Slashdot Mirror
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."
Cutting down trees is bad for the environment and all, but trees can be replanted. Wouldn't plastic resins and inorganic fibers be worse?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Let me guess... they'll next be applying this to make magazines more resistant to various bodily fluids!
There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those that understand binary and those that do not.
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!
We'll be reading the dead oil well version
What this can do to Porn Mags!!!
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
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
"If you masturbate in the bathtub, that's part of the idea -- even though it doesn't say it in the promotional material," Mohanraj said. "If you get distracted, it's not so bad to drop the book in the bathtub."
This product should do well on slashdot. Thinkgeek, how about it?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
In most cases, there probably isn't a good ROI on releasing the "plastic-back"s. But these types of books might work well:
Sex - Find It
- can be produced from cheap (although toxic), non oil-related chemicals
- can (sometimes) be utterly destroyed to basic molecules by a simple (again) chemical spray
- can, often, be reusable.
Crude Oil...
- should have been digged for the start in profit for electricity based motor, and hydrogen cells
- pollutes (No ? Really?)
- Is a boon on some VERY lucrative business that thinks nothing of bribes, destruction or political instabilities to achieve their goals (no direct attacks, they ALL do it), while electricity can be produced almost anywhere on the planet today using green sources.
Plastics, as you know them today, are mostly polymers.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Thats why the farmers almanac has a hole in the corner, to put it on a string in the outhouse.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
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.
Of course. Pr0n is the catalyst.
Examples:
VHS: easily distributed pr0n.
Business over the web: pr0n sites.
CD-ROM: easily disseminated pr0n from said sites.
And now, waterproof magazines: Wank-proof pages = fewer ruined magazines.
Waterproof keyboards: no sticky keys!
It's rather prevalent in the modern society(>mid70's) that pr0n is the first or one of the first things transferred in the new medium.
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
is to make a book that can be recycled indefinitely, unlike paper, which can only make it one or two times through the recycling process. See the Slashdot review of the book that started this idea: Cradle to Cradle.
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
the porn mag that can also be used as a prophylactic! Isn't this incredible folks?
But wait, there's more. Order now and you'll also receive this free ginsu knife....
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Half the time they just dump the plastic from the recycle bins in the landfill with all the other garbage. Seriously. People want a 'plastic recycling program'. It costs too much to actually recycle so...
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Another petroleum-based product. Whenever people think about our dependency on foreign oil, they talk about cars and gaas mileage, but noone ever mentions the bazillions of plastics and polymers that wouldn't exist without a constant supply of petroleum.
So...are they talking the "Oh-face" dropping of the book or the "OHMYGODWHATAREYOUDOINGINHERE?!?!" dropping of the book?
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
I would love to see this on travel guides, books with maps on them, and service manuals for cars.
The last one assumes it can handle a little grease as well.
--T
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
What use to sane adults have for a water-proof book?
I can think of several uses to this kind of technology. Cookbooks for one always get things spilled on them.
I am an avid book collector. I like the classics besides several newer books out. They don't have to print all new books with this new technology, just a few for the collectors. I have a series of books that are out of print, and the ones I can get a hold of to finish my collection are trashed. With these books I wouldn't have the same problem with finding a book in good condition (of books in print right now, of course).
Other things these books are good for:
There are times I read in the tub to relax.
There are times my 2 year old gets hold of my books with a crayon. (with a plastic book, you could possibly just wipe it off)
There are times when I eat while reading and end up with unintended greasy fingerprints.
These books could last a long time and not be subject to the hazards of paper books. Of course, it wouldn't be practical to print all books on plastic (not to mention the environmental hazards)
But I can see printing special editions for fans and collectors of these virtually indestructable books.
From the article:
The Durabooks technology allows for another way to tire your hand while taking a bath with an erotica book. "If you masturbate in the bathtub, that's part of the idea -- even though it doesn't say it in the promotional material," Mohanraj said. "If you get distracted, it's not so bad to drop the book in the bathtub." Mohanraj said the book's pages withstand not only bath water, but also bodily fluids and sex oils. Wine, however, will stain the pages.
I'm not even going to sully this visual with my own commentary.
My
Limekiller
Lots of lab equipment suppliers sell waterproof lab notebooks made from polyproplyene paper. I bought a ream of the loose stuff several years ago that I cut into small squares and use as labels on bottles that might get wet on storage in freezers. The paper looks like the pulp-based stuff, but you can't feed it throught a laser printer or copier or it will melt on the hot roller.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
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.
Books are great, but what I want is a bathtop computer.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
I'll put my iPod in a Ziplock. The last 5 books I've 'read' were on my iPod (dl'ed from from audible.com)
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Vanderbilt University Library's rare books collection used to have a copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 printed on asbestos . I don't know if they still have it as they probably threw it away in the current asbestos hysteria. It was there in 1977 anyway.
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/
WARNING: Using silly putty to copy pages off a book is a violation of the terms of services and punishable under the DMCA. Please desist iImmediately or we will be forced to pursue further legal action.
Signed,
Any Bottom-feeding Lawyer
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
About 7 months ago I did a book review for Slashdot of Cradle to Cradle by McDonough and Braungart. I believe it was the first commercially released book in this format by Melcher. (First sentence of the book: "This book is not a tree.")
I've had a number of experiences with this stuff over the years. Really cool stuff, but it doesn't act the way one thinks it should.
One can't use pencils to write on it, it needs to be carved into from a pen. This means that inkjet printers do not work with this. It is made entirely of plastic, so photocopying/laser printing is impossible.
The material is actually wicked strong, very high tensile strength and very ductile, but it is not impossible to tear. When it is torn, one can see multiple layers of material. The top layer is somewhat like a white powder, more of a matting that is anti-gloss that is used to repel the water. The next layer down is a glossy plastic. This is where the writing is adhered to, as well this layer is very thin. The final layer is a thick layer of plastic, used to make this paper very hard to tear and waterproof.
A few interesting uses of this paper, if written on and covered in water, then let to dry on something the ink will bleed onto the other item. This allows photocoping of items onto objects around the house. This is not a good thing at most times, when the book is drying out, it had better not be touching anything or the other pages because the pages could swap ink.
Kids love this stuff. They don't care what is on the paper, if you give them a sheet they will play with is for hours on end. (And if you have ever tried to keep a kid entertained for more than 8 minutes, yoou know how great this is) They love to get it wet, and see it dry in seconds. They like to try and tear it, since their fingers are not strong enough or smart enough to try a small tear and build on it, they just bend the plastic.
This stuff is great, but does has its drawbacks. It is an awful lot like paper, but is hard to print on using normal printing techinques. Doesn't fold well, and is quite expensive. The ink tends to bleed if not stored properly, and due to the nature of the paper people love to try and break it either by soaking it or by tearing it. A few good points on the paper: very strong, waterproof, great entertainment, and one can't discount the wow factor of being able to dunk paper under water.
People have been doing this with topo maps for years. And they use recycled milk cartons for the plastic. So it is better for the environment than paper maps. Not much new here.
If it were for toddlers then this wouldn't be news at all...
When I was little I remember reading verious Seseme Street books that were made of fluffy plastic stuff so you could take them in the tub.
Great. I see two problems. My books will have odd stretch marks making text funky.
My second hand textbooks will be intentionally stretched as pranks by their prior owners.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
That 'old sent' is from the books rotting... heh
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Was a room-mate of mine when she edited that first anthology (Aqua Erotica). She does most of her work online and has quite the full web page here and talks about this book here. Note that she says "So far, I've had reports that the book is not proof against wine or beer, but stands up well to urine."
Also note that this is erotica, not porn. The pictures are more artful than explicit. It generally appeals more to women than men.
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Seeing as we've sold about two of these per month in the last couple of years, I'd hardly call this a revolution in publishing. Really, it just seems like another gimmick.
With all the hoopla over e-books and print-on-demand books, both of which are better and more innovative ideas than the aqua book, they represent a small fraction of what people actually buy. I happen to prefer computer books in the electronic format, such as the O'Reilly bookshelves, but I'm in the distinct minority. Most people have a definite preference for the dead tree version, and thats something I don't see changing for a long time.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Espectly for Text books that dont go out of date often. School books take a lot of abuse by student even Colege Students. Depending of fasion or stupid schools rules students cary multable books by there hands all days and they are those rainy days dropping into puddles. Or with back packs in a rush being put in the pack in the wrong way terring a page. Spilt Soda-Pop (Pick one of those words for your location) on the book during studieing and homework. With those books taking all this abuse and with them being able to take the abuse allows the books to be used for more year and for college students giving them a higher resale value at the end of the semester.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The point of waterproof books is so that you can read in the bathtub. Or read in the rain at a bus stop. You can keep textbooks for schoolchildren for more years. Durability, durability, durability. And that old book scent is mostly dust mites. While
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
Even if the conditon is 'like new', I'm still not buying someone's old edition of 'Aqua Erotica: 18 Stories for a Steamy Bath'...
.. my first thought was for "field guides" for the natural sciences. I have had a life long interest in wildcrafting and survival/preparedness issues, and durable waterproof books would be a *really good thing* for those subjects. Paper based books are too wussy and delicate for field use, and the semi-waterproof alternatives are very $pendy right now.
E-Books are a lot less waterproof.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
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???
There is no sig...
How do you print on this stuff? Printing on a core sheet and then laminating or coating it has been used for decades, and that's no problem. Printing on the surface of plastic is hard. Most plastic containers have paper labels. Come up with a high-speed, good-quality process for printing on plastics and the packaging industry will rush to your door.
You mean they have things inside them?
How do you cut through the Lucite shell?
Comics too?
Amazing!
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
I don't know about anyone else, but I write in my books with pencil, pen, and highlighter to mark important sections, etc. This waterproof book would make that much, much harder to do unless I used a permanent marker. Though there are certainly some speciality applications for this -- I'm sure that mariners will love that their shipboard library is much safer -- just what's the purpose of a waterproof book anyway? For the general public, that is. (Of course, I'm sure all the numbnuts that have made posts about pr0n will have to reply.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Got a use for you, albeit a sort of silly one. I own one of these durabooks; it's a collection of water-based erotica. It's done as a durabook so you can read it in the bathtub (or hot tub, or pool) without damaging it, even if you errrrr, splash about a bit.
"I can think of several uses to this kind of technology. Cookbooks for one always get things spilled on them."
Yeah, I can't wait for Maxim to use this technology either.
"Derp de derp."
Mohanraj said the book's pages withstand not only bath water, but also bodily fluids and sex oils. Wine, however, will stain the pages.
So they're not really stain-resistant; I imagine other things will stain the pages while cooking. It looks like these were made with one principle purpose, and it wasn't cooking. (Note that one of the books in the article is an erotica collection).
I've heard a lot of people post about uses in very dirty environments (autoshops, airplane hangers, etc), but another use I know of is scuba diving. Specifically, technical divers will bring paperback books with them so the have something to pass the time during decompression stops, which can last 4 hours or more. Paperback books work fine but only one-way: they bring em down, and read them underwater while tearing out and tossing pages as they read. But once you bring them to the surface, the book is useless- the thin paper is impossible to separate.
Now, I don't see a large market out there just for tech divers. But there could be some very handy things for everyday divers, for which there's a large market.
J
Talk to any military or police sniper, and ask to see their rifle data/log book (they ALL have one. If they don't, you are probably talking to a wanna-be). Odds are, it'll be printed on waterproof paper.
Check out this website if you really MUST have one of your very own: Check the store/accessories section
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Even back in the 1980's the military was using Tyvek from DuPont for important operating manuals. Really tough stuff, stain resistant and tough to tear.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I work in a bookstore, and the Aqua Erotica books mentioned in the article have sold very well for us. When the books first arrived this summer, we at the store thought the whole concept of having a water-proof book was interesting and decided to test it out. We took a small round fishbowl and filled it with water, submerging the book inside. This was left on the counter right in front of the register, and resulted in many impulse buys. The buyers tended to be owners of pools, hottubs, or the kind of people who spend a lot of time in the tub. Now we have another series of waterproof books on display, and these are scaled and shaped like a bar of soap, so they fit right into the soap dish in your tub.
I think that the waterproof book idea has the potential to really take off. I wouldn't be suprised to see that populist paperback fare known as "beach books" being offered in waterproof form in a few years. Not the entire printing, but waterproof books might fill a niche with a size and scope comperable to that of large-print books.
The aircraft checklists I've been using for the last few years are no longer printed on paper, rather a material that sounds just like this. It can be written on, is slightly flame resistant, is water and oil resistant, and it tears/cuts like plastic (stretches unless you cut it first.)
We've probably saved a few million bucks going to this stuff in addition to saving trees and not having to buy hundreds of thousands of plastic page protectors that we used to need. Except for not being able to use it for toilet paper in extreme cases of airborn intestinal distress (ewww), I haven't found any drawbacks to the stuff.
Who else immeditly clicked the link to Aqua Erotica?
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
How would this work for money bills?
From what I read, the current paper in Euro bills can stand being accidentally left in a pocket while washing clothes, so maybe it's not needed.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu