Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

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The availability of tools is far from a given as well.

It appalls me how few people will tackle what seem to me to be utterly basic repair tasks. I may be on the extreme end, but I think some people would pay someone to change a lightbulb in their house (and I'm sure a great many DO pay someone to replace a headlamp or tail light bulbs).

I'm trying to do my part, ensuring that my kids are exposed to the DIY/maker/hacker ethic/experience, and even went into to teach my daughter's kindergarten class the (very) basics of electricity and we "built" flashlights together (mostly, the kids did a life-scale real "electricity" game with banana jack cables to make a complete circuit and a light to light from a 12V battery and then they put stickers with their name on it around the batteries of pre-built flashlights with a bare wire to the negative terminal as the "switch".) That was 2 years ago, and the kids still talk about it sometimes when I see them at pickup. My son (3 at the time, 5 now) can explain from that how a switch works and that electricity "has to make a whole circle" in order to work.

This was the prototype version we made at home. The production version was more robust and looked better, but worked the same basic way.

http://static-s3.sokoloff.com/random/kids/flashlights/flashl... http://static-s3.sokoloff.com/random/kids/flashlights/flashl... http://static-s3.sokoloff.com/random/kids/flashlights/flashl...

What really appalls me is that in some parts of the world, it is likely there are people who would seriously be scared upon seeing something like that, with thoughts of "is that a bomb?"

On the other hand, you can still find pockets of the DIY ethic in many places. A while ago I remember watching on YouTube an automatic transmission being rebuilt, and two rather young (around 8-10) kids were helping their father with it. That was cute and inspiring.

Tools? There is a minimal set of tools that will cover a very large number of common household and automobile repairs.

I have had a great track record with nothing but a pair of vice-grips and a 4-bit combination screwdriver (2x flathead, 2x Phillips).

Add to that a claw hammer, pocketknife, roll of duct tape, can of WD-40, toilet plunger, needle-nosed pliers, and a few cheap plastic-coated wire coat hangers, and you should be able to bodge or jury-rig anything long enough to get a real repair done over the weekend.

For instance, did you know that one arm of the tweezers in a Victorinox pocketknife can tighten eyeglasses screws?

I am a small time DIY'er and a small time fix-it-yourself person. I came to realize the importance of such tools rather late in my life. Greatly appreciated.

How to change a light bulb on a Renault Megane: http://www.meganeownersclub.co.uk/changingmeganebulb.php

There are Audis where you need to remove the front bumper to change the headlamp. (Less of a concern with HID and LEDs, but some of them are still halogen.)

I had one of those, at least according to the repair manual. In that case I found that the local garage were able to change the bulb without dismantling anything by putting the car over their inspection pit and reaching up through a narrow gap between the engine and headlight (having small hands helped here). This was only 5 minutes' work for them and so the charge was very low, and it was easier for me to pay that than to attempt to jack the car up on my driveway and crawl under.

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