craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

but an understanding of the material systemically-produced nature of those acts of consumption is the grounding of the holographic understanding of the bigger processes! asking "how did i get this fruit" is an activation of consciousness, the first step on the road to understanding its role the complex system that got you the fruit, and the plastic bag you carried it home in, and the car you drove to get it, and the underpaid worker who picked it, and the chemicals sprayed on it by the company that grew it, and the subsidies the company gets, and the lobbyists they employ to make sure they get the subsidies, and the investment firms that act as intermediaries for the multinationals, and the people who no longer grow pineapples because they were crowded out by the multinationals, and the whole fucking fruit basket of bullshit!

Wow thinking about a time when oranges were available only once a year provides much sustainable, clean-burning fuel for my juice-rage (Juice is stupid! Nobody has any business drinking the squeezins of half a dozen oranges at one meal!)

i agree with you but six oranges make enough juice for like three people

You should read up on how "not from concentrate" is actually a horrible scam and orange juice from concentrate is actually a less adulterated, better product in most cases. It was enlightening for me. Storing orange juice concentrate is also an excellent use of excess oranges, and more space efficient than the fruit.

That's kind of the main pitfall of the search for more "authentic" products or ones of a higher quality: half the time it's marketing and you end up worse off due to ignorance of the process.

look, I'm cool w/ increasing overall consumer consciousness, I just think "local = always better" is encouraging a naive and simplistic take on a subject that requires a lot of nuance. if that entry-level consumer consciousness seemed like it led to more nuanced views that'd be one thing, but even people who spend a lot of time on this can't seem to concede that *sometimes a bigger farm is better for the world* and that *not every food mile was created equally*.

there's also a weird protectionist aspect to this whole thing + everything that comes w/ that

xp to hoos

Xp probably the moral of the thread.

I just think "local = always better" is encouraging a naive and simplistic take

I'm not sure anyone here has advocated that local= always better, so perhaps you've been shadow boxing. If so, you wouldn't be the first person to respond to what they expected to hear rather than what was said. Lord knows I've done it before myself and I've seen it in operation hundreds, no, thousands of times.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:13117

^ craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

whoa

I'm not sure where privilege works into that list.

I'm responding to them responding to me saying "local is not always better"

I'm not sure where privilege works into that list.

― Aimless, Wednesday, November 16, 2011 7:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

the disposable income (& leisure time) to purchase (the material to build) a 3-D printer?

those printers are getting increasingly affordable and easier to build! it's a matter of it being a hobbyist thing with few commercial parties involved at this point

I invented a 3d printer once, I called it a 'plant seed'

Did it grow into a prosthetic hand?

can you print food with a 3-d printer

most of the food you eat...probably

*buys a 3-d printer*

Did it grow into a prosthetic hand?

no I got a model of Capitol hill built out of purple and yellow Legos; was pretty bummed

those printers are getting increasingly affordable and easier to build! it's a matter of it being a hobbyist thing with few commercial parties involved at this point

― mh, Wednesday, November 16, 2011 7:12 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm just sayin

That's what always kills me about people who are like "my mac can't be opened up and the hardware tinkered with blah blah." We have so many hobbyist and experimental fields that are available now that still have low barriers to entry, and the things you can do easily have grown exponentially.

We also end up with the issue that sometimes the market catches up faster than you can get your project off the ground. My college roommate was tinkering for a couple years with making his own LCD projector. At the time, ones with decent quality were pretty expensive and you could build one with an array of high intensity LEDs and the panel from a LCD monitor and, say, the lens from an old overhead projector.

Now you can buy a used (or even new) LCD projector for less than you'd spend in materials cost.

this thread isn't long enough!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/21/111121fa_fact_kramer

today's headline: rich people discover that some wild plants MAY be edible.

rich people fail to realize that the greenhouse gasses saved by their "foraging" is offset by the fact that they fart a lot

People go morel mushroom hunting around here. They're tricky to find. I've also had wild strawberries, raspberries, handful of other things.

Stay away from the wild ditchweed, though

its all about the fiddleheads in my neck of the woods.

again i go back to the current unconscious desire to learn survival skills before doomsday comes.

did you know that there is FOOD in the ground, says famous norwegian chef!? it's true! i even cook it in my famous norwegian restaurant!! no way!!

fiddleheads are SO GOOD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJMIu18I8Y

I could even claim to have foraged as an adult, if you count a mild interest in plucking berries from the caper bushes that cling to the walls of an old hill town near the farmhouse in Umbria where my husband and I go, in the summertime, to write.

tried to get through this article but i think my eyes are stuck from rolling so hard

what is an Umbria

"Yeah, we love foraging too, it's rad!" - billions of people since the beginning of time

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2011/11/21/p465/111121_r21551_p465.jpg

the picture is so lol - it's like he's locked in a mortal struggle to bag that herb

bag that herb

man -vs- mild

"how to sleep with nerdy rap fans" xp

even wearing his hand-crafted herb-picking boots. $599.99.

those boots are hand-welted by master craftsmen. they will last a lifetime and more. they will last so long, he will be able to pass them on to his grandchildren, who will pass them onto their grandchildren.

first off i'm sure legendary wakeboarder steve shasta could elaborate much better on this than i could, but there's been a pretty long trend in recent mens fashion that reveres bygone and traditional practices of textile & garment production that plays right into this discussion, and i think denim is probably the most prevalent example of this. leather goods, too. but further, durability seems to be valued above just about anything else, not just because of 'quality' but because instead of falling apart, a durable object changes with age and use -- it becomes worn, gains 'character', it molds to your body, its somehow shares a narrative shared with its owner, and it becomes more unique the older it gets, more 'authentic.' i kinda find this interesting, and i definitely find that i share some of these values and aesthetics, but i think it's weird in a way, a way of incorporating the consumer himself into the making of an 'authentic' product.

i share that aesthetic because i'm cheap.

every dollar i spend on clothes is a dollar i'm not spending on records.

objects that get a patina are a thing, sure

I was joking with a friend this morning that I was going to start selling 1/4" thick denim that is EXTRA RUGGED and made on ORIGINAL REAL LOOMS and become a millionaire.

Part of this is just people finding long-standing brands who have reputations for quality and latching on to them, which I have no problem with, even if it's kind of obviously a trend and meant as one-upmanship. It's kind of entertaining when it turns into a respected brand creating a spinoff or licensed line to take advantage of the upswing in interest.

For example, the past trend of American workwear brands (Carhartt, Spiewak) being licensed to European companies that then create completely unaffiliated goods but license the brand

i only buy used clothing. and that's rarely. i keep wearing something until its falling off of me. i had to buy shoes recently and it bummed me out. my last pair lasted only 4 years. i went to a flood sale in brattleboro and bought three pairs of shoes and hopefully they will last me at least 12 years. but the winters and rains have been rough, so, we'll see.

there are entire threads on superfuture and styleforum devoted to documenting the aging process of denim & leather goods which are pretty interesting to read -- not just to see how the objects change over time but also because it's almost competitive, you see these dudes expressing admiration & jealousy at how awesome that pair of beat up red-wings are, there's totally a fetish for authenticity going on

carhartt is the way to go. good brand. i only own one pair of shorts and they are carhartts and i've had them for ten years.

my carhartt coat is older than that. i went and bought books from someone last year whose uncle and aunt had gone into a nursing home and they GAVE us the most amazing collection of winter hunting gear. coats, pants, gloves, sweaters. i'll never have to buy another winter coat as long as i live. and this stuff was old too. but in amazing condition.

http://www.itsworn.com

elmo otm - those threads are so weird

there's this image burned into my brayne of a guy who bought mannequin legs to put his jeans on when he wasn't wearing them, to preserve the 'form' of the jean that might get destroyed by folding them flat