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

Through 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 ground workplaces 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 nice fortune to jog across the Central Park Reservoir with a thousand tunes in my pocket when folks have been nonetheless carrying cassette gamers and radios.

The corporate that presently owns the journal has pulled the plug on the print version, which might be discontinued after the October/November challenge. The net version will proceed.

In a press release, 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 happy 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 trade, 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 Eighties) and the newer Video. The journal was retooled to reap the benefits of the rising “dwelling theater” growth.

Points commonly exceeded 178 pages, generally reaching 200, with numerous full-page promoting purchased by the main client electronics firms in anticipation that Individuals would substitute their standard cathode ray tubes with high-definition televisions and flat screens. 

However we will 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 challenge, August/September, contained 76 pages, together with solely 12 full pages of promoting. By means of the screen-based distributor Zinio, S&V made facsimiles of its print pages accessible for obtain on telephones and tablets for these keen to pay one other subscription. However a lot of the content material appeared at no cost on soundandvision.com after it had appeared in print. {A magazine} priced on the newsstand for $7.99 a duplicate may hardly compete with the identical writer’s free content material. Moreover, discovering a newsstand carrying precise magazines had turn out to be practically not possible.

Certainly.

Onion Roles

Nicely, OK, perhaps print publishing isn’t useless. 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 Nineteen 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 web site. The transfer is a throwback to the publication’s roots as a campus weekly within the late Eighties.

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

The corporate plans to supply invitations to stay occasions, entry to The Onion’s archive of bodily papers and sponsorship of formidable editorial initiatives, reminiscent of 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 sensible books ever revealed, 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 technology of shoppers who had already begun to point out some affinity for analog substitutes of digital merchandise.

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

Let’s hope the gambit pays off.

Judging a Guide By Its Cowl Chemical substances

Once we take into consideration “harmful books,” we normally take into consideration the concepts they include as being harmful, not less than to some folks. However really sure books pose one other type 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 revealed in Nice Britain, from its cabinets as a result of the covers have been seemingly 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 widespread apply of utilizing poisonous dyes throughout that interval.

Wasn’t one thing like this a significant 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 Guide Venture that was launched to research all of the Victorian-era books within the Winterthur Museum’s ebook assortment. Initially, they have been in search of an arsenic compound known as cooper acetoarsenite, an emerald inexperienced pigment that was highly regarded 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 challenge’s scope was expanded.

The Poison Guide Venture is ongoing, however 50 p.c of the nineteenth century cloth-case bindings examined up to now include lead within the material throughout a spread of colours, in addition to different extremely poisonous heavy metals: arsenic, chromium, and mercury.

… Ranges have been particularly excessive in these bindings that include chrome yellow. Nevertheless, the challenge 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 fabric. The emerald inexperienced pigment, then again, is extremely “friable,” which means that the particles break aside beneath 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 in the event you’re dealing with books from this period, make sure you put on gloves.

Juiced

Right here’s one thing that we discovered shocking: glass bottles are usually not probably the most sustainable possibility for drinks like juice. Researchers from the College of Amherst lately revealed a research known as, “Unpacking Shopper Preferences: Perceptions and Sustainability of Packaging Materials for Orange Juice,” which ran within the journal Sustainability. Whereas they acknowledge that buyers have a tendency to consider glass as probably the most sustainable packaging possibility, in the event you have a look at its total life cycle, different supplies even have the higher hand. Says Meals & Wine:

The staff 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 measurement and weight, and several other different variables, for single-serve orange juice, the carton is king. The truth is, the research ranked plastic in second, adopted by canned, and eventually, glass in useless final. 

Final? However why?

the staff 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 client motivation by way of packing selections, the paper concluded, “General, whereas packaging selections contribute to environmental outcomes, probably the most impactful and sensible method shoppers can contribute to sustainability efforts is to cut 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 have been you anticipating?” file. From Boing Boing, the world’s most evident headline: “Couple complains they felt ‘utterly susceptible’ throughout keep in all-glass resort room.”

Margaret and Corey Bienert have been excited for a free in a single day keep in a really particular room on the Paradiso Ibiza Artwork Resort. The “Zero Suite” is totally glass and situated within the foyer of the resort.

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

Nicely, duh! There’s a motive folks don’t stay in aquaria.

Contained in the Music

Take a guess as to what this is likely to be:

A nonetheless from a Fritz Lang film perhaps?

Truly, by way of Core 77, it’s the within 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 sequence. It is a cello:

Take a look at 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 a superb week for graphene information? It’s at all times a superb week for graphene information! Graphene-based 3D printing for use in dwelling development. From (who else?) Graphene-Information:

Versarien has announce that the Firm has entered right into a contract with Constructing For Humanity for Versarien to behave as a ‘print companion’ to help Constructing For Humanity CIC, a neighborhood curiosity firm, with a spread of companies for its flagship Constitution Road challenge in Accrington, Lancashire.  The contract, initially valued at roughly £200,000 will see Versarien offering 3D development printing (“3DCP”) enter in any respect levels of the challenge, 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 Road challenge utilizing modern 3DCP know-how. This initiative is the primary 3D housing development challenge within the UK and one ideally suited to the companies we will present. This challenge is a pivotal alternative to showcase Versarien’s capabilities in enabling low-carbon, environment friendly development options, exemplifying our dedication to innovation and sustainability.”

Maintaining 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 in the event 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 Road, of the Bowery in New York’s East Village. Whereas immediately is has a number of the most costly actual property within the metropolis, again within the Sixties and 70s is was a really seedy neighborhood and largely dwelling to addicts of assorted varieties. People in search of a repair used the time period “jonesin’” to seek advice from discovering stated repair on Nice Jones Road.

These days it might most likely seek advice from trying to head to an upscale trend boutique or artwork museum.

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

Airplane Information

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 Jap Air Traces 8610, a business 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 business 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 received misplaced,” says Veronico. By 1968, the aircraft’s presidential paint job and lux accouterments have been lengthy gone. That mixed with what was seemingly 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 have 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 is likely to be become beer cans.”

He purchased it for $1.5 million and started the method of restoring it. It’s really now flightworthy, if not a bit nerve-wracking. The truth is, we’d not be shocked 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 carry 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 ability for a number of days and the milk going dangerous within the fridge; no, the precise presence of a storm turning candy milk bitter. Feels 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 commentary by dairy women and men. Through Atlas Obscura:

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

For hundreds of years, scientists accepted the truth that it occurred and proposed all kinds of potential but unsatisfactory explanations—maybe it was as a result of decrease barometric stress of the ambiance; perhaps lightning produces “a poison known as nitric acid” that seeps into milk and curdles it; perhaps it was the presence of ozone that did…one thing. Experiments involving passing a present via milk didn’t trigger any curdling, so electrical energy was dominated out. Everybody was at a loss. However, as folks began to study extra about microbiology, micro organism was considered the offender.

The primary scientist to posit micro organism as the actual connection between storms and spoiled milk could have been Aaron L. Treadwell, whose personal experiment was described in Science in 1891. If some chemical or cost in a stormy sky have been the reason for bitter milk, Treadwell reasoned that it ought to have an effect on sterilized and unsterilized milk equally. Nevertheless, he discovered that after publicity to simulated storm circumstances, pasteurized milk curdled lower than uncooked milk recent from the cow. “It appears to me almost definitely,” Treadwell wrote, “that no matter speedy souring happens is because of an unusually speedy development of micro organism, attributable to 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 truth in A Information to High quality in Dairy Merchandise, revealed by the College of Wisconsin. “A thick, sultry ambiance normally precedes thunder showers and gives favorable circumstances for the expansion of milk-souring micro organism,” Farrington wrote. 

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

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

Nicely, it used to.

Stream Mor Chikin

Nicely, that is…attention-grabbing. Chick-fil-A—the quick meals chain—is outwardly launching a streaming service, for some motive. The emphasis goes to be on “household pleasant” programming, so there might be no fowl language. Says Ars Technica:

Chick-fil-A is reportedly notably enthusiastic 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 trying 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 coming into the video-streaming enterprise is an uncommon growth. Meals supply firms, like Grubhub and DoorDash, have been peddling bundled streaming packages together with their very own companies. However an organization identified for fried hen trying to launch an authentic hit by itself streaming service is a brand new one for the streaming trade.

On the plus facet, they most likely gained’t be exhibiting Good Burger.

Snap, Crackle, and Sleep

Do you want Rice Krispies Treats? Would you base your total inside décor on a Rice Krispies Deal with theme? Nicely, sure and no (in that order). But when you end up on Cape Cod on the Crimson 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 a captivating suite impressed by our basic 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 accessible within the suite now via the tip of August. These can get one by visiting RiceKrispiesTreatsReTreat.com. (The suite can match as much as six company, so make your listing of who else you would like 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 idea of evolution via pure choice in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace’s identical idea.

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

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

1920: The primary business 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 could 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 dying of Richard III and the tip 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 vehicle.

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 improper 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 Large 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 digital camera.

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 revealed in The New York Solar, asserting the invention of life and civilization on the Moon. (Nobody would ever fall for one thing like that immediately.)

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 turn out to be Linux.

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