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Waterproof Books

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the break-out-the-bubble-bath dept.

Ant sent in a bit about new Water proof books. From the article "The new dunkable books are made not from trees, but from plastic resins and inorganic fibers. Melcher Media, a New York-based publisher, is promoting books that are manufactured using a technology it calls "Durabooks." The books' pages don't absorb water, and they stretch instead of tearing. Other companies make waterproof books with standard wood-based paper that is heavily laminated in the printing process."

16 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Environment? by Lemmeoutada+Collecti · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Righto... instead of killing the trees by cutting them down, we will be making books that (virtually) never return to the environment, and considering the low quality of many of the books out there, will end up in a landfill somewhere for the next 500+ years. Not to mention we will still be killing the trees due to all the chemical pollution from the plastics manufacturing process...

    --

    You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
  2. Wait... by VistaBoy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What exactly is the POINT of a waterproof book? Is it so that you can read your book while you're eating/in the pool? Or for disaster recovery? What practical use is there for a waterproof book? If it's for disaster recovery, how many people care about their books enough that they would be like, "Oh no! My house was flooded! But at least I still have my wonderful books..."

    Also, sometimes it's good to just stick with the classics...now instead of paper, we have this inorganic stuff...when you go into a library, you experience the smell of all the old books. With this new stuff, goodbye Old Book Scent!

    1. Re:Wait... by garcia · · Score: 2, Insightful

      how about putting it in a public place where they are normally torn, damaged, or completely destroyed?

      The fact that the pages do not tear like normal books (phonebooks come to mind) would be a great alternative to their current state where most pages are missing.

      Not everyone has a wireless Internet connected iPaq on the road.

    2. Re:Wait... by droid_rage · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You also see many older books decomposing. And that is truly a sad sight.
      What would be a good idea for this is to implement it in library copies of books only. Just the ability for the paper to stretch rather than tear would save many copies from the "Friends of the library" bins.

    3. Re:Wait... by printman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can see these being used for cookbooks; you can get some that are water/stain/food resistant, but a book made of this stuff would be better.

      --
      I print, therefore I am.
    4. Re:Wait... by jman11 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It must just be me, but I can think of a quite a few uses for waterproof books, although some of these are more for cheaply available waterproof paper I'm sure the technique can be adapted.
      • Guidebooks for campers, trails, etc.
      • any book that people would reasonably want to take outdoors. I.e bird watching books, train spotters, etc.
      • Maps.
      • Emergency/First aid manuals.
      • Books needed on a boat, I'm sure the navy (and probably regular army too) would like to have some oftheir manuals waterproofed.
      • Porn, shudder

      I think it's pretty pointless for regular books and all. Also the porn use is just sad, if you can't direct things sufficiently well to avoid that, then well I'm sorry for you.

    5. Re:Wait... by Reziac · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not to mention books for toddlers who haven't yet learned that books are to be cherished, not torn up for the neat noise ripping paper makes.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  3. Instead of the dead tree by YellowSnow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We'll be reading the dead oil well version

  4. good and bad by enos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The good news is that we're going to have today's classics last a whole lot longer in their original form. The bad news is that we're going to have today's crap books last a whole lot longer in their original form.

    --
    boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
  5. I am sooooooo tired of plastic!!! by AyeRoxor! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is it that I feel I am the only person that cringes whenever a new plastic product is released? Bear with me here: I'm not a vegetarian, I don't belong to any save-the-whatever clubs (tho maybe I should), and I drink from my share of plastic coke bottles; but I try to recycle them, recycle my shopping bags, etc.

    BUT I realize that some day, all this plastic will catch up with us. Take these new Saran (?) cutting sheets. Use them, then just throw them away. I HATE that phrase. It's morally repugnant to me. Use, then RECYCLE!!!! Anybody who can take pride in using something, then "throw[ing] it away" is really, really ignorant. Would you feel right about using something, then throwing it in a pile in your back yard, pretending you'll never have to deal with it? Every time you throw away something made of plastic or metal or anything else non-biodegradable, you are demonstrating your ignorance. I do it, you do it, we all do it sometimes. Asking for a total change is unreasonable and unrealistic. But trying to recycle more and more is the way to go. And new plastic products are inexcusable that are explicitly suggested to just be thrown away, and reprehensible.

    1. Re:I am sooooooo tired of plastic!!! by shepd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You do know that not a while ago Reader's Digest had an interesting article about recycling, and how the amount of energy put into recycling certain materials (they covered pop cans and milk bottles, but I'm sure it applies to plastic) comes from places that, when worked out, pollute more per item recycled than the original manufacturer did making it.

      So, next time you throw all your stuff into the recycling bin, think not only of how great it will be that the landfill is half the size, but of much smog you might, or might not produce.

      >Every time you throw away something made of plastic or metal or anything else non-biodegradable, you are demonstrating your ignorance.

      Dude, it's really not a good way to get people on your side to call them ignorant. As you can see, I've reasearched this issue, and, depending on how the city gets its power, sometimes I'd rather just crush the can and throw it in the trash.

      It all depends on what the source of energy is and the efficiency level of the recycling plant as to wether it's worth it or not. And sometimes it isn't. Although aluminum recycling isn't a bad bet, sometimes plastics and glass aren't worth the effort.

      FWIW, recycling aluminum is about 95% efficient (always worth the effort), plastic between 30% and 80% efficienct (I suppose the tech. is still pretty new for this), glass about 20% to 30% efficient, and paper about the same.

      In other words, if that plastic bottle was made by hydro-power, or another "good" source of power, yet your city runs on coal/gas power, do your lungs a favour and throw the thing away.

      --
      If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
    2. Re:I am sooooooo tired of plastic!!! by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And what's worse, is alot of plastic isn't recyclable.

      You have a yogurt container that says #1, and a green plastic strawberry container which also says #1, but they are actually two different kinds of plastic.

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  6. books aren't dying. by _outcat_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They just need to get better.

    When I was a little kid I thought about this (when you're a little kid and have to take baths because you're not big enough to use the shower? right.) Why not make a waterproof book, so you can read in the tub?

    But seriously. Books are not on their way out, by any means. I know tablet PC's and PDAs are improving so that maybe someday everyone will curl up with a good book electronically, but not everyone wants to do that. The feel of a book, the texture of the paper, its portability and durability is just something that not a lot of people can match with an electronic text source. Argue as you will--portable electronic devices are just not that widespread yet.

    I read a fascinating book by Neal Gershenfeld, "When Things Start to Think". It's about not just making cool new technology--it's about making that technology more accessible, less daunting, making computers serve you instead of you serving computers. He proposed an interesting idea--why not make an actual book computer? People are familiar with the book's interface. Those who have problems reading text on a monitor would have no difficulty with the familiar ink-on-paper interface.

    Picture this: start with a durable cover of some sort, maybe tough molded plastic (with LEDs. I like LEDs.) Insert inside this cover enough pages of membrane to make it heft and feel like a book. This membrane is textured to look and feel like paper, and is almost as thin, but it's not paper. Think "really thin electronically controlled Magna-doodle."

    Particles (like toner particles) can be controlled with electromagnets to form text on the "pages." You could download entire copies of classics and have the "book" display them--just like a normal book. And you wouldn't even need some 1200 pages to read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy--you could have maybe only 50 pages, and have the text "cycle" so that once you're done with the first 50 pages, the next 50 appear on the same pages.

    You could even edit the text as you see it with a pen or keyboard interface. For in-the-dark perusal the pages could be backlit or another lighting source could be part of the book.

    I think this is a fabulously cool idea. Say what you will about electronic text--the book isn't going anywhere soon, and why not augment it with the power we already have?

    Just my $0.02 USD.

    --
    Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
  7. Re:Some thoughts by pVoid · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Wow, if you say books are obsolete, you've probably never read one.

    Manuals may be obsolete. I would never exchange the feel of touching paper when reading a novel with the eye strain of staring at a screen for litterally days.

    Bah, I hope you're not really on the X-Box dev team.

  8. Waterproof-ness not the point by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 2, Insightful


    I just read the article and it seems to miss the whole point of a Durabook. Waterproofness is more of a side benefit rather than a major selling point. The real advantage to these books is that they are totally recyclable. Not recyclable in the way that most plastics are, being "down cycled" until they hit the landfill, but directly recyclable back into the same product, a true recycle process.

    --
    http://www.rootstrikers.org/
  9. Re:Some thoughts by squireofgothos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Books are a declining phenomenon? Quick, someone tell Barnes & Noble to start selling books on smart media!

    Whassat? You DON'T have an e-book reader? what kind of troglodyte are you??? =)

    As to spilling, I wish I could say all of my books are stain free, but for the most part, they've all got at least one coffee stain on them...

    The flip side of that is, they're all still readable. Not that it matters, since I can always go to the nearest bookstore and get a new copy. Ain't capitalism grand? =)

    Finally, if we ever do go to completely electronic forms of books, what would fundamentlists have to burn???

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    There is no sig...