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Two places where a good small knife matters more than people expect. On the boat A boat is a specific environment. Things move. Surfaces are wet. Salt air gets into everything. Whatever you bring needs to work in those conditions without being babied. Most people bring whatever knife is in the kitchen drawer. It rusts. It slides around. The handle swells. After one season it's done. A fixed blade with corrosion-resistant steel and a secure sheath is a different proposition en

There's a specific kind of kitchen that van lifers and road trippers know well. A single burner stove. A cutting board that doubles as a lid. Whatever's fresh from the last town you passed through. And about thirty centimetres of bench space if you're lucky. In that kitchen, a full chef knife is absurd. Too long, too exposed, rolls around in the drawer, takes up space you don't have. But a cheap folding knife feels wrong too — plastic handle, mechanism that gets gritty, blade

The conversation about fixed blades versus folders usually goes one of two directions: legal, or tactical. Both miss the more interesting argument. Which is: design. A folding knife is a mechanical object. A fixed blade is a design object. And those two things, while related, are genuinely different categories. The mechanism is the compromise Every folding knife, regardless of quality, is built around a compromise. The blade must fold. That means a pivot point, a locking mech

There's a particular kind of satisfaction that comes from a pocket that isn't full. No bulk. No rattle. Just the things you actually need, chosen deliberately, sitting quietly until you reach for them. Most people carry too much. Not because they need it — because they've never stopped to ask what they actually use. The extra cards, the chunky keyring, the phone case that adds 8mm of plastic around a device already too large. It accumulates without decision. The minimalist ca

Look at the things around your coffee. Not the coffee itself — the objects that have drifted into your morning ritual without much thought. The mug you keep reaching for. The notebook that sits open. The thing you pick up and put down while you wait for the kettle. These objects weren't chosen for their proximity to caffeine. They ended up there because of something harder to name — a feel, a weight, a quality that makes them easy to reach for again.

Most objects fail the blueberry test Pick up something from your desk or your pocket and ask: is anything here unnecessary? Usually, yes. A handle slightly too long. A feature nobody uses. A size that serves manufacturing convenience more than the person using it. Most objects carry a little extra — extra length, extra mechanism, extra complexity