’ to statements about fan belts. Going by his record, I’ll give the man the benefit of the doubt.
On the point, I have nearly none of those skills. I ended up eating a chicken by hand the last time I roasted it, for want of the carving skill. But I’m about to buy a car, and I would feel vulnerable driving it around without knowing how it works. How does one go about learning how to replace a tire?
#17 (home brew beer): Someone who doesn’t drink beer shouldn’t be making the stuff.
#50 (pushups): I’ve never been strong enough to do a pushup (not counting girl pushups, with the knees on the ground).
#55 (tackle steep drops on a mountain bike): This assumes that you are first capable of making the ascent. My lower body strength sucks dirt, too – I can’t handle more than a 10-degree incline.
#70 (drive a stick shift): Get thee behind me, Satan! Three “buttons” (stick shift, clutch, accelerator) just to go faster, and if you don’t time the clutch just right, you have to start all over again. Rube Goldberg at his finest. I hate those things.
#73 (tie a necktie): The necktie is a noose disguised as a fashion accessory, Enough said.
#76 (install graphics card): There should be a 76a skill, “how to buy a graphics card” – i.e. knowing the difference between AGP and PCI Express.
Any list of important skills that does not include 1. fast concealed carry draw, 2. field strip/clean [insert weapon of choice], 3. set up a VPN and 4. use public key encryption… gets zero points from me 🙂
Oh and skill 54…
Hogwash. Perhaps when all you are doing is target shooting (even then I have always thought that was a bizarre notion) but that sort of shooting is hardly the sort you ‘must know’. For the sort of shooting skills you really should know, whatever you are shooting at should be the only thing ‘surprised’ when your gun fires 😛
Perry, not everyody needs those skills, but if you’re going to be real, then you need:
#55: Learn to catch the linkage.
(For the benefit of those not in the handgun meme…it’s a technique that essentially double-fires your handgun, allowing you to put two rounds into almost exactly the same space. Not common for target shooting — where it’s irrelevant– but used by the executive protection types.)
Oh fuck off, please. I am the last person to be worry about PCness. As an individualist, I think that the ability to figure out things like how to fix a car is just as valuable to a woman as a man. And I think there still is an assumption among certain folk that there are things that women need not bother about. I’ll remember your remarks the next time I read you guys attacking Islam for its treatment of women.
Russ:
Do you have any info on “catching the linkage”? Google provided no help at all.
As far as changing a fan belt: This was a skill I once had, but when, many years ago, I tried it on my first mini I made up my mind there and then that it was a job for a real mechanic in a fully equipped garage.
My previous car, a Vauxhall Nova as I recall, had room under the bonnet to climb in alongside the engine. On my current vehicle, I can just about handle checking the fluid levels. (Not that I do it very often.)
I didn’t get past the motoring skills, so I can’t speak for the rest of the skillset, but I’m guessing that my one skill, knowing how and who to call for assistance, is all I could apply to most of them as well.
Well I always knew that I married an amazing and beautiful lady, but apart for the weapons part (she has never handled them, but I have) she would score incredibly high on this test.
Only this afternoon while I was out walking the dog in the downpour, she replaced a broken pane of glass in the back door, and fixed the bathroom light.
She crashed the computer when she turned the leccy off, but hey you cant remember to do everything can ya?
She has sanded and varnished floors, and built two of our fireplaces, using an angle grinder to do the hearths.
A treasure or what!
I read this on a flight a few weeks ago and was surprised by some of them, plugging in a diagnostic tool to your car being one of them. A) you seriously want that and B) if your car has that kind of electronics, you’ll find it’s seriously not user serviceable.
I’d dismantle pretty much everything on my first few cars but I’d certainly not attempt the fan belt on my new top of the range Honda – not a chance.
Changing tires is important, but frankly I’d quite like them to ship modern cars with a full sized spare first.
Kevin B makes a good point. Some of this stuff seems to be intended for the 60’s, like the fan belt. Sure, when I had to buy a ’62 Chevy with my meager savings, I could change the fan belt, the spark plugs, points and condenser (remember those?) and the oil. Couldn’t afford otherwise! Some of those bits are so much more complex now, I wouldn’t attempt it.
Ham:
From the instruction manual?
Seriously, though, it’s in there. At least for GM and Toyota products sold in the US it is. Although I’d share the complaint about the lack of a proper full-size spare. My ’93 S-10 and my ’02 Tacoma are the only cars I’ve owned that came with them from the factory.
Firearms skills:
“Catching the linkage” can mean one of two things.
A: you fire one round and don’t let the trigger go all the way forward again. Instead, you slowly creep it forward until you feel a click from the sear reset. This is a good thing to practice, and is an important part of delivering rapid aimed fire. It takes practice to develop, but 5-10 minutes of dry-fire training in the evening is most helpful to this and indeed all aspects of combining sight alignment, sight picture, and trigger control. (AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY PUT THE GODDAMN LIVE AMMO AWAY IN ANOTHER ROOM!!!!)
B: You (by means dependent upon make and model) cause the gun to double. It has all of the practical value of bump-firing, that is to say, none. And depending upon how you do it, doubling the gun in front of a BATFE agent would be a Very Bad Thing(TM). Further, affiant sayeth naught.
#17: f*** that noise. Buy Charlie Papazian’s book, “The Complete Joy of Home-Brewing.” It has a place of honor in my kitchen next to “The Joy of Cooking” and “Just because I cook and do my own laundry doesn’t make me gay.”
#43: IS HE ****ING CRAZY? Re-warm SLOWLY. Re-warm ONLY if you don’t expect to need the affected limb for the next several hours to a few days.
#44: don’t EVER goop a burn. Period. Clean and cool and cover, that’s it. Oh, and keep the victim properly hydrated PO, as long as the victim can drink. And if the V can’t, you’ve got bigger problems.
#54: makes me hungry for chicken wings!
#73: All of the worst experiences of my life (marriage, divorce, etc.) involved me wearing a slipknot around my neck. That ain’t happening again.
Sunfish, he say many smart things – again.
1) ‘Catching the linkage’ is a fancy way of saying that you cycle the lockwork of the weapon in such a way as to avoid a lot of the over-travel and lost-motion that the makers put into it. This absolutely is a skill of target shooters. If you watch slow-motion video of Jerry Miculek doing his high-speed shooting, you’ll see that a lot of what makes him so scary fast is that he’s figured out exactly how far his finger has to move on the trigger – in both directions – to make it go ‘bang’ and then cycle for the next shot, and he has trained himself to move not a micrometer further than that. Back in my PPC-shooting days, I spent 30 minutes a night in the season dry-firing at the TV to teach myself the muscle-memory required to cycle the weapon with as little excess motion as required, becasue excess motion is time lost and sight-picture ruined.
2) Change a fan belt? Straight from the 60s. Most cars now use poly-vee belts for the ‘accessory drive’, which last 10x longer than the old-style single-V belt – and which you often can’t get at the auto-parts store anyway. And replacing a modern poly-vee belt is dangerous and requires big tools, because most have a dynamic tensioner (as every self-respecting belt drive should have) and most of them are very, very strong indeed. Leave it to the experts. If you slip on a modern poly-vee belt tensioner, the end of the wrench can easily break your hand, or your jaw. And, on most if not all transverse-engine autos – it’s essentially impossible to do without significant disassembly anyway.
3) Wax a car? Give me a break. This is not a necessary skill. With modern clear-coat finishes, a waxed car is merely vanity.
4) Anyone who says you should know how to change a single-pole light switch, or a faucet washer without telling you to turn off the electricity or the water first has not fully thought this through.
5) Brew your own beer? Why? Do you make your own needles, or thread? (hat-tip, Adam Smith). Beer is one of the cheapest food products you can buy, and with the shelves groaning with top-quality products from all over the world for pocket-change money – why in the world would you need to know how to try and imitate the experts?
6) The advice for felling a tree is fatally flawed. I don’t care how small it is, I don’t care how it leans, I don’t care how good you think you are – if you care in the slightest about where it lands, any tree you are felling should have at least one rope on it – no matter what. Ask me how I know this . . . .
This list is a politically-sanitized collection of things designed to make the readers of PM swell their chests with pride. Most of the items are arcana or trivia which almost-all readers will never have to actually deal with. There are actually 1001 other things which it far more important for humans to know that this strange collection of Boy Scout lore.
Random & unconnected thoughts.
Every man should know how to tie a bow tie, or be legally barred from wearing one in public. Clip-on bow ties are an abomination unto the Lord. And, while a conventional neck tie is often (as Sunfish notes) a uniform item for Bad Times, it is also absolutely required when paying condolences, attending weddings, christenings and funerals, and should be properly tied – not for you, but as a mark of respect for those around you. And – as my first father-in-law advised me – always wear a tie, preferably a silk tie. After all, you never know when you may be called upon to start a British Seagull, and polyester won’t hold a knot like silk does.
I despair of ever seeing a pair of properly-polished shoes again – apart from my own, that is. See neck ties, above. As my dear old Dad (MHRIP) taught me, dirty shoes, dirty fingernails or being late are all about the most disrespectful acts that one can inflict upon others.
Stick welding is a silly skill, straight out of the 1940s. Unless you are a pipeline rigger or you do submerged welding on oil rigs, you can do any welding job that needs to be done, on any metal, quicker, better, cheaper and faster with MIG or TIG. Stick welding was delveloped when we didn’t know any better. We do now.
And more will follow, I feel sure.
llater,
llamas
Re the diagnostic plug on cars. In the case of my father’s crown vic a few years back, you don’t even need the little reader dohicky. If you short two pinholes in the reader plug (I used a paper clip) you can make the ‘check engine’ light flash a morse code sort of thing that tells you what is wrong. It checks all the sensors, warning history etc. You can even initiate a series of self-diagnostic procedures as detailed as checking the relative power of each individual cylinder. When my dad’s (out of warranty) car acted up, I did just that. It had a dead cylinder but the other cylinder on that coil was just fine. I switched the spark plug wire with another one of the same length on a different cylinder and ran the test again. This time the other cylinder was dead.
It saved him a lot of money, a long time without his car and a trip to the nearest dealer in another city. Not to mention dealing with said dealer who considers every out of warranty repair an invitation to tell you how bad your car is and why it is really time to buy a new one. All it cost was some of my time and the price of the plug wires. Oh, and one ruined paper clip. So I’ll vouch for the usefulness of that skill.
It’s BS – it doesn’t say, as number one, that every man should know howto operate and maintain a Kalashnikov.
The outdoor and outdoor-related skills are seriously deficient, both in selection and in prescription.
BTW, you’ll find more-complete and less-incorrect instructions for finding potable water almost anywhere you look, from classical Latin to modern fiction.
Brew your own beer?
While it is a cheap food product, although not too cheap please – cheap mass produced watery beers are an abomination – I learned this one as a student.
40 pints of top class bitter at 10p a pint was a bargain even in 1988, the real problem was industrialising it sensibly to avoid the obvious problem of finishing one batch, having friends round and drinking it and then having no more cheap beer for a month. The airing cupboard was home to many fermentors.
Daveon wrote:
’40 pints of top class bitter at 10p a pint was a bargain even in 1988 . . . ‘
So your labour was worth zero, and all of your equipment was free?
This math might work when you are unemployed/unemployable, and someone else is paying your bills . . . . oh, look, I learned how socialists do math!
Just my little joke, there.
I don’t drink anymore. But I know that 30 minutes of my labour will buy me a 12-pack of excellent beer, or a fifth of very-tolerable gin. There’s no way that I can make that beer, or that gin, in 30 minutes, no matter how much of it I make – never mind the material or capital costs.
More people should read Adam Smith.
By all means, brew your own if that’s what you like to do. But please don’t suggest that it’s an economical thing to do, and therefore a “necessary” skill that every (hu)man should know. The only necessary skill for any human as it relates to beer is how to order it and how to pour it.
llater,
llamas
Why do people drink beer, anyway? :-p
I started with the hard stuff — my first drinking experience was when I spent a semester in St. Petersburg, Russia; vodka with the brand name “Russkaya Vodka”. Worse was that the other students wanted to give me cola for a chaser, and I can’t stand any carbonated beverage.
Nowadays I just drink wine….
Llamas:
‘Unnecessary’ my shiny metal behind. When the Obamocalpyse hits and the entire world looks like something between a Mad Max movie and the seedy underbelly of a Renaissance Festival, those of us who can drown your sorrows will be rich. Rich, I tells ya!
tdh: The dang Boy Scout’s Handbook, even the dumbed-down PC-ified version today (never mind the late-80’s/early-90’s edition when I started!) has better information on finding water than the PM link. And I write and deleted three or four separate responses to the various medical items on the list. When is someone more-likely to get frostbit than get an electric shock that stops the heart caused by changing out a light switch without downing the power, as llamas notes? What about severe bleeding or taping a joint with a soft-tissue injury? What about shock??? OMGWTFBBQ!!1!one
Ted: we drink beer because it’s liquid bread with all of the b-vitamins you could ever need. And because some monk said that it’s proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Thread hijack: no Veteran’s Day/Armistice Day thread?
Llamas, as I said, I was a student. We clubbed, in true socialist style, together for the kit, which I think cost us a grand fiver each, and the labour was, technically free.
For student’s I’d recommend it, certainly when beer is a couple quid a pint in a Student bar, up from the sixty odd pence in my day.
Now it would be a luxurious hobby and perhaps, one far off day, I’ll return to it – I never did master brewing a decent lager.
On a side note, the PM list did come in handy for me today. It was the first time I’ve seen a toilet cistern with that daft little flappy thing and had to fix it. Bring me a syphon and a decent float/valve any day.
Beer, and the brewing thereof, is a hallmark of civilization.
The people had to hang around long enough for the product to “get done”, and so built a city, so forth and so on.
I see that this list has clearly divided the readership in two:
Those who are happy that they know how to do the stuff on the list.
And those who are happy that they know better than to do the stuff on the list.
🙂
I think you should at leas try to make your own beer. I’ve been making my own beer for about a year now and love it. It’s so much cheaper and tastes sooo much better!