I learned something!
Looking for old info on coherers, ran into a US Census publication from the magic year of 1906. The Census bureau wrote a splendidly informative article on the present condition of electricity and electronics, getting everything right and describing everything with crystal clarity. As expected, the publication also included lots of tables and maps of employment, sales, etc.

Another section described an industry I'd never heard of!

The Shoddy Industry.

There is, perhaps, no article produced in manufacture, no article used in manufacture, and no article in common use, that bears a reputation more undeserved than does shoddy. Its very name is a synonym for pretense and fraud. To the popular mind goods containing shoddy are not merely destitute of wearing quality, but are suggestive of the unwholesome secondhand clothing shop, and inspire one with apprehension lest the fabric should communicate loathsome disease to the wearer of apparel in which there is this substance of ill repute. All this is unwarranted by the facts, as all are aware who understand the shoddy process, the method of making use of shoddy, and the benefits which the use of it confers upon the user. It is not the case, as is too commonly supposed, that a garment — or the cloth which is made into a garment — is or can be composed wholly of shoddy. New wool or animal hair is always the basis of the yarn and a certain amount of shoddy is mixed with it on the card.

Substance of ill repute is a brilliant phrase for an important insight. Our entire nation is now devoted to wiping out substances of ill repute. Witch powders and the witches who spread witch powders.

Now we only know the ill repute of Shoddy, and never realize we're insulting a whole branch of industry that employed ordinary people making useful products in an EFFICIENT way, RECYCLING resources that otherwise would have been trashed.

In 1906 government experts were engaged in telling the truth CLEARLY, and more importantly they saw their job as DEFENDING honest productive work. They provided VALUABLE INFORMATION in the sense that you could LEARN SOMETHING NEW AND USEFUL by reading their articles.

Now government experts tell nothing but vicious lies, and they see their job as DESTROYING honest work and STEALING honest labor and KILLING honest workers. Experts provide negative information. When you read the spewings of experts, real data is RIPPED out of your brain and replaced by demonic monsters.

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Credit footnote: The section on electricity was written by Expert Special Agent Commerford Martin, and Shoddy was written by Expert Special Agent Edward Stanwood.

Non-barking footnote: Martin's article dives into full and clear detail about every imaginable type of electrical equipment, from telephones to coherers to industrial motors to cookstoves. How they're made, how they could be made better, how they affect the people who make and use them. But Martin DOESN'T mention the one device that was developed IN THE CENSUS BUREAU in 1890, a device that had already been used BY THE CENSUS BUREAU for 16 years to tabulate data, including the data in Martin's article. This device had already spread beyond the Census, spawning a moderate-sized industry by 1906. Apparently this one device didn't seem especially important at the time!

Labels: Alternate universe

  ¶ 9:48 AM