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Waterproof Books
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!.
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.
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?