this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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Microfiche was a thing when I was in elementary school in the 80s. They taught us to use that and to use the Dewey Decimal System. Cue the meme of the guy holding the “I learned cursive for no reason,” sign.
I’ve been typing for so long that I have the handwriting of a child. It was never terribly legible. Now it’s like I’ve had a stroke.
Anyway, cool throwback.
If a throw down on cool and even more old and useless skills learned in schools is what you want, I'm for today. Not only did I need to learn learn about the Dewey Decimal System and cursive hand writing, (as a lefty I was nearly forced to learn to write right handed in school), but I had to learn how to use a slide rule. Calculators weren't around until I was about 17. Now everyone carries one and can't do any math.
Television as a working concept was solidly in place by the 1920s. They just needed to agree on a standard, make the tech cheap enough, and get broadcast stations built. Had WW2 not interrupted things, we might have had television as a bigger commercial thing sooner than the 1950s/1960s. The clipping does look like the style of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics of the 1930's era though.
I feel this so hard. “Library Science” was like, “if you don’t know the Dewey system, you wont be able to use libraries and then you’re DOOMED”.
I sometimes forget how to write by hand now.
Handwriting of a child; broke. Handwriting of a doctor; bespoke