[NON BLOG] Desks and Czechs
Dec. 7th, 2004 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldMy infinite thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trapezzi for assembling helping me put together my JOHAN computer desk. I'm completely clueless with tools; upon reflection, this threatens the whole IKEA-as-adulthood market metaphor. Supper was subsequently held at the excellent Java House (537 Queen Street West), which reminds me very strongly of the Sleepless Goat in Kingston only run more competently and with better lighting.
On closer examination, the JOHAN's parts were manufactured not in Sweden, but in the Czech Republic. This makes sense, given relative labour costs, though I suspect that within a decade or two the Czechs (along with Hungary, and my favourite central European nation, Slovenia) will be outsourcing the manufacture of their designs to their neighbours. In this context, it's worth mentioning this post at Far Outliers, which describes the depths of the Czech eclipse following the definitive Hapsburg conquest of Bohemia early in the Thirty Years War. I don't believe that the Czechs were doomed to assimilation--after all, the Slovenes managed to survive to form a prosperous nation without Bohemia's medieval and early-modern glories--but for a while it was terribly close.
trapezzi for On closer examination, the JOHAN's parts were manufactured not in Sweden, but in the Czech Republic. This makes sense, given relative labour costs, though I suspect that within a decade or two the Czechs (along with Hungary, and my favourite central European nation, Slovenia) will be outsourcing the manufacture of their designs to their neighbours. In this context, it's worth mentioning this post at Far Outliers, which describes the depths of the Czech eclipse following the definitive Hapsburg conquest of Bohemia early in the Thirty Years War. I don't believe that the Czechs were doomed to assimilation--after all, the Slovenes managed to survive to form a prosperous nation without Bohemia's medieval and early-modern glories--but for a while it was terribly close.
