Post A3oWineu6aQNs1DtMe by adam@hax0rbana.social
(DIR) More posts by adam@hax0rbana.social
(DIR) Post #A3oWinCtmi1UTA7WiG by montagsoup@aleph.land
2021-01-31T19:10:25Z
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I can't help but think that the internet's ability to instantly show us piles of information is obscuring an underlying fact that we're losing access to knowledge at an alarming rate.
(DIR) Post #A3oWineu6aQNs1DtMe by adam@hax0rbana.social
2021-02-01T01:01:43Z
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@montagsoup a few years ago I wanted to make some jam, but every recipe I saw wanted "pectin". I thought, naw I don't want some commercial version of jam, I want the good ol' fashion kind. You know, that just had food in it. I kept searching but all the recipes were basically the same (many EXACTLY the same since some people just copy & paste content wholesale). That was when I realized one of the impacts of older generations being underrepresented on the Internet...
(DIR) Post #A3oX2QZJfC4i36y77I by adam@hax0rbana.social
2021-02-01T01:05:17Z
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@montagsoup I checked some physical cookbooks, same deal: they all wanted pectin. So I canned my grandmother hoping that she had made jam at some point in her life, or seen someone else do so (before the days of pectin). In typical grandma style she told me "you just cook it down on the stove and then can it". I found this lack of detail to be very common with old recipes. I think they expected the reader to already know the recipe and just need a few words as reminders.
(DIR) Post #A3oXKYAi8MFoqI6Koa by adam@hax0rbana.social
2021-02-01T01:08:33Z
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@montagsoup The expectation is that you learned how to cook it growing up and, except in baking, the measurements didn't have to be precise. This is fine until someone like me comes along, not having anything other than what is written down.And that's when I realized, that as big as the Internet is, as many countries that it connects and people posting information on forums... there's still a lot missing. More importantly, the missing things are REALLY useful.
(DIR) Post #A3oXkU0iEBhZSvn3Tc by adam@hax0rbana.social
2021-02-01T01:13:14Z
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@montagsoup Given the description I was given, I could probably repeatedly make jam, measuring and documenting every step of the way, just like the scientist I am. I could then figure out the temperature and duration to cook the fruit, whether slicing or crushing it is important or not, and learn the perils of canning jam and if that differs when not using pectin. I could then post it online to share this gem, but it's unlikely that anyone would find it.
(DIR) Post #A3oY53Y7nx0lTmEF4S by adam@hax0rbana.social
2021-02-01T01:16:58Z
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@montagsoup That experience made me think that it'd be cool to post videos online just to capture these cool tricks. (Aside: that caused me to search for such a thing and find an old woodworker who had amazing tips & tricks that he was sharing!) I never tried to make that happen myself, but it still seems like it'd be cool.I guess the moral of the story is that I agree, there is really handy things that the older generation just knows as a matter of course that I can't find online
(DIR) Post #A3oYucv23rw7wcXB8C by montagsoup@aleph.land
2021-02-01T01:26:16Z
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@adam This is definitely one of the big things I was thinking about when I wrote this. There are so many skills that people used to learn from other people and they're just not online. The stuff that is online is usually just little articles giving you a short introduction that's been copied from a bunch of other sites. They're focused on getting you to look at ads and not focused on passing on knowledge.Every once in a while you come across a nice treasure trove of knowledge about a subject, but I feel like a lot those resources are disappearing or getting harder to find.