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Specialization is good but so is basic aptitude. Your car can "break down" for reasons as simple as blown fuses or low fluids. Having a working knowledge of ba

• jseliger 14y ago
  I came here to say something like this. It's useful to have basic skills in fields that you yourself care about. For example, I've swapped hard drives and upgraded RAM for myself and family members numerous times, giving their machines much greater longevity at very little cost. I also like to cook and have begun learning how to do simple book re-binding and gluing, since I like to eat and read. But other things, like cars and drains, matter very little to me. So those are things I pay other people to do. For a car nut, learning about Jade 403 might be a waste of time when you can just buy a new book. But for me, that's pretty valuable. Sewing is somewhere in the middle, and I've had friends do simple sewing projects for me, and that's been really useful. I think the real worry isn't about whether someone knows how to replace a hard drive in a MacBook—the real worry is or should be people who seem to have no real skills at all.