Chaging the World with Axes - TED Talk

LowHangingFruit said:
I enjoyed her speech. It makes me want to live closer to nature so I could use my axes more often.
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Closer to nature, or closer to standing and/or fallen trees? Sod busting out in the Prairie grasslands is a whole different ballgame. Just kidding about all this but you don't need an axe to enjoy nature.
 
A bit too much of axe axe axe if lots of other things could have been placed into the same statements.
A hammer is a basic tool probably more than an axe, since you need it to forge an axe. A hammer gives the same sense of empowerment even a toy hammer in a little child.
Same you could say about knives or even planting seeds and observe them grow.
There's nothing exclusivly magical about axes but once you ignore that it was an enjoyable talk.
 
Jens Schuetz said:
A bit too much of axe axe axe if lots of other things could have been placed into the same statements.
A hammer is a basic tool probably more than an axe, since you need it to forge an axe. A hammer gives the same sense of empowerment even a toy hammer in a little child.
Same you could say about knives or even planting seeds and observe them grow.
There's nothing exclusivly magical about axes but once you ignore that it was an enjoyable talk.
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Empowerment- yea, I like that, and so true.
 
Lieblad said:
As far as GBs using the forge operators initials, its big part of the sales allure for sure, also an audit trail.
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I understand the marketing and like the idea of the initials, the audit trail is one explanation. I doubt it though, simple in plant QC inspection would be a better plan. The Smith being just one step in the overall process, with a automated heat treat, grinding and handle fitting stations all having input on the final product.
It suggests that the smiths are important to the company and not replaceable drones.
I wonder if the "Axe Book" with reflect any changes when Smiths retire or new Smiths start working there.
I got a lot of insight from watching the Gabriel Branby videos. The process of buying a bankrupt axe company and dissecting it to make it profitable while producing a quality product is great. I found it ironic that the Smiths he builds the reputation and brand on now- where a major setback before he bought the place. Quickly producing rough axes at piece work wages that required Grinders to spend more time finishing and therefore making less money.
It would be nice to believe that more companies would think long term and quality, take care of the workforce. There is a reason why most of the worlds axe makers are gone- they didn't make enough profit for the owners.
If it wasn't for the desire and interest of internet educated axe enthusiasts, outdoors people and craftsmen with expendable cash- I suspect GB would have went the same way. Mr Branby rebuilt a brand and created a legacy. If he were a public corporation in the US- he might find himself the target of private equity folks. They buy out companies with mostly borrowed monies- saddle the company with the debt. After they have control and systematically reduce "liabilities" to the company like workers, benefits and pensions, contracts- all the time paying high exec salaries and sucking money for the company to pay the interest on the money they borrowed from friends to buy the company. If the company doesn't keep up with the money bleed- they file bankruptcy and start the slow death all over again. Or worse- liquidate , while keeping the "Brand" and manufacturing with slave labor overseas.
The shame is- their hatchets cost ten times what a china import costs. That isn't "Pay Once- Cry Once" with imports and the huge used tool marketplace- it's boutique, status buying.
 
Albertatrapper said:
I turned it off at the part where she said that our anchesters were monkeys...i don't buy that crap.
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You are correct, our biological ancestors were not monkeys. They were primate creatures whose descendents evolved into many different species, including monkeys, humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and so forth. Her remark reflects a common mistake people make when referring to the evolution of species.

But I suspect you actually mean something else and so I'm really being an ass. Forgive me.

Zieg
 
The Zieg said:
You are correct, our biological ancestors were not monkeys. They were primate creatures whose descendents evolved into many different species, including monkeys, humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and so forth. Her remark reflects a common mistake people make when referring to the evolution of species.

But I suspect you actually mean something else and so I'm really being an ass. Forgive me.

Zieg
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What did our ancestral primates develop from?

Edit:
Most diagrams are surprisingly vague at that very point. 2 which I could find (different language) stated that Chimpanzoids split into chimpanzees and the human branch. While our chimp brothers didn't change much the humans kept changing until we get us, the homo sapiens sapiens.
If that is true then our chimp bros are closer to our ancestors than us. Therfore if you call human ancestors monkeys/apes that could be wrong but still by the looks of it not very wrong. ;-)
 
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The Zieg said:
You are correct, our biological ancestors were not monkeys. They were primate creatures whose descendents evolved into many different species, including monkeys, humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and so forth.
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Allowing for her very rudimentary English where she was mentally translating rather than actually "thinking" in a second language I naturally assumed this was what she meant.


The Zieg said:
But I suspect you actually mean something else and so I'm really being an ass.
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Maybe. I'll fight for anyone's right to believe what they want. Expect me to believe it too and we'll have a problem.


Old Axeman said:
homo sapiens sapiens origin--alien intervention?
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Another great belief paradigm. As an example: Lloyd Pye's "Everything You Know Is Wrong" is very entertaining.

Cute company spokesman or no, I still prefer Roy Underhill's video and his assertion that the axe is a tool of the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au1TbIyLcPU
 
Glad you liked it. Even as far back as the 1980s there were people saying that in our ever more technologically advanced culture we would see stronger and stronger trends towards tactile hobbies, interests, and undertakings as a way to balance out our increasingly sterile existence. Underhill (and many others - Peter Vido comes to mind) has been there all along. I would be curious to know if the guest speaker in this threads' topic video will still be swinging a hammer thirty years hence. I sure hope so.

I have seen the Underhill talk on several occasions yet I seem to learn something new each time. I just rewatched it and realized I've been sloppy with the notches in my bucking support logs (?) which means I'm always having to stabilize things with a log dog or two. Silly mistake.
 
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