Humanmade? Serious?
Attachment 165029
Printable View
Humanmade? Serious?
Attachment 165029
Many years ago I stumbled into the factory of a well known string manufacturer that was just a little north of New York City and was amazed to find a large room full of people sitting around these carousels winding strings and putting them in paper envelopes. I had been buying strings for 15 or 20 years at that point in my life and never realized that was how they ended up in those little envelopes.
In this case I'm assuming that was a translation error, probably by a computer, of the phrase "hand made". Then again, they could have a competitor that uses farm animals to manufacture their strings.
That's actually pretty funny though. I'd probably buy a set just to own the string package. :cool:
And I've been supporting those creeps from Andromeda all these years!:disbelief::grin:
Who knew?:whistling:
Interesting, how we are led to believe that "hand made" or "human made" for that matter is actually something positive and better than, for instance, machine made. Hand made is first of all more expensive and in many cases not a bit better than other procedures (especially true for eggs, which should be hen made, I think).
:) Runs in cycles. Depends on what all is going on in society.Quote:
Originally Posted by Henry Eagle
Some generations value "hand made" as equivalent to "better quality, more attention to detail". I think the latest round of that (in the U.S., anyway) started in the 1960s (counterculture, anti-establishment, anti-factory, make your own soap and musical instruments etc) and somehow went more mainstream at some point.
Whereas some earlier generations regarded "hand made" as only what you'd do (or use) as a last resort if you couldn't buy a proper better-quality 'professionally-made' store-bought version instead.
I've heard from some of the older folks, that back in the 1920s there was an expression that was used as a selling point to help convince people to buy your products:
"Untouched by human hands."
(long before anyone ever made a probably-unrelated film by that title.)
The idea being that machines could do the work more accurately, making a finer product to closer tolerances, than faulty humans could. The machines didn't come in to work hung over from drinking, etc. Machine-made meant, theoretically, consistent quality from one item to the next (assuming the machine is kept in adjustment and set up properly), without the troublesome variances that handmade items can have.
There was another element to it as well - the "untouched by human hands" thing was regarded by some as being far more sanitary and not as likely to spread disease. Remember the 1920s followed on the heels of the catastrophic 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 to 100 million people. :disbelief: By that time, people *did* know about microbes and handwashing and sneezing etc, and some of the people preferred that the items they purchased had as *little* human contact as possible - the memory of so many of their friends & family dying in the 1918 flu was still fresh in their minds, and they were motivated by a "why take chances" attitude.
So, to them, "handmade" = bad, inferior, dangerous.
Of course, what such people perhaps didn't realize, especially back then, was that just about all items still required some degree of human interaction at some point, to tidy up the things that the machines weren't so good at. Or at the very least, to pack the product into boxes on some conveyor line... before there was automated equipment for that.
So, enough of history. What about now? For me, personally, nowadays I'd far prefer to buy something *not* "hand made", because - among other reasons - I've made handmade items and it can be back-breaking work. You wear out your joints slaving away making handmade stuff. I used to believe it was somehow 'better', for instance I did all my inlays by hand instead of using a newfangled Dremel because I thought the Dremel was like 'cheating', it would make things somehow not as 'valuable' as 'handmade'. :whistling: :whistling: :whistling: Ha! I've long since gotten over that notion! Nowadays, whether something I'm making or something I want to buy, I'm for as much automation as possible. IMO, the less that some human has to wrangle with an item that's being produced, the better, if for no other reason than (hopefully) better workplace conditions and fewer job-related injuries. (As long as they don't fall into the machines that are saving them from manual work.) :disbelief:
So, back to the topic, the idea of "Humanmade Strings" doesn't really appeal to me. I'm like, isn't there a machine that can do that better? :grin:
The term 'Handmade' usually gives the impression that 'whatever' was lovingly created by craftsmen with care & skill, to produce an item of 'quality'. Think in terms of ''antique'' furniture. Mechanism in producing most things, only arose because of the demand for 'those' items. Not enough could be produced by hand to satisfy the demand,so other means of manufacture (autimated mechanisms) were developed. ''Mass produced'' furniture can be made of superb quality as we know,& we pay a premium price for it. However,if the same items were made by a skilled cabinet maker,they would most likely be beyond the financial means of all folks other than the mega-rich.
The vast majority of things that we use in our daily lives are 'mass produced'' & most of them are of excellent quality - they have to be or we wouldn't buy them - we're still not that dumb !.
On the other hand,we have terms used in the catering industries - Cafes etc. that quote ''Home cooked food''. In many cases,that simply means that a pre-prepared,'bought in' meal has been either micro-waved or oven cooked on the premises. It's no guarantee that the food was prepared from scratch in the Cafe / Restaurant.
I've been using DR ''Handmade'' strings for over 6 years now without a single problem - other DR users have had a few problems. That's the way it goes - nothing's perfect. The only 'dud' string i've ever had was a D'Addario G string (& only the one). I haven't ready any posts on here by others who've had the same problem with D'Addario - so in that case,i was the unlucky one.
'Handmade' or mass produced - as long as the item does what it's supposed to do & is of a quality that i'd expect for my cash,ill go with either,
Ivan;)
A lot of "older" folks probably still have the idea that handmade is better. In some cases, I guess, it is. Things like jewelry, watches, etc., first come to mind. Growing up on a farm in the Arkansas Ozarks, a lot of stuff was handmade. I churned butter. I milked the cows to get the cream for that butter. My mother made a lot of my shirts. Flour and cornmeal used to come in patterned bags for use in dresses, shirts, etc. I handmade some of the fishing lures I used. But, I've learned over the years (I'll never see 70 again), that handmade is not always better. I've also learned that robotic manufacturing can produce some pretty astounding results, frequently quicker and better than handmade. As was mentioned earlier, robots don't get hangovers, they don't get tired and if they're not working right, they shut themselves down.
Some areas of commerce still hang onto the "handmade" concept, however. I saw a commercial for a restaurant selling "hand-dipped" chicken. First, a chicken-dipping machine would not be cost effective for anyone but Tysons. Second, and more important to me, what the heck difference does it make?
When I buy a Patek watch (yeah, right), I'll expect it to be (at least mostly) handmade. But, when I buy that Timex, I only hope the machine that stamped out the gears was reasonably accurate.
David - It's very likely that the Timex would keep time just as well as the Patek Phillipe,in the same way that a bog standard Ford car will get you to the same place as a Rolls Royce. It really depends on 'why' you're buying the high class one,& usually it's not for time keeping or transportation reasons !.
I was also brought up in a very rural region of the UK (well,it was back in 1950). My mother's aunt used to churn her own butter,make her own preserves,bread etc,as did my grandmother. The smell of freshly baked bread coming out of the oven is one that i'll never forget. Even so,in those days,many everyday items were being mass produced,rather than 'artisan made'.
We often think of the days pre-WW I or WW II as the ''good old days'',but if we look back at what the times were really like for a lot of folk,there was nothing 'good' about them. They were only good as long as you had a home / food & clothing - many folk didn't as we know,
Ivan;)
Let‘s face it, „hand made“ is quite romantic and needs a closer look in each case.
Well, I never thought of the butter I churned as "artisan made." I like that. It's adds a touch of class to an otherwise boring task.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivan Kelsall
My wife is turning away from many of the TV cooking shows in disgust, saying "that food is being touched and fiddled with way too much".Quote:
Originally Posted by Seter
I wouldn't even know how to milk a cow. As a kid, I thought milk came from bears, figure that.Quote:
Originally Posted by DHopkins
http://www.lebensmittelklarheit.de/s...62a250b029fa60
Holy Cow! This is udderly ridiculous. How long are we going to milk this? :)
Oh Bertram, how could that happen ? Anybody knows that milk comes from purple cows.Attachment 165096
Sorry - delete, never mind. Move along please..
No, that's where cocoa comes from. ~o)Quote:
Originally Posted by Henry Eagle
Okay, sorry, my bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bertram Henze