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Comment by snakeyjake | Hacker News Reader

The US Navy's old training materials are fantastic for learning about various technologies.

I think their masterpiece is "Basic Hand Tools" a handbook written in plain English that describes the use of practically every hand tool ever invented.

"Basic Hand Tools" on the hammer:

>Whoever conceived the idea of cracking a nut with a rock unknowingly invented a tool. When a later genius tied a stick to the rock, he invented the first hammer. There have been a lot of improvements since that humble beginning.

The modern version "Tools and Their Uses" also covers machine tools but is less fun.

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Not just military training videos, older ones in general are often superior to what gets made today. My favorite is probably this one on vehicle differentials:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI

Periscope Films uploads a lot of public domain US government material, and has it decently organized. The asbestos series is also interesting, hindsight being 20-20.

See https://m.youtube.com/@PeriscopeFilm/playlists

I like this even more.

AT&T Archives: Similiarities of Wave Behavior

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DovunOxlY1k&pp=ygUOYmVsbCBsYWJ...

Jam Handy films were amazing. You could show this to an audience who was morally opposed to learning about differentials and they’d still learn about differentials.

I've never been a car guy. While I've heard of differentials, I never understood what it was. Thanks to you posting this video, I now understand what a differential does and how it does it.

(I found playing it at 120% speed to be a good balance between comprehension and engagement)

I will never pass up an opportunity to use this joke:

Everything is a hammer, unless it's a screwdriver. Then, it's a chisel.

Not a joke and different domain, but similar structure and also noteworthy:

Everyone should meditate 2 minutes a day, unless he's busy. Then he should meditate 20.

"The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots."

- Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny

This is completely true. 18-20-year-old kids launch and arrest aircraft on a carrier while simultaneously performing an underway replenishment, and it's just another day.

NEETS is another to add to the list. A quite literal full stack guide to electronics from the basis of matter up.

"Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series"

I found the "textbook", but is there a video series associated with it?

Is the original this one?

https://archive.org/details/HandTools1944/page/n87/mode/2up

Do you happen to have a link to the "Basic Hand Tools" version?

https://archive.org/details/UseOfTools1945/mode/2up

Thanks for posting the link. What a great book.

I just downloaded (thanks to other commenter below) and would question the "use" part. What is the "peen" end used for? Having read the section on hammers I still don't know. (Just re-skimmed the section and I still don't know.)

Hitting things ;)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peening

I dimly recall making an ashtray (hmmm, not sure that would fly these days) in high school metalwork class by beating out a piece of copper sheet with the peen until it was suitably concave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball-peen_hammer

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