This is an iHeart Podcast. This July 4th, celebrate freedom from spills, stains, and overpriced furniture with Anibay, the only machine-washable sofa inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly pricing.
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Tim Harford is here. About three of them.
So, air conditioning is a fascinating invention. There's a wonderful writer, Stephen Johnson. who argued that air conditioning elected Ronald Reagan. You see well how does how does that work?
Well, air conditioning Changed the demographics of the United States. It enabled many more people to live comfortably in Texas, in Florida. All those people retiring to Florida and then starting to vote Republican.
So it's changing the political. Landscape of the United States. There is no way you can build a glass-walled skyscraper in Singapore or Dubai. without air conditioning. It's completely impossible.
There's no way that technology will work without air conditioning.
So it makes possible skyscrapers in warm climates. It makes a lot of things possible that we take for granted. Think about all those floors. These are roughly 80, 100 stories.
Now let's just chop them into Single-story or two-story buildings, and distribute those buildings all over a big out-of-town office park. And think of all the car parks you need to have around them, and think of the enormous amount of space that that office park would take up.
Now, Because they're all stacked on top of each other. You don't need the car parking, you don't need people driving their automobiles to get to this space. You just go in on the ground floor, get in the elevator, and you can be taken to any floor in the building.
So that's why I said it's a mass transit system. I think that's absolutely inaccurate description. Uh how did it shape the world?
Well, it made the skyscraper Possible. There is really no way you could realistically have a building more than. Are they ten stories? Unless you have a functioning elevator, or actually, more to the point. The real elevation is is the elevator brake.
Because we've had elevators for hundreds and hundreds of years. But nobody is going to get in an elevator. uh that's going to go any serious height. unless it's safe. And Elijah Otis, Invented the elevator brake and he demonstrated it at one of these World's Fairs.
It was a hugely theatrical demonstration. He was lifted up, up, up above the crowd. And standing behind him on this scaffolding. You can imagine the drama of it. There's a guy with an executioner's axe.
And he raises the axe as though he's about to strike off Otis's head, and he swings the axe down and he chops the elevator rope. And like everyone in the crowd screams and the elevator falls. About a quarter of an inch. And then Otis yells out to everybody, all safe, gentlemen, all safe. He's demonstrated that he has developed a safe way.
to make the elevator work. And they are, in fact, incredibly safe. They make skyscrapers possible.
So, the people who are concerned about energy efficiency and they talk about. double glazing, they talk about insulation, they talk about all the ways that you can reduce the fuel consumption of a building. One of the the best ways of all is an elevator because you shift a lot of people using a counterweight Pack them all into a very dense area, and you could have a very low environmental impact. city like Manhattan and yet still generate a tremendous amount of economic output, of income. and it's all possible because of the elevator.
The idea of this book, the 50 inventions that shaped the modern economy, is not to pick the 50 most important inventions. It's to try to surprise people a little bit and to get them to look at everyday objects in a different way. And the barcode is one of the great examples of that.
So the barcode was invented several times, really, but the real inventive moment, and I'm Drawing a blank on the inventor's name for a second, that he was sitting at the beach, he was visiting his grandparents, and he was thinking of the time he had spent as a Boy Scout communicating in Morse code. And he'd been trying to figure out this problem: how do I create an automated till? And he dragged his fingers in a lazy circle. Through the sand, And then he looked down and he he saw he created a kind of um bullseye. with his fingers the ridges and the troughs, And he realized he could use those ridges and troughs to convey a code, Morse code.
And so the original barcodes were in fact bullseyes. The idea of the bullseye is well you can scan it in in any direction, it doesn't make any difference. It's always the same. In the end, of course, the modern barcode is linear. And it took several decades to get the computers cheap enough and the lasers cheap enough.
To make it a practical technology. And of course, the retailers didn't want to put the barcode scanners in until. The food manufacturers had barcodes on their products, and the food manufacturers didn't want to bother putting barcodes on their products. Until The scanners existed to read them.
So there was this all this kind of you go first thing. I mean, Miller, I think, had been printing their labels on their beer bottles. using the same technology for about sixty sixty or seventy years.
So the idea that you're going to retool in order to print these crazy barcodes, not very attractive. But in the end it was done. And it empowered Walmart and the real big box retailers. because it solved a problem that they had about Keeping track of stock, about keeping the staff honest, so they didn't put money in their own pocket.
So it really tilted the playing field in favour of the big players in integrating the American economy with the Chinese economy. They made a huge contribution there, whether you like it or not, to introducing these very, very cheap goods, and they couldn't have done it without a barcode. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Tim Harford, author of 50 Things That Shape the Modern Economy. This whole idea of the elevator brake, it's just an invention that changed the world, actually.
We don't have the modern city without it. And it was Elijah Otis who did it and demonstrated it at that World's Fair. I would have loved to have seen the video of that. And of course, when he did it, there wasn't. The story of our modern economy, and a few contributors: air conditioning, the elevator brake, and the barcode here.
on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories. Every day, we set out to tell the stories of Americans past and present, from small towns to big cities, and from all walks of life, doing extraordinary things. But we truly can't do this show without you. Our shows are free to listen to.
But they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to ouramericanstories.com and make a donation to keep the stories coming. That's our American stories. Dot com. This July 4th, celebrate freedom from spills, stains, and overpriced furniture with Anibay, the only machine-washable sofa inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly pricing.
Sofas started just $699, making it the perfect time to upgrade your space. Anibay's pet-friendly, stain-resistant and interchangeable slip covers are made with high-performance fabric that's built for real life. You'll love the cloud-like comfort of hypoallergenic, high-resilience foam that never needs fluffing and a durable steel frame that stands the test of time. With modular pieces, you can rearrange any time. It's a sofa that adapts to your life.
Now, through July 4th, get up to 60% off site-wide at washable sofas.com. Every order comes with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping, no restocking fees, every penny back. Declare independence from dirty outdated furniture.
Shop now at washable sofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Who needs headphones when you have glasses? Ray-Ben Meta Glasses. With discrete open-air speakers and built-in microphones, you can play your favorite tunes.
Hey, Meta, play hip-hop music. while staying in tune with the world around you. Ray-Band Meta Glasses. Choose from a variety of classic Ray-Band frames, all with MetaAI at meta.com slash AI-glasses. And don't forget to say, hey Meta, play iHeartRadio to enjoy your favorite radio stations, artists, and podcasts on the iHeart app.
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We've done your homework. This is an iHeart podcast.
