Around the Web: Print Peril. Offline Onion. Toxic Tomes. Glass Guests. Inside Instruments. Plane Probe. Milk Mystery. Chicken Channel. Rice Room.

Publish and Perish

It’s an outdated story. A tragic story, however an outdated story. Somebody founds a extremely influential and profitable know-how journal (in print) and ultimately know-how itself kills off the journal that promoted it. What number of of you bear in mind Byte journal? PC? Macworld? Most of the doorstop-thick know-how magazines of the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties are gone, changed by Web information websites and editorial budgets a fraction of these of the print editions.

By way of The Guardian, and an article written by the journal’s founder, the newest casualty is {a magazine} known as Sound & Imaginative and prescient.

Sound & Imaginative and prescient as soon as commanded respect. Sony, Netflix, even 60 Minutes all visited the journal’s forty fifth flooring places of work north of Occasions Sq.. Apple hand-delivered its first iPod to the journal to get the opinion of technical editors earlier than the corporate had even introduced the game-changing product. I had the great fortune to jog across the Central Park Reservoir with a thousand tunes in my pocket when individuals had been nonetheless carrying cassette gamers and radios.

The corporate that at present owns the journal has pulled the plug on the print version, which will likely be discontinued after the October/November situation. The web version will proceed.

In an announcement, Sound & Imaginative and prescient’s editor, Mark Henninger, stated: “Shifting Sound & Imaginative and prescient to a digital-only format is about extra than simply adapting – it’s about thriving. Our readers demand immediacy and comfort, and this transfer lets us ship the high-quality content material they count on with out the delays and limitations of print. Whereas we’re pleased with our print legacy, it’s time to embrace the long run and make sure that Sound & Imaginative and prescient stays on the forefront of the business, proper the place our viewers wants us.”

Sound & Imaginative and prescient was born in 1999 from the mix of Stereo Assessment (to which we subscribed within the Nineteen Eighties) and the newer Video. The journal was retooled to make the most of the rising “residence theater” growth.

Points commonly exceeded 178 pages, typically reaching 200, with plenty of full-page promoting purchased by the most important shopper electronics corporations in anticipation that Individuals would substitute their standard cathode ray tubes with high-definition televisions and flat screens. 

However we are able to guess how this went.

Sadly, even magazines about know-how weren’t immune from the dramatic shift from print to pixels. S&V’s most up-to-date situation, August/September, contained 76 pages, together with solely 12 full pages of promoting. By the screen-based distributor Zinio, S&V made facsimiles of its print pages out there for obtain on telephones and tablets for these keen to pay one other subscription. However a lot of the content material appeared without cost on soundandvision.com after it had appeared in print. {A magazine} priced on the newsstand for $7.99 a replica may hardly compete with the identical writer’s free content material. In addition to, discovering a newsstand carrying precise magazines had grow to be almost not possible.

Certainly.

Onion Roles

Effectively, OK, possibly print publishing isn’t lifeless. And whereas this isn’t a headline from The Onion, it’s really about The Onion. From the New York Occasions:

No Joke: The Onion Thinks Print Is the Way forward for Media

A few of us did commonly choose up the print version within the Nineties.

This week, The Onion started distributing a print version for the primary time in additional than a decade and can quickly ship it month-to-month to everybody who subscribes to its website. The transfer is a throwback to the publication’s roots as a campus weekly within the late Nineteen Eighties.

The print version is designed to be a “perk” to enchantment to subscribers of its digital content material ($5 a month—sure, we simply subscribed).

The corporate plans to supply invitations to reside occasions, entry to The Onion’s archive of bodily papers and sponsorship of bold editorial initiatives, comparable to a video titled “The Good One-Pot, Six-Pan, 10-Wok, 25-Baking-Sheet Dinner,” Mr. Collins stated.

Truly, our introduction to The Onion was by randomly coming throughout the Onion ebook Our Dumb Century, one of many funniest and most good books ever printed, in a bookstore circa 1999 or so. (It’s now on-line and stays as humorous because it was 25 years in the past.)

Mr. LaFlure stated he hoped the print newspaper would attain a youthful era of customers who had already begun to indicate some affinity for analog substitutes of digital merchandise.

“I believe for a similar cause that 18-year-old children are shopping for Taylor Swift on vinyl,” Mr. LaFlure stated, “we are able to introduce those self same children to the notion {that a} print publication is a a lot richer solution to eat media.”

Let’s hope the gambit pays off.

Judging a E-book By Its Cowl Chemical substances

Once we take into consideration “harmful books,” we often take into consideration the concepts they comprise as being harmful, not less than to some individuals. However really sure books pose one other sort of hazard: it seems that books produced within the Victorian period contained poisonous dyes and different supplies. Says Ars Technica:

In April, the Nationwide Library of France eliminated 4 nineteenth century books, all printed in Nice Britain, from its cabinets as a result of the covers had been probably laced with arsenic. The books have been positioned in quarantine for additional evaluation to find out precisely how a lot arsenic is current. It is a part of an ongoing world effort to check cloth-bound books from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the frequent observe of utilizing poisonous dyes throughout that interval.

Wasn’t one thing like this a serious plot level in Umberto Eco’s Identify of the Rose?

There’s additionally an ongoing initiative on the College of Delaware known as the Poison E-book Mission that was launched to investigate all of the Victorian-era books within the Winterthur Museum’s ebook assortment. Initially, they had been on the lookout for an arsenic compound known as cooper acetoarsenite, an emerald inexperienced pigment that was extremely popular on the time and used to dye wallpaper, clothes, and ebook covers. In addition they discovered ebook covers dyed with chrome yellow (lead chromate) and the venture’s scope was expanded.

The Poison E-book Mission is ongoing, however 50 p.c of the nineteenth century cloth-case bindings examined to date comprise lead within the material throughout a variety of colours, in addition to different extremely poisonous heavy metals: arsenic, chromium, and mercury.

… Ranges had been particularly excessive in these bindings that comprise chrome yellow. Nonetheless, the venture researchers additionally decided that, for the second not less than, the chromium and lead in chrome yellow dyed ebook covers are nonetheless sure to the material. The emerald inexperienced pigment, however, is extremely “friable,” which means that the particles break aside below even small quantities of stress or friction, like rubbing or brushing up towards the floor—and that pigment mud is hazardous to human well being, notably if inhaled.

So should you’re dealing with books from this period, remember to put on gloves.

Juiced

Right here’s one thing that we discovered shocking: glass bottles aren’t essentially the most sustainable possibility for drinks like juice. Researchers from the College of Amherst lately printed a research known as, “Unpacking Client Preferences: Perceptions and Sustainability of Packaging Materials for Orange Juice,” which ran within the journal Sustainability. Whereas they acknowledge that customers have a tendency to think about glass as essentially the most sustainable packaging possibility, should you take a look at its total life cycle, different supplies even have the higher hand. Says Meals & Wine:

The workforce found this anomaly after it adopted the packaging cycle of glass, carton, aluminum, and plastic, discovering that although the sustainability of meals packaging varies by the kind of product, its dimension and weight, and several other different variables, for single-serve orange juice, the carton is king. In actual fact, the research ranked plastic in second, adopted by canned, and eventually, glass in lifeless final. 

Final? However why?

the workforce discovered that the manufacturing and “end-of-life impacts of plastic” are lower than that of glass as “plastic is lighter and thus requires much less vitality to move.” Moreover, the research famous, “the aseptic sealing technique of plastic containers utilizing steam is much less vitality demanding than the retort system used for glass.”

… Whereas the research aimed to grasp shopper motivation when it comes to packing selections, the paper concluded, “Total, whereas packaging selections contribute to environmental outcomes, essentially the most impactful and sensible approach customers can contribute to sustainability efforts is to scale back or keep away from meals waste.” 

So as a substitute of shopping for orange juice, purchase oranges and squeeze your personal—after which eat the detritus.

Folks in Glass Accommodations Throw Stones

That is from the “what had been you anticipating?” file. From Boing Boing, the world’s most blatant headline: “Couple complains they felt ‘fully weak’ throughout keep in all-glass lodge room.”

Margaret and Corey Bienert had been excited for a free in a single day keep in a really particular room on the Paradiso Ibiza Artwork Lodge. The “Zero Suite” is completely glass and positioned within the foyer of the lodge.

 “We discovered the lights by no means flip off and also you’re principally on show all night time lengthy,” Margaret Bienert stated.

Effectively, duh! There’s a cause individuals don’t reside in aquaria.

Contained in the Music

Take a guess as to what this may be:

A nonetheless from a Fritz Lang film possibly?

Truly, by way of Core 77, it’s the inside the 1882 pipe organ at St. Marks Church in New Zealand.

And it wasn’t shot in a single take; Brooks makes use of surgical lenses related to high-resolution cameras, and this picture is the results of painstakingly stitching collectively 62 photographs of differing focal lengths.

The organ is only one instance of Brooks’ Structure in Music collection. It is a cello:

Try extra right here.

Sadly, Brooks’ studio was demolished in a flood, so to assist fund his relocation, he’s promoting prints at a 33% low cost.

Graphene In 3D

Was it an excellent week for graphene information? It’s all the time an excellent week for graphene information! Graphene-based 3D printing for use in residence development. From (who else?) Graphene-Data:

Versarien has announce that the Firm has entered right into a contract with Constructing For Humanity for Versarien to behave as a ‘print accomplice’ to assist Constructing For Humanity CIC, a group curiosity firm, with a variety of providers for its flagship Constitution Avenue venture in Accrington, Lancashire.  The contract, initially valued at roughly £200,000 will see Versarien offering 3D development printing (“3DCP”) enter in any respect phases of the venture, giving Constructing For Humanity a full service from design to development.

… Dr. Stephen Hodge, CEO of Versarien, commented: “We’re delighted to be supporting Constructing For Humanity’s Constitution Avenue venture utilizing modern 3DCP know-how. This initiative is the primary 3D housing development venture within the UK and one ideally suited to the providers we are able to present. This venture is a pivotal alternative to showcase Versarien’s capabilities in enabling low-carbon, environment friendly development options, exemplifying our dedication to innovation and sustainability.”

Protecting Up with The Jonesing

Have you ever ever questioned the place the phrase “jonesing” got here from (as in craving one thing)? No, nor have we. However should you’re jonesing for a solution, by way of Laughing Squid, Nigel Roxbury of New York Metropolis Historical past Hub traces it to Nice Jones Avenue, of the Bowery in New York’s East Village. Whereas right now is has among the costliest actual property within the metropolis, again within the Nineteen Sixties and 70s is was a really seedy neighborhood and largely residence to addicts of assorted varieties. Of us on the lookout for a repair used the time period “jonesin’” to check with discovering stated repair on Nice Jones Avenue.

These days it will in all probability check with seeking to head to an upscale vogue boutique or artwork museum.

See additionally the early and not-especially-good Don DeLillo novel Nice Jones Avenue.

Airplane Details

Right here’s a trivia query: who was the primary President to fly on Air Drive One? That’s to not be confused with who was the primary President to fly in an airplane (Teddy Roosevelt in 1910) or who was the primary President to fly in an airplane whereas in workplace (Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 whose Douglas Dolphin was the primary plane for use for Presidential journey). The US Air Drive itself wasn’t really created till 1947, by way of the Nationwide Safety Act of 1947—and President Harry S Truman signed it whereas really on a aircraft. The primary President to have an plane formally designated as “Air Drive One” was Dwight Eisenhower. One in every of a number of Lockheed C-121 Constellations utilized by Ike was named Columbine II. Says Wikipedia:

Columbine II is the primary aircraft to bear the name signal Air Drive One. This designation for the US Air Drive plane carrying the incumbent president was established after an incident in 1954, when Japanese Air Strains 8610, a industrial flight, crossed paths with Air Drive 8610, which was carrying President Eisenhower. Initially used informally, the designation turned official in 1962.

We point out this as a result of, by way of Atlas Obscura, the unique Columbine II was changed because the Presidential plane in 1959, was used as a industrial plane for a time, then apparently deserted, the place it languished within the Arizona desert for 60 years.

How did Columbine II wind up deserted within the desert? “The quick reply is, it obtained misplaced,” says Veronico. By 1968, the aircraft’s presidential paint job and lux accouterments had been lengthy gone. That mixed with what was probably a clerical error throughout stock obscured its predigious pedigree.

“Predigious”? Anyway, enter Karl Stoltzfus, former C.E.O. of the plane upkeep firm Dynamic Aviation, tracked down the aircraft after studying a neighborhood information story about it.

“Storage charges had been including up and the proprietor threatened to scrap it,” says Stoltzfus. “It was insufferable to assume {that a} priceless piece of American historical past may be was beer cans.”

He purchased it for $1.5 million and commenced the method of restoring it. It’s really now flightworthy, if not just a little nerve-wracking. In actual fact, we’d not be stunned if Southwest began utilizing it.

“Karl believed Columbine II may function a robust image that reached throughout generations and reminded us of the place we got here from and what we stand for,” says Douglas. “It was his dream to deliver this aircraft again to life and we’re decided to make that occur.”

Regardless, Don’t Cry Over It

Have you ever ever requested, can thunderstorms spoil milk? And never by knocking out the facility for a number of days and the milk going unhealthy within the fridge; no, the precise presence of a storm turning candy milk bitter. Seems like a loopy query to ask, however again within the pre-refrigerator period (i.e., virtually all of human historical past), this was an precise statement by dairy women and men. By way of Atlas Obscura:

it was as soon as extensively believed In each Europe and North America that thunderstorms may trigger contemporary milk to curdle, particularly in summer season. “On the time when it thunders, Beer, Milk, and so forth. flip sower [sour] within the Cellars,” Flemish alchemist Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont wrote in 1685. “The Thunder doth all over the place introduce corruption and putrefaction.”

For hundreds of years, scientists accepted the truth that it occurred and proposed all types of potential but unsatisfactory explanations—maybe it was resulting from decrease barometric stress of the ambiance; possibly lightning produces “a poison known as nitric acid” that seeps into milk and curdles it; possibly it was the presence of ozone that did…one thing. Experiments involving passing a present by means of milk did not trigger any curdling, so electrical energy was dominated out. Everybody was at a loss. However, as individuals began to study extra about microbiology, micro organism was regarded as the perpetrator.

The primary scientist to posit micro organism as the true connection between storms and spoiled milk might have been Aaron L. Treadwell, whose personal experiment was described in Science in 1891. If some chemical or cost in a stormy sky had been the reason for bitter milk, Treadwell reasoned that it ought to have an effect on sterilized and unsterilized milk equally. Nonetheless, he discovered that after publicity to simulated storm circumstances, pasteurized milk curdled lower than uncooked milk contemporary from the cow. “It appears to me probably,” Treadwell wrote, “that no matter speedy souring happens is because of an unusually speedy development of micro organism, brought on by particularly favorable circumstances of the ambiance.”

Different researchers pursued the micro organism angle.

By 1927, Edward Holyoke Farrington was presenting this clarification as a matter of reality in A Information to High quality in Dairy Merchandise, printed by the College of Wisconsin. “A thick, sultry ambiance often precedes thunder showers and offers favorable circumstances for the expansion of milk-souring micro organism,” Farrington wrote. 

Curiously, Treadwell’s and Farrington’s conclusions are nonetheless believed to be the case right now, not less than in keeping with a 2020 research printed within the German journal Chemistry in Our Time. Not everyone seems to be satisfied. However one cause we might imagine it’s a foolish query within the first place is that we’ve got little expertise with unpasteurized milk.

The idea that thunder curdles milk nonetheless persists in some rural areas the place uncooked milk is consumed, particularly amongst older generations. (A latest dialogue of the subject on Reddit was entitled “What was my grandma speaking about?”) Earlier than individuals had entry to refrigeration or knew about microbes, the proliferation of micro organism in unsterilized milk pails throughout a damp summer season storm appeared mystical.

Effectively, it used to.

Stream Mor Chikin

Effectively, that is…fascinating. Chick-fil-A—the quick meals chain—is seemingly launching a streaming service, for some cause. The emphasis goes to be on “household pleasant” programming, so there will likely be no fowl language. Says Ars Technica:

Chick-fil-A is reportedly notably concerned about unscripted exhibits. The poultry restaurant chain has a price range “within the vary of $400,000 per half-hour” for unscripted content material, Deadline stated. Chick-fil-A is already seeking to license an unnamed “family-friendly sport present” from the manufacturing firm that makes The Wall, a Chris Hardwick-hosted trivia sport present that airs on NBC, per Deadline.

That’s a poultry excuse for a programming schedule.

A quick-food firm getting into the video-streaming enterprise is an uncommon improvement. Meals supply corporations, like Grubhub and DoorDash, have been peddling bundled streaming packages together with their very own providers. However an organization recognized for fried rooster seeking to launch an authentic hit by itself streaming service is a brand new one for the streaming business.

On the plus facet, they in all probability gained’t be exhibiting Good Burger.

Snap, Crackle, and Sleep

Do you want Rice Krispies Treats? Would you base your complete inside décor on a Rice Krispies Deal with theme? Effectively, sure and no (in that order). But when you end up on Cape Cod on the Purple Jacket Seashore Resort, you’ll be able to keep within the Re-Deal with Suite, a room themed round RKTs. Says (who else?) Meals & Wine:

The Re-Deal with Suite…is an “immersive takeover of an enthralling suite impressed by our traditional snack and the nostalgia of summertime sleepovers, bringing followers contained in the scrumptious world of Rice Krispies Treats.”

And, curiously, it’s free.

The one caveat right here is that households have to be fast with their reserving fingers. There are solely 5, two-night, three-day stays out there within the suite now by means of the top of August. These can get one by visiting RiceKrispiesTreatsReTreat.com. (The suite can match as much as six friends, so make your listing of who else you want to ask alongside for the enjoyable after you ebook.)

Or to blackmail you.

Act quick: reserving ends on the finish of August.

This Week in Printing, Publishing, and Media Historical past

August 19

1631: English poet, literary critic, and playwright John Dryden born.

1646: English astronomer and tutorial John Flamsteed born.

1662: French mathematician, physicist, and thinker Blaise Pascal dies (b. 1623).

1839: The French authorities proclaims that Louis Daguerre’s photographic course of is a present “free to the world.”

1906: American inventor (the Fusor) Philo Farnsworth born.

1921: Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry born.

1939: English drummer and songwriter Ginger Baker born.

1964: Syncom 3, the primary geostationary communication satellite tv for pc, was launched.

1977: American comic and actor Groucho Marx dies (b. 1890).

August 20

1858: Charles Darwin first publishes his principle of evolution by means of pure choice in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace’s identical principle.

1882: Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.

1890: American quick story author, editor, novelist H. P. Lovecraft born.

1920: The primary industrial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.

1926: Japan’s public broadcasting firm, Nippon H?s? Ky?kai (NHK) is established.

August 21

1888: The primary profitable including machine in the USA is patented by William Seward Burroughs.

1952: English singer-songwriter and guitarist Joe Strummer born.

1961: Motown releases what can be its first #1 hit (in America), “Please Mr. Postman” by The Marvelettes.

2005: American businessman, based Moog Music Robert Moog dies (b. 1934).

August 22

1485: “A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” The Battle of Bosworth Subject, the demise of Richard III and the top of the Home of Plantagenet.

1849: The primary air raid in historical past. Austria launches pilotless balloons towards the town of Venice.

1862: French pianist and composer Claude Debussy born.

1893: American poet, quick story author, critic, and satirist Dorothy Parker born.

1902: Theodore Roosevelt turns into the primary President of the USA to make a public look in an car.

1920: American science fiction author and screenwriter Ray Bradbury born.

1971: American singer-songwriter and guitarist Craig Finn born.

August 23

1946: English drummer, songwriter, and producer Keith Moon born.

1966: Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the primary {photograph} of Earth from orbit across the Moon (not Keith).

1973: A financial institution theft gone incorrect in Stockholm, Sweden, turns right into a hostage disaster; over the subsequent 5 days the hostages start to sympathize with their captors, resulting in the time period “Stockholm syndrome.” (Some commerce exhibits are like that.)

1991: The World Vast Internet is opened to the general public.

August 24

1456: The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is accomplished.

1891: Thomas Edison patents the movement image digicam.

1995: Microsoft Home windows 95 is launched to the general public in North America.

1998: First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation is examined in the UK.

August 25

1609: Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.

1835: The primary Nice Moon Hoax article is printed in The New York Solar, asserting the invention of life and civilization on the Moon. (Nobody would ever fall for one thing like that right now.)

1867: English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday dies (b. 1791).

1900: German philologist, thinker, and critic Friedrich Nietzsche dies (b. 1844).

1954: English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Elvis Costello (né Declan MacManus) born.

1991: Linus Torvalds proclaims the primary model of what’s going to grow to be Linux.

2012: Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar area turning into the primary man-made object to take action.