Pascal programming
Invoking the hex-based character set on the mainframe
How to use a newspaper layout wax machine
The derivation of the quadratic equation
How to read bass clef
How to run a 16 mm projector
I have not pithed anything since high school. I do use Venn diagrams constantly, and my office nickname (the nice one) is “Dr. Flowchart.” And today I had to convert something from deciliters to ounces. It’s true that sometimes I have to calculate a standard deviation by hand, but that is mostly to keep myself entertained while I’m in a meeting. I haven’t had to make a Gestettner offset master since 1992.
My Dad ran a small-town newspaper while I was growing up and I can’t tell you how much fun I had over the years using the waxer, grid paper, and lightboards to put together my own “newspapers”. And those huge books of clipart! (drools again) The smell of darkroom film developer brings it all back. Mmmmm…tangy. And now all my talents are for naught.
In college I learned MS-DOS 2.0. That has never helped me.
Jeff and DeVena both claim they no longer use Disk-based Operating Systems. How wonderfully eclectic. So what kind of computers do you use to access the SDMB if yours don’t have disks???
Speaking of useless computer knowledge: I had to know how 2d, 3d and 2.5d core memory worked to pass my qualifying exams. Not only was it useless now, it was actually useless by that time.
Oh, and Mercury always had the same side facing the sun.
Count another one who never learned diagramming sentences. I must have been out that day.
I have never in my post college life needed to use calculus. I have never had to take an integral of anything.
I went to high school before computers were widely taught at that level at least where I lived so I didn’t learn anything which is just as well because it would be hilariously out of date by now.
I learned a little bit of Fortran programming (punchcards!) in college which I have never directly used since, except that some of the general programming concepts come in handy when I am writing formulas in Excel.
I would say the metric system except since I am a scientist I use it every day. It certainly isn’t as widely used in the US as they told us it was going to be by now though. I don’t consider it useless anyway since the whole rest of the world uses it.
I learned Spanish which hardly ever comes in handy.
All the stuff we learned in 9th grade relating to the Soviet Union and Communist China is pretty useless now except in a historical context.
I actually have used y=mx+b at work. Also 6.02e23
Oh, and hey insisted on teaching us in gym class how to play basketball, a game I loathed then and continue to loath now. I knew I would never play basketball once I was out of school because no one could force me too and I was right, I never have.
Drafting. This was required in 6th grade and 7th grade. Why so much emphasis on being able to make perfect pencil drawings of circles and triangles and squares and “cams”?
Every bit of math past algebra and a little trig. All that calculus - completely useless. Geometry, algebra, and some trig, however, have come in handy on occaision.
I had to memorize a lot of things - “To be or not to be”, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”, and the winner, “Whanne that Aprille…”. Even as a college history major in medieval studies I never needed to use the first 20 lines of the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English.
Venn diagrams, yeah.
Card catalogs, nostalgia. Of course, now I’m in library school and catalog myself, and I know precisely all the advantages and disadvantages of various OPACs, but I do miss the cards.
Remember brainstorming? How obnoxious.
Sentance diagramming, you betcha.
Stupid sports. I need to know the rules of flag football for what reason, again?
Indeed. And Jupiter and Saturn had a lot fewer moons. Most embarrassing of all, however, was an old science question-and-answer book of mine that flodjunior found a few years back. Cracked him up when he got to the page with the question “Why do scientists think there is life on Mars?”
Okay, this was from pre-Viking mission days, I guess. Damn, I’m old.
For those of you who don’t know, it was a system for teaching grammar used in the Norfolk, VA school system for about 20 minutes in the early 70s.
And you thought diagramming sentences was useless.
My favorite useless thing I learned in school was the atomic crouch (you know, where they dragged you into the hall and had you crouch down to survive a nuclear blast). Any sort of hit would have made Norfolk toast.
I, too remember all those old graphics hand layout tools as I am a thousand year old graphic artist, but I learned all that on the job.
Crochet (and knitting.)
For me, it is hard to imagine why I should want to knit but I am absolutely sure that no set of circumstances is bizarre enough to make me crochet ever again.
Many of you mentioned diagramming sentences. I study computational linguistics. that means I might end up diagramming sentences for a living - or writing programs which diagram sentences - or even creating more powerful ways of diagramming sentences. Ok, there aren’t too many of us but some people actually can use this after school.
Form of a simple linear function. If you graph it, m is the slope of the line, the ration of the rise over the run. b represents the y-intercept. I can’t imagine what it would be useful for - I haven’t found it to be remotely useful since about 8th grade, and I’m still a senior in high school. On the other hand, I can imagine how trig might be helpful. At the same time, I can’t imagine that I’m going to use systems of equations much in the future. Let’s see, what else…
Venn Diagrams, oh yes
Sentence Diagramming - I still refer to subjects, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention a “predicate” since third grade
How to use card catalogues. Computers have in fact been around long enough that I don’t think many of the younger students at my school even REMEMBER card catalogues. I often feel like people my around age (18-20 or so) are the last bridge between those who grew up before the true electronic age, and those who are growing up during it.
We were all introduced to the fine art of photography on the 35mm camera. Complete with taking the film out of the camera and putting it into a canister in the pitch black, this took some people like twenty minutes. Thats just to get the negatives, then you have to go to the projector, turn on a red light, shove a peice of paper into one, two, three different baths of acid. Then you hang it on a line and watch the image turn into the masterpeice that you created. A fuzzy, mostly black, outline of a mammal (human?) emeges.
“Hey, this is a picture of you Adam.”
“How can you tell.”
“Just turn it in.”
I am not dissing it though, this class was an experience, even if it is now rendered useless in the digital era.
I can’t wait until my grandkids say,
“Grandapa, tell us about how when you were our age, not everything was made out of ones and zeros.”
Then I will reach out behind their necks and turn the power swith to, “off”, because, hey, this VIRTUAL FAMILY thing can be annoying.
How to forge a hall pass (joke)
How to get around not having a hall pass (true)
How to get out of study hall (true)
How to skirt the rules (quite true)
How to use an Apple IIg computer (sadly true)
How to set up a Cisco 2500 series router (quite true)
How to do math in my head (I can still do it well but it always irked me that they’d never let us use calculators in math class. I remember a debate I had with my Algebra II teacher. She said “Wouldn’t you be embarassed to use a calculator to do arithmetic like that?” and I said “No, I’d be more embarassed to do arithmetic like that incorrectly.”)
All of the most common English prepositions
I’m sure there are more, but these are what stick out in my memory…
Long division. Haven’t had occasion to use it since Grade 7, after which The New Math ™ was introduced, at which point I became hopelessly lost. I can read, write and spell and did so before I went to kindergarten, but I can’t do any more than the simplest math without a calculator. I can’t do any math in my head. I can add two numbers of not more than two digits by counting on my fingers if I have to.
In Grade 8 we were doing fractions and decimals. The first day of Grade 9 math, the blackboards covering three walls of the room were chock full of algebra, and the teacher said “Do this.” I had no idea what it was, and I still don’t. I went a whole year getting 0 on my homework and tests, and at the end, the teacher gave me a 51 so I would pass math and not have to take it in Grade 10 where it was an elective, and also fail to comprehend calculus and trigonometry, whatever they are.
I can’t think of one thing I learned in any subject that is of any use to me now. I can’t remember the names of the guys who explored Canada, or any of that stuff. I did learn that you shouldn’t pour water in a beaker of sulphuric acid, but that’s going to come in handy tomorrow, I can just tell.
Like others here, I haven’t had to parse a sentence since Grade 8. I remember asking my high school English teacher (“Read this book. Write a book report on it.”) what about the kids who can’t read, write and spell by the time they got to high school. She said “if they can’t do that by the time they get here, it’s not my problem.” I came from a freakin’ great educational system.
Mainly what I learned in school is that in a town of 2000 people, if some malicious idiots start a rumor that you’re gay, you eventually have to quit school and move away to escape being beaten up and harrassed and shunned by your so-called peers, and to meet potential friends of either sex who haven’t heard that rumor.
Shorthand. This was back when girls in Jr. Hight were encouraged to take useful skills classes (like shorthand and typing) so that they would always be able to get a job. Even if I could remember it, I don’t know if anyone uses it anymore.
Typing, on the other hand, I’m SOOOO glad I learned.
