[TheForge] Re: File Making, sniffing up wrought iron

[Mike Spencer]

pf> Now, 50 odd years later, you'll find me happily rooting around in
pf> the junk pile.  Even when it's not economically justifiable, i
pf> still will preferentially use junk iron.

   ...economics is the science of scarcity, the study of the optimal
   allocation of scarce means...[but] there is no scarcity!
                              -- Thomas Lunde (on FutureWork, 2002)

Lunde was speaking of digital "goods", but to the extent that what you
need isn't scarce -- abundant scrap or abundant food more or less free
for the picking -- you're opting out of "economically justifiable".
Yeah, yeah, there's still the basic biological energy balance and all
that, but if you don't treat your blacksmithing as a business
requiring a return on investment, you're playing in a different
sandbox from those who do.

No slur intended toward those running a business.  OTOH, neither
should those who don't take a ROI attitude be scorned as "mere"
hobbyists, dilettantes, dabblers or wankers.  As for "amateur", that's
a much-abused word.  Amateurs do <whatever> because they love it and
their failure to submit to the demands and constraints of the
commercial or industrial markets for their works is not a mark of
inferiority.


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^