Posts Tagged ‘Lucien B. Smith’
“Everyday, it’s a-gettin’ closer / Goin’ faster than a roller coaster “*…
The American economy is reopening. In Alabama, gyms are back in business. In Georgia, restaurants are seating customers again. In Texas, the bars are packed. And in Vermont, the stay-at-home order has been lifted. People are still frightened. Americans are still dying. But the next, queasy phase of the coronavirus pandemic is upon us. And it seems likely that the financial nadir, the point at which the economy stops collapsing and begins growing again, has passed.
What will the recovery look like? At this fraught moment, no one knows enough about consumer sentiment and government ordinances and business failures and stimulus packages and the spread of the disease to make solid predictions about the future. The Trump administration and some bullish financial forecasters are arguing that we will end up with a strong, V-shaped rebound, with economic activity surging right back to where it was in no time. Others are betting on a longer, slower, U-shaped turnaround, with the pain extending for a year or three. Still others are sketching out a kind of flaccid check mark, its long tail sagging torpid into the future.
At least four major factors are terrifying economists and weighing on the recovery: the household fiscal cliff, the great business die-off, the state and local budget shortfall, and the lingering health crisis…
Annie Lowrey (@AnnieLowrey) unpacks a painfully-plausible worst-case scenario featuring the four horsemen of what could be an economic apocalypse– the four major forces at work today that are terrifying economists and weighing on the recovery: “The Second Great Depression.”
For more on the fourth and most terrifying force Lowrey cites, see here (and the research that underlies it).
* Buddy Holly
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As we take necessary steps, we might recall that it was on this date in 1867 that Lucien B. Smith patented barbed wire (U.S. No. 66,182). Eventually competitors produced more than 1,500 different types of barbed wire; but Smith’s patent gave him pride of invention. His simple idea that was an artificial “thorn hedge” consisting of wire with short metal spikes twisted on by hand at regular intervals. For prairie farmers and cattlemen natural fencing materials were scarce, so the invention gave them an accessible way keep their cattle safely away from crops. It also created tensions between farmers and ranchers: inexpensive barbed wire allowed farmers to fence in their fields, preventing ranchers’ livestock from feeding off of the farmers’ fields, and making it more difficult for cattle drives to cross farmers’ lands. Ultimately ranchers too recognized the benefits of fencing their herds… and the days of the open range came to an end.
Copy of Lucien B. Smith’s wire fence improvement (barbed wire) Patent, 66,182, dated June 25, 1867 (source)
Blah, blah, blah…
When designers lay out a page, they need to fill the spaces that will ultimately be occupied with text with something that looks like the text that will ultimately be there– a field of letters, a filler, that allows the composer to assess the propriety of the font, it’s size and weight, and the like. In the vernacular, this placeholder text is called “Greeking” (as in “it’s all Greek to me”); the most commonly used form is (ironically, because it’s actually Latin), Lorem Ipsum.
(source)
But while Lorem Ipsum does the job, it’s not very exciting… So, the good folks at Bacon Ipsum have devised a way to add a bit of nitrite-laced spice to one’s mock-up and at the same time, to celebrate the emperor of meats.
One can go for text that’s both meat and filler:
Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet ut chicken venison excepteur. Pork loin shoulder pariatur est voluptate fatback. Exercitation cillum dolore jowl minim, jerky corned beef fugiat labore ham tri-tip pastrami pork belly. Mollit flank bacon commodo. T-bone excepteur tri-tip nulla aute. Reprehenderit commodo nisi spare ribs ut. Mollit shank pancetta cow.
Or more adventurously, for the all-meat version…
Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet headcheese ground round ham swine jowl spare ribs turkey ribeye, andouille short ribs. Pork headcheese ham biltong hamburger shankle bacon. Ribeye rump pig meatball hamburger beef swine. Turkey rump tongue pork loin. Hamburger ball tip corned beef shankle, pig pork fatback pork chop andouille strip steak bresaola biltong ham. Sausage pig strip steak fatback t-bone spare ribs, bacon hamburger jowl salami biltong ham hock. Meatball corned beef spare ribs tail.
Make your layouts luscious at Bacon Ipsum.
As we try to remove the grease stains from our mock-ups, we might recall that it was on this date in 1867 that Lucien B. Smith patented barbed wire (U.S. No. 66,182). Eventually competitors produced more than 1,500 different types of barbed wire; but Smith’s patent gave him pride of invention.. His simple idea that was an artificial “thorn hedge” consisting of wire with short metal spikes twisted on by hand at regular intervals. For prairie farmers and cattlemen natural fencing materials were scarce, so the invention gave them an accessible way keep their cattle safely away from crops. It also created tensions between farmers and ranchers: inexpensive barbed wire allowed farmers to fence in their fields, preventing ranchers’ livestock from feeding off of the farmers’ fields, and making it more difficult for cattle drives to cross farmers’ lands. Ultimately ranchers too recognized the benefits of fencing their herds… and the days of the open range came to an end.
Copy of Lucien B. Smith’s wire fence improvement (barbed wire) Patent, 66,182, dated June 25, 1867 (source)
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