97. Inexpensive, Not Cheap
(Epistemic status: Hard-won practical wisdom and fishing out a few frames from the water supply to weave them into something grander. Written in under two hours, to prove a point. For anyone who's had to make powerful things work with sorely limited resources, and who managed it.) What do you do, when your reach exceeds not your grasp but rather your budget? What does it really mean, to half-ass it with everything you've got, if we want to think about it in a more general sense than mere effort? What considerations must you make, what heuristics arise, when you need to actually pay attention to the consumption frontier, when you haven't got the goods to build in a safety factor of 10, or can't paper over your inconveniences with funds, or don't have the luxury of infinite time to think before you must make your move? There's a distinction that people often miss when they talk about frugality. They inappropriately embucket "inexpensive" with "che...