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Comment by neilkimmett | Hacker News Reader

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

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figuring out where you are by un-folding a 48" square out of date printout of what streets existed about 5 years ago.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

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.

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.

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

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