Lifehacks from 100 Years Ago | Hacker News Reader

Lifehacks from 100 Years Ago

mentalfloss.com

260 pointsohjeez92 comments

Starbucks UK have taken the advice from #6 ("How to keep your plants watered") and accurately applied it to their teabags:

"Loosely plait two or three strands of wool together, immerse completely in water, and place one end in the pail, weighted, and touching the bottom."

Thanks to their kindness in this matter, I no longer need to worry so much about watering my own hands.

Heh, yep - and actually the strings of MightyLeaf tea bags are the best water wicks known to man.

For this reason, I cut/rip/tear off the strings from all my tea bags. I have been a voracious tea drinker for years.

I love how the instructions for "how to make a chair to cross a stream" are: 1. swim across the stream 2. make a chair to cross the stream

You forgot the most important ingredient: A small boy.

Tools for crossing a stream:

1. Boy (with swim skill)

2. Rope

3. Pully

4. Chair

EASY!!!

I loved the "send a boy across the river" step.

I'm collecting a list of "things we did that you probably think are weird" to give to my son when he's older.

This kind of thing is going on the list. As are "party lines"[1] for telephones and me having to chop wood all year to have enough to get us through winter.

[1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony))

Some things to add to your list:

Setting dip switches on modems to be able to dial into a BBS.

Calling 411

Renting/Rewinding VHS tapes

Getting grounded for running up the long distance phone bill (by calling BBSs)

De-soldering bad memory chips on your Apple ][ boards.

Cleaning the dust off your record

Getting up to change between one of 4 channels on the television.

Wrapping left overs in foil and baking in an oven set to 275 degrees for 30 minutes to re-heat.

Needing two or three friends to move your television

using your hand to move your player's position on the game board.

reading books you checked out from a library

figuring out where you are by un-folding a 48" square out of date printout of what streets existed about 5 years ago.

The list goes on and on.

Heh, channel changing and library checkouts also popped into my head!

Life evolves!

I just checked 3 books out of the library less than 3 hours ago.

Troglodyte! Stop living in the past!

   /I have a $30 late fee I owe to the milbrea library :(

I still read books I checked out from a library.

As do I, but my daughter had her first experience of 'library' rot, which was she wanted to re-read a chunk of one of Anne Mccaffrey's series which she had originally checked out from the library only to find they were no longer there, the library had disposed of them to 'free up space' for new material.

We both agreed that the library was failing its primary mission which was to curate to a set of worthwhile volumes from a mix of new material and old material.

Technically, I think the instructions come from the Boy Scouts, so the "send a boy across the river" is not that odd.

I prefer to envision one having a house-boy, or stream-boy, if-you-will that you can send with the rope and pulley.

"Here boy, affix this pulley to that far tree."

The same pack of cigarettes taught me how to draw an owl. http://i.imgur.com/Ygg3gxk.jpg

The idea isn't "how you cross a stream: swim across the stream". Read all the instructions, and you see at the end:

... those unable to swim are safely passed over.

Knowing how to swim was not a universal skill, much like knowing how to read or write.

You may be surprised to hear that knowing how to swim is still far from a universal skill.

I know, but I think it is more universal than it used to be.

Think of it as "how to get a group across a potentially tricky/flooded stream." The strongest swimmer crosses first, tied to the rope. Everyone else crosses the rope (hand over hand under the rope with your legs crossed over works if you don't have a "seat," but a carabiner-powered zipline would be more fun). Then the last person in the group unties the rope, ties it around his or her waist, and gets pulled across. They (as of ~15 years ago... jesus I've grown old) practice this in ROTC.

I really wish police would use #5 to deal with dogs instead of shooting them. I've seen too many videos of this recently.

Shouldn't dogs that attack humans be put down in any case? I thought that would be standard consequence if a dog bites a person.

I believe you're unfamiliar with the modern intimidation/punishment technique police use of killing family pets, especially in front of children, if at all possible. I'm sure the next step in the WarOnTerror(tm) will be shooting the kids themselves. Preferably in front of the mother for maximum intimidation value. Why yes, I am disgusted to be an American.

Read: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...

True, a dog that attacks a human is possibly dangerous.

Unfortunately many police forces have no training in dogs, and so officers don't know the difference between an aggressive attacking dog and a playful bouncing dog, and thus shoot them.

EDIT: It's especially unfortunate if the dog has been tasered and is safely caught in a noose at the end of a stick (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_22895415/police-dog-han...), or if the police have visited a family to tell them that their son has died, and then they shoot his dog while they're there. (http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/henrico-police-shoot-pet-a...)

> aggressive attacking dog and a playful bouncing dog

Hard to tell that until it's too late.

It's generally pretty obvious if you know dogs.

I don't want to know dogs and don't want to be forced to know dogs. Just saying - I am not in favor of shooting nice dogs, but dog owners really should understand that they can't force their dog lives on other people.

Perhaps you shouldn't become a police officer than.

Force them on other people how? You mean like when the police decide to occupy your house to spy on your neighbors? Totally reasonable for them to shoot your dogs. If you wanted the dogs to live, you shouldn't have gotten in the way of the police.

Well right, that's fine, but a police officer who in the course of their job may have to encounter dogs, should most certainly have even the minimal training in animal behavior and guidance in how to handle potentially dangerous animals short of shooting them.

True

Why should they? If a man attacks another man, we tend not to kill him, at least not immediately as is done with dogs. There is usually some hope of rehabilitation.

Comparing an attacking man to an attacking dog is a little apples-to-oranges. It's probably less likely that the dog can be 'reformed,' and a reformed person is a lot more useful to society than a reformed dog. They're called human rights for a reason.

Is it a common consequence? Yup. Is it unethical and barbaric? Yup.

What would be an alternative? I don't want to be threatened by dogs on the street, and I definitely don't want to worry about my kid being mauled by a dog. I guess the rationale is that if a dog did it once, it'll be more likely to do it again. How would you counteract that?

This is not about dogs on the street, it is about the police entering someones home and shooting the dog. In a lot of those cases the police was there without any good reason.

Nothing in the OP mentioned entering homes to shoot animals.

Oddly, we don't deal the same with people who abuse animals.

Who is "we"? I think a lot of people are against animal abuse.

Animals aren't people.

Honestly, they could probably "deal with" half the dogs by patting their own thighs while saying "Who's a good puppy! Who's a good puppy!", and optionally giving the dogs a good pet.

Especially since most breeds aren't aggressive. Especially the bigger, more impressive breeds, who are usually much more friendly or just stoic than the littler ones.

The problem is in the tiny word "usually", I suppose. Almost every dog that attacks a human does so for the first time, to the complete amazement of it's owners.

Try living in an area of the world full of stray dogs... sooner or later you'll start having "genocidal" thoughts like "why don't we just a few drop tons of poisoned dog food from an airplane across all city?"... I actually found myself thinking of this and wondered (for a few seconds) about the cruelty of it.

It's not a good idea because your city would then be full of poisoned food and dead decomposing dog corpses.

If you do live where the city or country doesn't have centres that humanely kill strays and/or the government doesn't have a protocol for dealing with them, get some thick boots, a strong stick and hope you don't run into one of the 10+-strong packs that roam certain neighbourhoods.

In case there's a stray dog that's aggressive towards people and lives near your home and you definitely positively must put it down, a common humane poison is antifreeze - it first induces drowsiness, then stops the heart. A pretty literal "put to sleep".

That turned dark and specific very quickly, thanks?

I'm a DVM, and you're mistaken about antifreeze. It causes kidney failure over a period of several days, leading to a slow, agonizing death while toxins normally filtered out by the kidneys build up in the bloodstream. The dogs with antifreeze toxicity that I attempted to treat were quite obviously suffering.

...please don't post poisoning advice on a public forum ever again, you never know what use can these be put to :) ...even more so if your facts are wrong!

I too would prefer that police not shoot dogs if they can avoid doing so. However, disabling a dog with a kick doesn't sound that easy to do. If it responds to a kick in the ribs, great. If it doesn't, you are now off balance.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_m...

Section on "dogs."

If you're wondering why all the fuss over eggs it's because chickens don't lay eggs in the winter due fewer hours of light. Once electric lights were put in barns eggs were available year round.

I doubt in the early 1900s if many or any farmers could afford new fangled electric lights.

Isn't it highly dangerous to pull down the tree? Seems like you would have to run away in the exact moment it falls, so you are not in its path.

I'd split the rope into a Y and have two people pull, each from far enough off to one side to be totally clear.

You wrap the rope around another tree/pulley to change direction, then stand off to the side.

But yes - taking down trees is dangerous, no matter how you do it.

Use a long enough rope and you won't be in the tree's way when it falls. Or you could do as they suggest above and use another tree to pull in another direction so you are already off to the side.

Using the rope isn't even needed for most trees. When you learn how to fell a tree with an axe or saw, you'll learn that you can alter where you make your first cut to account for the tree's center of mass, lean, asymmetric branches, and other obstacles.

For example, if the tree is leaning strongly in one direction and you want it to fall somewhere else 10 degrees away, you basically make your first cut a full 20 degrees away so that it'll split the difference.

If you want a really unsafe way to fell a tree, you can attach a grip hoist 15-20 feet up the trunk and anchor the other end to the bottom of another tree near where you want it to fall. Once you start tightening up the grip hoist, you put enormous torque on the trunk and pull it over. Or the trunk snaps in two. Or your grip hoist breaks.

Disclaimer: if you're learning how to fell a tree from a cigarette card or comments on the Internet, you'd better know a good surgeon.

Excellent advice for the water plants! Plants always die when I am away for more than a week and I was seriously thinking about an Arduino hack to automate water dispensing but that trick would be great if it worked !!

These might work better: http://www.amazon.com/Aqua-Globes-AG011706-Watering-2-Pack/d...

I saw something on a tv show that looked like a gel brick. They were planting saplings and burying a brick next to the roots, which they said would deteriorate and release water over a weeks (months?). Any ideas what these were?

Depending on your taste, you might get away with buying indestructible plants. Aloe doesn't mind if you forget about for a while and is (maybe) a little more interesting to look at than yet another cactus. And there are lots of other succulents.

Interestingly, swamp plants also deal well with longer absences, because one can just drown them completely when leaving. After a few weeks the water is gone, but the plant is also fine with that for a while.

Put all your plants in the bath, add an inch of water, done!

If you do decide to go the technical route, I'm assuming you've seen this from a few weeks ago: http://www.esologic.com/?p=665

Actually I missed this! Thanks, looks very interesting :)

Just be prepared for the onslaught of mosquitoes from leaving around standing water.

Not if it's tap water. The chlorine will kill the eggs.

Tap water with enough chlorine to kill mosquito eggs - let's play a game of 'where on earth is this!' (I keed I keed...)

"I was seriously thinking about an Arduino hack"

I have a container garden in the yard with numerous drip irrigation emitters. There's nothing terribly Ardiuno specific about actuating a valve, so pretty much any system would work, doesn't have to be arduino. I was unable to find all the parts I'd need cheaper than a COTS system around $40.

Probably your best bet would be a barrel (rain barrel?) full of water with a bubble lift (think old aquarium under gravel filter design) Then turn on the aquarium air pump for 15 minutes a day or whatever. This abstracts your problem from a plumbing mystery to merely turning a low wattage AC outlet on and off. Perhaps via a SSR or a commercial X10/insteon/other system. If the air pump and other electrical gear is mounted above max water level, no possibility of mixing water and electricity exists, just like a proper aquarium design. On the other hand depending on relative heights you might be building a siphon which will empty the whole bucket in one run, could be an issue.

Aside from the siphon thing, the barrel design also means the inevitable malfunction will not result in a flood over 55 gallons, and an air-lift obviously isn't damaged by running dry.

These are cool, but isn't the water filter backwards?

By going in this order, the sand does not go into the output.

A bit of cloth at the bottom could help with that.

This, if you had a big enough filter you would both start and end with the large rocks and have the fine sand in the middle.

It's the trusty old rapid sand filter.

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/emergenci...

I like the way you need a "boy" to cross a stream...

Tough luck if you're an all-daughter or childless family I suppose. Get used to your side of the stream.

The card is specifically from a Boy Scouts cigarette card series:

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult...

That's the best bit--these were cigs for boy scouts. Always be prepared, I suppose.

Me too. I was inferring there was a ~SMOKING~ merit badge back then.

I wonder if it is a coincidence that the person touching the live wire looks like Nikola Tesla..

I love how it says "stand on glass". All I can think about is how it would make the Safety Police of 2013 cringe so hard. Back in my day, we stood on glass and rescued people who were being electrocuted

Isn't the water filter backward? Don't you want the finest layer on the bottom if you're using gravity to filter the water?

It seems to me that as shown, the sand is just going to fall down through the stones and you'll end up with a sand and stone layer.

Could be organized that way to prevent the sand and small stones from clogging the spigot.

On #3 "How to stop a mad dog" I can offer this:

As a runner I have had success with running toward a charging dog and acting crazy. Several times that I have done that the dog has run the other way. The key is to make all sorts of hand motion and noise.

I don't think mad dogs are typically capable of charging, so I think you may be confused about what the card is advising. I would advise you to stay far away from this situation if at all possible. Mad dogs are much more dangerous than the kind of dogs that will charge at you.

Also a stick. I'm pretty sure it's legal to carry a stick wherever. Do not attempt against packs of more than 3-4 dogs, a large pack of strays is dangerous. Also, do not hit the dog too hard if it belongs to somebody - it's not polite to break other people's property, no matter how much you want to kill it.

It's trickier if you're on a bike, but then I usually opt to kick them as they chase me. So far, I've outrun the ones that weren't deterred after being kicked.

If you live in a normal country that actually has animal care centres where they humanely kill stray dogs, you probably don't have problems to which the above advice applies.

Less aggressive dogs are usually deterred by a squirt from a water bottle (if it's clearly someone's pet rather than a stray). I've heard that heavy bike chains are also effective and it might be easier to swing one than to kick at high speeds.

Hahaha, brilliant advice; faced with a crazy person/dog? Act even crazier.

As a paperboy I carried a portable fog horn. I was good with dogs, and only had to use it once in my 6 years of delivering papers (5-11 grades). But it stopped the dog - quick - and he never bothered me gain in the next 2 years which I delivered in that neighborhood.

Surprised they didn't include plain baking soda

or baking soda related hacks, I mean. it can be used for a ridiculous number of things and common problems

Nice. Still useful today .. some of them. Does anyone else also think the water filter in a pail is kindof reversed ? I think we should start with the coarse and end with the fine, unless we are drawing off from the top ..

does the plat watering tip actually work in hot climate (~40C/104F)?

If you have gravity in said hot climate and an atmosphere then it will work.

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