I am envious of people who have good technical knowledge of things. I am unsure whether this is something they have acquired through careful study, or by having an aptitude for this sort of thing. I think I do have an aptitude for technical things, however I need practical examples in order to remember them. For example I think I would be a good car mechanic, if only I had any experience of working with a car. It is purely the fact that I have not had exposure to hands-on mechanical experiences that I know very little about cars.
I believe that one of the hurdles to my problem is that fact that modern society has the desire for complex devices to have their workings hidden and therefore to work efficiently without needing any assistance from the owner. I expect that in my grandfather's day (and I know my maternal grandfather was good with mechanical things, not necessarily out of necessity) car owners were expected to be able to fix the basics without much tuition. These days manufacturers design their products to work without intervention and the general public don't want to be bothered with having to manage their devices: they should just work without intervention. I don't mind this attitude, however it does lead to a lack of knowledge in the user. Perhaps that's why I like the Hacking movement (especially Make magazine): it encourages people to tinker and understand their possessions as well as trying to improve and adapt what they already have.
