{"id":306,"date":"2009-06-28T21:54:03","date_gmt":"2009-06-28T21:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/?p=306"},"modified":"2009-06-28T21:54:03","modified_gmt":"2009-06-28T21:54:03","slug":"the-pencil-so-simple-so-ubiquitous-and-so-much-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/the-pencil-so-simple-so-ubiquitous-and-so-much-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The pencil so simple, so ubiquitous and so much history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently finished an intriguing book with the history of the pencil &#8230; yes the pencil.<\/p>\n<div id=\"w63c53720ca06174baa5ccf6873800707\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"UTF-8\" src=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/widget_get.php?userid=miguelpdl&#038;theID=w63c53720ca06174baa5ccf6873800707\"><\/script><noscript><a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/profile\/miguelpdl\">My Library<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\">LibraryThing<\/a><\/noscript><br \/>\nMaybe it doesn&#8217;t sound too exciting but really the story touches on the pencil as it emerges as a new writing technology, to the over-mining of plumbago and over-cutting of cedar trees its base components.<br \/>\nThe need for research, development and innovation in the creation of new writing lead, the centuries of secrecy around that combination of graphite &#038; clay mixture in the lead (Conte).<br \/>\nHow the industrial revolution created a situation were there was 10 pencils for everyone on earth, the subsequent price fixing, international trade wars, standardisation (of lead grading), regulations and industrial consolidation.<br \/>\nTo the threat of the mechanical pencil and ink pens, then typewriters, computers and many others and yet 4 centuries later I look at my desk at work and see 5 pencils, I&#8217;ve no idea were they have come from, who made them or how, but I know why they are there, I&#8217;ll continue to use them for scribbling transient notes and now at least I have a little more insight on the pencils history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently finished an intriguing book with the history of the pencil &#8230; yes the pencil. My Library at LibraryThing Maybe it doesn&#8217;t sound too exciting but really the story touches on the pencil as it emerges as a new writing technology, to the over-mining of plumbago and over-cutting of cedar trees its base components. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7O9Cj-4W","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miguelpdl.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}