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The Knife Maker

thisismadebyhand.com

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Re: The Knife Maker

#121

Post by freemarketteddy »

ahlatimer wrote: post #98
freemarketteddy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clear to me that the goods manufactured by passionate, talented, (and largely under-capitalized) craftspeople are inferior to what could be made by automation. That is not true for all goods....I cannot forsee a computer making a better painting than a good human artist in the near future....In fact I cant even forsee a computer understanding what a good painting actually is in the near future...This holds tru…

No, computers aren't very good at creating unique things without explicit instruction on how to do so. But they are very good at replicating things to an exacting standard. In the case of a painting, a computer could probably make an exact replica of an already existing painting far better than any human artist could. In the case of knives, a computer could make a copy so exacting that it would be indiscernible from…

>No, computers aren't very good at creating unique things without explicit instruction on how to do so. But they are very good at replicating things to an exacting standard.

Well there are heuristic approaches...so if a computer could actually determine what a good painting is.....it can keep rearranging the pixels (in a divide and conquer sort of way) to get to a good painting in a finite amount of time.

So I think the problem of making a good painting can be reduced to the problem of determining what a good painting actually is.Now I have read somewhere (dont exactly remeber how) that this is related to the halting problem.

Re: The Knife Maker

#123

Post by puredanger »

pcestrada wrote: post #18

I found this fascinating. I love seeing people develop and demonstrate their craft in a authentic, passionate way. There is a physical component to his work where you use all your senses, such as when he feels the edge of the sharpened knife with his thumb, that you just don't have with programming. To produce a physical artifact that has the right balance, heft, lines, and finish requires the integration of a lot of…

I have rarely gone wrong in being a consumer of someone passionate about what they are doing or in doing something I feel passionate about.

Re: The Knife Maker

#124

Post by einhverfr »

patio11 wrote: post #33

I'm torn between "This guy clearly enjoys his work, bully for him." and "The handmade movement is an extravagantly wasteful alternative to a factory in China to give rich white people an opportunity to demonstrate their social superiority over people who use functionally equivalent objects produced in an efficient fashion." (c.f. organic food, fair trade coffee, etc etc. This topic makes me positively Marxist. There…

I think as Hilaire Belloc pointed out (in "The Servile State"), the Industrial Revolution (and Capitalism) happened because private landlords were kicking peasants off their land, and thus creating a class of people who couldn't afford goods and were desperate for the work that the factories could offer.

I love handcrafted goods. I purchase them when I can. I know smiths who make things by hand.

The problem with factories in China is that if China loans our economy money and then becomes the low-cost supplier, all we end up doing is eventually destroying both economies.

I will never be a Marxist. It seems to me that trying to solve the issues which come from corporations being too powerful by concentrating that power still further in the state is a bad idea. The only way it can work is if workers individually are in control of the means of production, not through the national government. A few quasi-Marxists got this point (Wilhelm Reich, for example), but usually it's the domain of third way folks like Belloc who favor free markets and small businesses.

I'd point out also that if we weren't so productive, maybe the government wouldn't eat up 30% of our GDP.....

Re: The Knife Maker

#125

Post by einhverfr »

mikecarlucci wrote: post #115
patio11 wrote: post #33

I'm torn between "This guy clearly enjoys his work, bully for him." and "The handmade movement is an extravagantly wasteful alternative to a factory in China to give rich white people an opportunity to demonstrate their social superiority over people who use functionally equivalent objects produced in an efficient fashion." (c.f. organic food, fair trade coffee, etc etc. This topic makes me positively Marxist. There…

Aren't the members of the handmade movement part of the capitalist system? If no one purchases their goods, preferring instead a factory made product, they will go out of business. Or maybe just continue to produce as a hobby or for friends and family as gifts.

It depends on how you define Capitalist.

If you mean free market, yes.

If you mean a system aimed at dividing those who own and run businesses from those who are merely employees, then no.

In other words, it fits some definitions of Capitalist, but it does not include the Capital/Labor divide which is usually a hallmark of Capitalism.

Re: The Knife Maker

#126

Post by einhverfr »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #46
freemarketteddy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was a time when only wealthy folks could afford goods. Capitalism happened and now everyone can afford goods. Okay this may sound abstract.....when you buy an object which has been crafted to perfection by another artist....you dont just buy the object ....it feels like you almost bought some of that perfection...it feels like maybe it can breathe some perfection into your work! On a cynical note maybe it make…

Marketing works. This is an example of marketing based on authenticity. Regarding perfection: machines are much more capable of perfection re: manufacturing than humans. Where I think we get confused is that in the past only corporations had the capital to mass-produce, and they have an incentive to "race to the bottom" in terms of production cost. Although it's not the goal, usually quality suffers as a result. So,…

This raises the very interesting question, in my mind:

What is to be the proper center of the economy, the individual human or social equivalent (say, household unit)? Or the machine or social equivalent (corporation, institution, government)?

Personally, I'd rather live in a place where humans and social equivalents were the center rather than where we were at best pieces of a social machine. So maybe there is something to the social superiority of supporting small businesses as much as we humanly can.

Re: The Knife Maker

#127

Post by einhverfr »

mikecarlucci wrote: post #116
evlapix wrote: post #62

Making something from nothing has always given me the greatest high. This video reminded me that it is that high that got me into software development. When I was young (and had no money): - Made origami - Learned sailors knots - 3d sculptures of science fiction aircraft from index cards - Bow and arrows from q-tips and underwear rubber - Sailboats from 2x4's, coat hangers, plastic garbage bags, and fishing line - Sk…

Exactly. This is the sentiment I expected to see on HN, where there is always praise for the hacker "building" and sticking it to the man because he/she can make something on their own.

After reading books like "The Servile State" by Hilaire Belloc and "Birth as an American Rite of Passage" by Robbie Davis-Floyd, I think there should always be praise for this sort of thing.

Our culture has become extremely centered on mechanics, whether social mechanics and processes of businesses or automation of manufacturing, and to make humans again the center of society will take a lot of effort, but I believe it is a worthy task.

Re: The Knife Maker

#128

Post by gchpaco »

ericd wrote: post #119
gchpaco wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know chef's knives from Adam, but I'll counter that with some stuff I do know about, which is hand tool woodworking. TL;DR: I buy handmade saws because they are demonstrably superior. Time was you could not buy a quality Western saw new for love or money[1]. And by "time was" I mean "as recently as six to ten years ago". Independence Tools were the first people since the 40s, probably earlier, to make a dovet…

Fascinating. Have you tried any of the Japanese pull saws? How do those compare to a good handmade western saw? I've only dabbled in woodworking, but I found those pull saws to be much more manageable than the other saws I had available to me. On the knife front, I use some cheap carbon steel French knives called Opinel. They're excellent, except for their penchant for rusting (not a huge issue, it wipes away, they j…

For reasons I don't understand entirely, Japanese pull saws never experienced the massive decline in quality all Stanley products (and those of their competitors) experienced after WWII. As a result even inexpensive pull saws tend to be at least mediocre and sometimes quite good. The best are (as far as I can tell) still reckoned to be the hand made variety, which coexist peacefully with their modern, stamped, cousins. For this reason they nearly displaced the western saw in North America.

The definitive history of the decline and rise in tool manufacturing has yet to be written, but I certainly think the widespread adoption of modern stick framing practices in conjunction with portable power tools has led directly to a sharp decline in the skill of a modern carpenter. The looks I get when I sharpen a chisel acceptably are really surprising to me, and my grandfather worked as a finish carpenter after WWII and considered these skills important. For some reason hand skills in professional carpenters never seems to have experienced this sharp decline in Japan.

Re: The Knife Maker

#129

Post by einhverfr »

timwiseman wrote: post #57
pavel_lishin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that he can't afford to lose income for the time it would take to train.

And worse,there is a good chance his income would be much lower than currently even after he finished his training. With that said, I used to go to some of the SCA meetings while I was in college. I met more than one excellent craftsmen that did their crafting on the weekend while maintaining a "normal" job during the week. Some made a decent second income off it. You can do both.

Here's a shameless plug for a friend of mine. Of course he is more interested in art than functionality, but I am commissioning at least one piece from him:

http://www.jloose.com/

Re: The Knife Maker

#130

Post by einhverfr »

gte910h wrote: post #102
ctdonath wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. "Functionally equivalent" all too often misses the point. Endless arguments have been had over Apple computers vs. "functionally equivalent" computers for far lower costs ... funny thing is, it's Apple that has achieved "most valuable company worldwide period" status, showing customers see something superior in addition to the standard simplistic comparison charts. Ditto cars. For years I wondered "what is it…

> Beer? No, it's NOT an acquired taste. Bavarian brews bought & imbibed in Bavaria are 100x better than the canned swill here. While German friends are proud of their beer, they love American microbrews and practically survive on the stuff whenever they visit the US.

Budweiser and Millers are canned swill. Microbrews are not :-)
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