Author: Роман Петров — 786
A reserve changes the price
Buying consumables in advance is sometimes cheaper than buying them at the moment of urgent need. But a stock saves money only under several conditions: the goods will definitely be…
Owning what can be lost
Every object will one day be lost, broken, sold, stolen or thrown away. Sometimes it simply outlives its owner and becomes a problem for his relatives. Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch…
Different, but equal
Political language likes to choose between two convenient extremes: either all people are the same, or differences grant a right to a hierarchy of worth. People really do differ —…
X50CrMoV15 and 1.4116: The Steel Half of Europe’s Kitchens Are Made Of
If there is a European knife in your kitchen that you did not buy in a boutique, it is very likely made from this steel. It is also what hides…
Memory With Editing Rights
A memory is not a video recording. Frederic Bartlett had British participants read a Native American story, “The War of the Ghosts”, and then asked them to reproduce it after…
The Animal Did Not Read This Advice
Popular safety notes like one universal rule: do not run, make eye contact, make yourself look big, or drop to the ground. Animals of different species are under no obligation…
Service begins after payment
Most companies are courteous until you buy. The real quality of the relationship becomes clear after a problem appears. So when choosing a complicated service or a piece of equipment,…
Punish or prevent
A law forbidding an act does not accept that the act is normal. It accepts that the prohibition on its own is not enough. People know they must not steal…
AUS-8, AUS-10 and Other Japanese Workhorses
Between a knife from a twenty-euro block and a Hattori at 600 euros lies the range that covers roughly everything people actually cut with. Japanese metallurgy fills it densely, but…
Lawyer for Yesterday’s Self
Once a decision is made, the brain quickly hires itself out to us as a defence lawyer. The purchase turns out to have been sensible. The job we took was…
Heat, Sun and the Road
In a hot climate, light covered clothing often protects better than maximally bare skin. It reduces exposure to sun, dust and insects. You also need shade, water, a hat and…
Food and water on the road
Travel folklore sorts places into safe and dangerous by the sign over the door, the number of local customers or how familiar the dish is. Food risk is decided by…
The Option to Return It
A reversible decision is usually safer than an irreversible one. Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper ran a jam tasting in a shop. A large table with many varieties drew more…
The Letter and the Purpose
Public argument about law usually reduces to two formulas: rules must always be obeyed, or personal conscience outranks any text. Neither notices that legality, justice, legitimacy and the safety of…
ZDP-189: A Steel That’s Hard to Sharpen and Easy to Ruin
ZDP-189 is a Japanese powder steel from Hitachi with an extremely high content of carbon and chromium: 3% carbon and 20% chromium. Besides these, the composition includes molybdenum, vanadium, tungsten,…
Triage First
When there are too many tasks, the natural reaction is to declare everything urgent. After that the word “urgent” carries no information, and the work gets done in order of…
A Crisis Cannot Be Waited Out Alone
A culture of autonomy teaches that hard thoughts should first be worked through on your own, and that you should ask for help only once you have a ready explanation.…
Less as a Design Constraint
Modern minimalism has turned a constraint into moral superiority: fewer things, less luggage, fewer functions — therefore a more correct life. A constraint really can improve a solution, but a…
Democracy Without the Halo
Political rhetoric alternates between declaring the majority’s choice the highest wisdom and reducing elections to a meaningless spectacle. Democracy does not guarantee a sensible decision; above all it creates a…
SG2 and R2: Japanese powder
Let us start with the confusion over names, because here it is the main issue. SG-2, R2 and SGPS are one and the same steel. SG-2 is the maker’s designation,…