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Popular Science Frees Its 137-Year Archives
DesScorp writes "Popular Science magazine has scanned every issue they've ever produced, and posted the archives at their website, at no charge. 'We've partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It's an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology's incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.'" First search: the history of the flying car.
"The entire point of organized science is to let anyone read"
Ya, but Popular Science, is about the popularization of existing research, not the nitty gritty of the research itself. Real science--peer review journals--are even more closed off than commercial magazines. Given science's reputation for free inquiry and openness, it's ironic that scientific publications are the last vestige of closed media in an increasingly open society.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
I bet the period advertisements alone will be priceless.
As much as we hate advertising on the web, there is definitely something to be said for ads as a window into history.
With so much content being dynamicly generated, we won't have period ads like we did with print.
Embedded advertising could solve this, and it wouldn't be a problem if it were done as still images and text analagous to a printed ad. Of course, online advertisers seem to have a habit of shooting themselves in the foot in this regard--the temptation to introduce obtrusive ads just ups the ante in the arms race.
Reading ads from pop sci might tell you that Ford has been in business for over 100 years. Reading web pages archived from today will tell you nothing of the sort. The ad will either be fetched and dynamicly generated (and thus be non-period) or it will be edited out by the archiver.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
was a 1974 cover of... Popular *Mechanics*, with an illustration of a Moller M400 taking off from someone's driveway.
But all you can do now is do a search. Only then you can select something you found and browse the magazine. It would be nice to be able to go to a certain issue and start browsing.
And all they need to do is index the IDs.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Relativity: June, 1914, page 434
Quantum mechanics: February 1927, page 22
Atomic bomb: October 1945, page 80
Integrated circuits: September 1966, page 96
Especially if Google provides it, as in this case.
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Google Books. No download link at sight.
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You probably won't though, will you?