[resonious]

I remember watching a thing about a Japanese geologist. It had to do with figuring out what kind of rock is in the earth's mantle. The way they do this is apparently by just squishing regular rocks (very tiny ones) with machines to simulate the mantle's pressure. Apparently this changes the color and other properties of the rock, effectively making a new rock. They said these machines are hard to manufacture after a certain point because if the precision is off by even less than a mm, it'd destroy itself while applying pressure. The geologist hired a Japanese craftsman to hand-assemble a new machine, and it worked well enough to break the record and basically discover a new rock we hadn't seen before. Wish I remembered the names!

Anyway, I thought that's a cool example of the intense craftsman culture "paying off" beyond just receiving admiration for impressive combs.