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1870s Horse Flu Epidemic Brought US Economy To Its Knees
Nemo the Magnificent writes with this excerpt from the University of Arizona: "A new study (paywalled) published in the journal Nature provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the evolutionary relationships of influenza virus across different host species over time... In the 1870s, an immense horse flu outbreak swept across North America. City by city and town by town, horses got sick and perhaps five percent of them died. Half of Boston burned down during the outbreak, because there were no horses to pull the pump wagons. In the West, the U.S. Cavalry was fighting the Apaches on foot because all the horses were sick... The horse flu outbreak pulled the rug out from under the economy.""
That's nothing. Just wait until the ICF hits (internal combustion flu). Tesla will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Better known as 318230.
But I bet a little war during the previous decade had a bit more to do with the economic issues of the time.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
The horses are sick, Boston's on fire, we'll fight those Apaches anyway!
It's not true if it doesn't exist in any cowboy movies.
Scroll down right to the very bottom of this page, and click "Slashdot Classic".
Folks at the time called it the Great Epizootic* of 1872: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... . In cities where it hit hardest, men were reportedly pulling carts in the streets because of the shortage of horses.
*pronouced ep-eh-zoo-AH-tick
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"Half of Boston burned down during the outbreak, because there were no horses to pull fire engines, hose reels, and ladder carts. In the West, the U.S. Cavalry was fighting the Apaches on foot because their horses were sick."
Centuries of horse shit spewing methane into the atmosphere brought about Equine Global Warming, leading to the flu epidemic.
If only we had Al Gore back then...
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
If it's behind a paywall, it didn't happen.
I thought you were talking about the content for a minute.
I mean, seriously, who venerates the genocide of one's native peoples 144 years after the fact? Shame, Slashdot...
Committing genocide on foot is tiring work.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
That's the thing; nerds are interested in darn near everything.
The ability for a non-human disease to cause such a negative impact is interesting. The impact of loss of transportation on the economy, even an ancient one, is also interesting.
I don't read AC A human right
That was how technology was then. I find it interesting as well as other things about the age, like the problems caused by all the horse shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
How long before a software virus cripples a good amount of cars and brings "transportation to a halt"?
Don't use technical terms unless you know their meaning. Peak oil looks like it happened in 2008 because it's the maximum point on the graph of crude oil extraction over time. Gas from shale, coal, whatever is something else.
The term "peak oil" acquired a lot of baggage from people who liked to oversimplify things and pretend that crude oil was the only form of energy. The post above is a good example of being influenced by that baggage.
That's right - horses flu back then. I'm sure you've heard of horsefeathers.
Well, at least they still get the slash and the dot in the right order.
[FUCK BETA]
The Silicon Spotted Fever Epidemic of 2017 is gonna be a bear ...
I've heard of Avian bird flu, the Swine Pig Flu, the Hantavirus Mouse flu and now finally the Equus Bronco Bronchial Tube Flu.
While I see this study with some reservations FTA:
According to Worobey, the newly generated evolutionary trees show a global replacement of the genes in the avian flu virus coinciding closely with the horse flu outbreak, which the analyses also reveal to be the closest relative to the avian virus.
So your call, is the relative a parent or child. The evolutionary trees mentioned show nothing that can be called useful.
The ability for a non-human disease to cause such a negative impact is interesting.
The horse was a big city crisis.
A 1000-pound horse will defecate from 4 to 13 times per day. On the average, this horse's manure will contain about 31 pounds of feces and 2.4 gallons (~ 20 pounds) of urine, totaling up to 50 pounds of manure (not including bedding) per day as excreted.
Stall Waste Production
New York City had 100,000 horses on the streets in 1900. The stench of the manure could be over-powering and flies spread diseases. Dead horses were simply shoved to the sides of streets in summer, as you can see in uncensored photographs of the era. It was simply impossible to clear the carcasses quickly enough.
I mean, seriously, who venerates the genocide of one's native peoples 144 years after the fact? Shame, Slashdot...
I'm not in favor of genocide against any group — what does "native" have to do with it? Technically, we're all out of Africa, right? If you diddle the timeline, no one else is a native.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Every time I hear about peak oil as a concept it gets turned into the idea we'll just run out, all at once.
Why won't the pricing mechanism of markets just raise the price over time and slow consumption, or increase the use of alternatives where they exist, increase research into improving or finding new alternatives? It will also affect choices, so as food prices increase because of fertilizer price increases people will choose food over, say, power boats.
Fracking is kind of the great example as well. AFAIK it was a known technique but not economically viable. As prices increased it was improved as a process and put into use because it was more economically viable at higher price levels.
I have read some arguments that claim significant economic disruption as oil prices cross a certain threshold creating an amplification effect. I think one example is the use of trucks for transportation -- the cost of shipping increases it makes other activities dependent on trucking not economically viable as the transportation costs exceed the marginal value of the thing being transported. I buy this, sort of, but it doesn't take into account the adaptation of the use of localized production or alternative products being used.
Overall I buy the idea that oil is a limited resource, but find the predictions of its increasing scarcity a lot less due to the complexity and sophistication of economies.
Yes, the pollution from horses, the support structure for horses, is a big part of what drove any option to not need a horse. Electric cable cars, for example. Cars vastly simplified the logistics(because you also needed to ship in ~50 pounds of fodder for said horses every day) as well.
I don't read AC A human right
Ah, remember it like it were yesterday. The ride through at the McDonald's was deserted for years.
and that really impacted the economy.
2018 is the all ing car mandate iirc.
Some of you guys are joking about a car virus, but it's not a stretch of the imagination at all.
15 years ago that couldn't happen, but now cars have built in cellular data. Some have built in hotspots. Not just high end cars but cheap cars can get on facebook now either through dedicated cellular data or tethering off your phone. We saw just a few weeks ago that they're trying to make cars that talk to each other for 'safety' reasons. Once they can do that a car to car virus is even easier.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Yeah, I too picked this as the most 'behind the times' that slashdot has ever been, usually it's only a couple of weeks.
Peak oil looks like it happened in 2008 because it's the maximum point on the graph of crude oil extraction over time. Gas from shale, coal, whatever is something else.
NO. Peak oil refers to M. King Hubbert's theory about a bell-shaped pattern, and it is inclusive of all fossil fuels.
Which BIO fuel can be used to make plastics? We need to switch before oil isn't available for all of the "other things" we need it for.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
A video as citation? That's a bit insulting if you expect me to take you seriously.
Note it's called peak oil and the likely peak of coal production is probably many decades away.
Let me remind you that you had " it is inclusive of all fossil fuels" of all fossil fuels in the above attempt at petty lecturing. I wonder if you are going to shift your definition every time I point out a stunningly obvious flaw in your silly personal definition such as coal being a fossil fuel.
As for me - I'll go with what the geophysicists call it instead of your gut feeling.