Author: Роман Петров — 786
Help with a Calculator
Public morality offers a choice between a warm heart and cold calculation. But help without an understanding of the consequences can sustain harm, and calculation alone, without sympathy, easily forgets…
How to choose a steel and not overpay
If the whole conversation about steel grades comes down to one observation, it is an unpleasant one: the grade of steel is not the most important parameter of a kitchen…
A day with no reporting
Society quickly turns even rest into a project: useful, attractive, planned in advance and fit to be reported on. Free time starts working a second shift. You have to rest…
Success With a Long List of Co-Authors
The culture of success likes one hero in the centre of the frame. The team, the infrastructure, the teachers, the lucky moment and other people’s unnoticed work usually stay outside…
The dangerous “we”
People need belonging. Family, city, language, profession, club and country give connections, traditions and the ability to act together. Without a “we” it would be hard to build anything larger…
S90V, S110V, K390, 10V: Exotica and What It Costs
The far end of the catalogue works like this: the higher a steel sits in the list, the fewer knives exist in it. That is not a conspiracy among makers…
Attending Your Own Life
Most of the day passes on autopilot. We walk a familiar route, eat while scrolling a screen, talk while preparing the reply in advance, and notice our own state only…
Freedom and a Soft Chair
The romantic image of freedom demands throwing over stability for the open road; everyday common sense demands holding on to comfort at any cost. In reality comfort can both widen…
D2, SKD11 and CPM CruWear: the semi-stainless middle
Between “stainless” and “carbon” steel there is a band that neither label fits. D2 is its best-known representative. It has about 12% chromium, so formally it passes the definition of…
Power Without a Diagnosis
Popular talk about power loves medical labels: the boss is a narcissist, the politician a psychopath, the manager a sociopath. A diagnosis handed out by job title helps little; observable…
A Complaint Should Know What It Wants
A culture of toughness suggests not complaining, so as not to look weak. That ban usually produces not fortitude but people who stay silent until they blow up. A complaint…
Life is worth more than property
The morality of disaster says things are worth nothing, life is what matters. In a direct choice that is true, but a house, documents and savings hold safety, memory and…
CPM S30V, S35VN, S45VN: Steel Invented Specifically for Knives
Almost all knife steel is borrowed. It was developed for bearings, dies, cutting tools, medicine and aviation, and knifemakers then took whatever was at hand and happened to fit. The…
The Fish Outside the School
A group saves you effort. If everyone else is running, there is probably a reason. If everyone picks one road, it may well be safer. Following the majority is often…
Ten Years Later
An event that fills the whole inner screen today may be one line a few years from now. Daniel Gilbert and his colleagues studied “affective forecasting” — the ability to…
If you get lost
Hiking folklore offers a simple direction: go down to water, climb higher, or follow the river. Universal advice sounds confident precisely because it takes no account of the actual terrain.…
Joy, happiness and the ability to choose
Joy is an experience. Happiness is a broader assessment of a life. Freedom of choice is one of its conditions, but not the only one. In the famous study by…
Interest on an Advantage
A small advantage can grow. The sociologist of science Robert Merton called cumulative advantage the “Matthew effect”: a recognized researcher gets more attention and credit than a less known colleague…
154CM, ATS-34 and CPM-154: one steel with three biographies
In price lists these three names sit side by side and are regularly passed off as one another. Their chemistry is the same: 154CM is the original American steel, ATS-34…
Errors built into thinking
The brain does not merely err from time to time. It errs in predictable ways. The 1974 paper by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman did not begin by accusing people…