Old school rant article - fun stuff!

By the time I got through the first paragraph, I thought the guy wrote this standing in my dad's backyard! Well written!
http://www.sportscarmarket.com/Shifting-Gears/2001/April/

 

Good read. Thanks, Norm.

 

Yeah, good read.

 

Quote......

In general, today’s children don’t have the same affection for motor cars, nor should they given the era they were born into. We are the last generation of tinkerers, they are the first generation to grow up with computers being as common as toasters


How true, good read Norm

 

Yeah, Fat...the quote you post is the thing that stood out to me in this article, too. Today you need the tools of the mechanic in your shop along with a good laptop and an array of USB ports. What scares me is wondering when the tools of the mechanic will become as obsolete as that old Weber Carb.

 

All they'd need is a forklift and a half inch wrench to change the 42 volt Lithium battery, if we weren't around.

 

It scares the crap out of me to see what'll come of these cars when hit old age, if they make it that far. I won't give up my cars for anything, but what will I do if I can't drive em?

It is a sad reality, that few kids care to tinker. My friends and I were never talking about sports, but what bike parts to make, and I was always using my grandfather's machine shop to modify stuff to work. We are now at the driving age and we all are still tinkering, but now we are not only different for tinkering, but nearly outcast. My desktop on the school network is a pic of my wagon. Everyone knows me as the kid with tons of old cars. I was asked today about my wagon by a kid sitting next to me in the computer lab and this kid was astonished that I work on it. It's a scary thought, that we, the throw away nation are feeding the thought of throwing away. People refer to their cars as old at 5 years, kids get new phones every few months because they're "old". You should see the faces of some first time visitor kids when I go to use our corded ROTARY phone in the shop. Mind you, those are kids who are interested in cars.
No one understands the simplicity of building a motor. I make a comment that I'm building a motor for my cutlass and I guess some of these kids see it as astrophysics, which I guess it is to them considering they've never rewired a lamp or fixed a table.
We are in for one hell of a future, and it scares the crap out of me, that THIS (my "peers") is what I'll have to contend with...

 

If we keep tinkering long enough, we may become the new geeks!!! Fear not, what goes around, comes around.

I think cars shrank because families shrank. So we have to do our natural duty, and multiply the tinkering population. Works for Asia, right?

 

Bring Me lots of women and I will multiply.

 

The deal was to multiply, but you use trigonometry and calculus. Not fair!

 

Huh???

 

LMAO!

 

Kids today are timkerers - they're just 'tinkering' with different things - like computers, programming, game design, etc.

If computers were prevalent in the 50's when most of us were kids, some of us would be into that stuff instead of cars.

It's all part of generational progression. Imagine back in the 30's and 40's there were probably quite a few who got into electricity/ radios, etc. Now, it's considered 'old' technology. Only need a relative few experts to meet the demand to repair old radios (have a friend who's a old radio collector / repairer).

In the future, I would imagine that there won't be too many internal combustion-powered vehicles left, resulting in a decreased need for the old garage mechanic.

Conversly, there going to be a huge need for electric / hybrid / magnetic induction motor technicians to handle all the new stuff that's starting to come out. Then, waaaay down the road, that technology will also be superceded.

Time marches on.............

 

Dang there goes my multiplication.

 

With Trig, you can multiply a lot faster. Just think of all the little taxpayers NC could have.