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Technology

Waterproof Books 227

Posted by CmdrTaco from the break-out-the-bubble-bath dept.
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."
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Waterproof Books More

Waterproof Books

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  • Environment? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Sunday December 29, 2002 @11:43AM (#4976854) Homepage
    Cutting down trees is bad for the environment and all, but trees can be replanted. Wouldn't plastic resins and inorganic fibers be worse?
    • 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...

    • Re:Environment? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Charcharodon ( 611187 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @02:13PM (#4977613)
      You are right for the pulp fiction type of stuff, but I work on aircraft outside, around oil, hydro fluid, jet fuel, and the wind. Our job guides get destroyed very quickly. Our TO guy that maintains them all, replaces nearly 2000 pages a month. If we had what the above article mentioned our books would last a hell of a lot longer. I don't think they intended to replace all books with this process. Besides the ultra-conservative and the nazi types would be upset if you couldn't have a good ol' fashon book burning.
    • cutting down tree is as bad for the environment as cutting the field of crops for shipping off to the market. I'ts another one of those Greenpeace FUD packets that is driven into every childs mind as a fact when it is not.

      Cutting a forest down and NOT replanting it... is bad for the environment... cutting down a forest of Pine trees for making paper and replanting that pine forest with pine trees is not and in the long run MORE healthy for the environment. Old untouched forests are the ones that burn for months in the summer because of the tons of dead and dry matter in the forest floor. and a forest fire is worse to the environment than all of the SUV's in LA during the same time period.

      using a renewable resource is the best thing you can do to the planet.. anyone saying otherwise is spreading lies.
    • You can pry my books from my cold dead eyeballs. So, don't plan on recycling them anytime soon, paper or plastic. You can have my beer can when it's empty and not a moment before.
    • No. Plastic is made of a lot of carbon that came out of the ground. If you throw that carbon back into the ground, or use the thing made of plastic, that carbon doesn't get into the air where it can cause serious problems. i.e. destroy the Earth.

      So use plastic. Use it a lot. Oil that is used to make plastic WON'T get burned in a car.

  • Pr0n magazine application? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ender1598 ( 266355 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @11:44AM (#4976860)
    Let me guess... they'll next be applying this to make magazines more resistant to various bodily fluids!
    • Take a read though the article. They actually said that it was resistant to bodily fluids.

      From the article:
      "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.

      So now if you shoot on your porn you can wash it off, and the pages won't get stuck together. Teenagers everywhere rejoice!
      Someone please tell me, why there was actually research money sink into this?

  • Wait... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by VistaBoy ( 570995 )
    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!

    • Re:Wait... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      how about putting it in a public place where they are normally torn, damaged, or completely destroyed?

      The fact that the pages do not tear like normal books (phonebooks come to mind) would be a great alternative to their current state where most pages are missing.

      Not everyone has a wireless Internet connected iPaq on the road.

    • Re:Wait... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by droid_rage ( 535157 )
      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.

    • Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by printman ( 54032 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:04PM (#4976968) Homepage
      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.
      • Yeah but according to the article:


        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).

    • What exactly is the POINT of a waterproof book?


      The driver for this technology, like most things, is pr0n. The article (which you read, right?) mentions masturbation in the bathtub with the book, etc.
      • 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.
        • Don't forget that a major consumer push for bandwidth has been for streaming (steaming?) video, alongside warez and mp3s. And what kind of video? Not CNN News or ESPN Sports or a movie rental website, that's for sure!
        • Waterproof keyboards: no sticky keys!

          Well, since you made me remember it, I'll share.
          Back in high-school autoshop we had a computer for tech-manuals. Of course greasy fingers and keyboards are a problem. But, some inventive person had come up with a solution, a plastic key cover. Which we all called:
          A keyboard condom.
          Sticky key problem solved.

    • I guess they'd last longer than paper books too, and resistant to those little silver bugs. Imagine books that could last longer than they currently can, so people in the distant future can still read ancient books as they are still intact.

    • Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jman11 ( 248563 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:22PM (#4977078)
      It must just be me, but I can think of a quite a few uses for waterproof books, although some of these are more for cheaply available waterproof paper I'm sure the technique can be adapted.
      • Guidebooks for campers, trails, etc.
      • any book that people would reasonably want to take outdoors. I.e bird watching books, train spotters, etc.
      • Maps.
      • Emergency/First aid manuals.
      • Books needed on a boat, I'm sure the navy (and probably regular army too) would like to have some oftheir manuals waterproofed.
      • Porn, shudder

      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.


      • 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 [ironbrigadearmory.com]

      • I don't know about other countries, but the Canadian Forces released its 'The Warrior' combat readiness standards using the plastic resin paper. I've had it since 1994 and it has been through both hell and high water. On the inside cover it even says:

        This book is printed on high-tech, waterproof stock and is designed for both field and garrison use.

        Certainly one of the coolest books I've ever owned, and I appreciated it right away. Too bad they haven't done this for anything else since.

        As for the rifle log books alluded to in this post [slashdot.org], I've got one, but it is paper stock that seems to have a plastic or wax lamination on it.

    • I wouldn't under-rate flood recovery... If my house were flooded, I would like to preserve the deed to my house, my stock receipts, bank statements, my diploma... When I watch disaster shows on TV, the thing the survivors complain the most about losing is their photographs, years of memories gone...

      On the flipside, we don't have the full specs on this new type of "paper"... is it safe for 1-year-old kids to chew on (which they will)? does it biodegrade? We know that computer printer ink degrades in ~5 years, so how will this printing method hold up? Does it feel like paper or like celophane? Can I still get a paperback for $4.95?
    • Check out this book... not an affiliate link. I have it. Fully waterproof. Good for hot tubs. amazon link [amazon.com]
    • I guess you've never gotten rained on? Never had anything spilled on a book of yours? Never tried to take a book to the beach?

      I always hate it when a book gets all wrinkly because it got wet somehow.
    • That 'old sent' is from the books rotting... heh

    • 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
      • You can keep textbooks for schoolchildren for more years.

        In my experience, schoolbooks are kept too long as it is (or they were when I was a nipper). The slow yet reliable processes of juvenile destruction might just be the only thing that insures schools ever upgrade to new texts.

        Think of the Children!

    • Re:Wait... (Score:3, Informative)

      by StarFace ( 13336 )
      I have used waterproof books before, and they come in awfully handy in some situations. Try surveying a twenty acre plot of property in the rain with a regular notebook! They are useful for anyone who works in a high moisture area that needs to take exhaustive notes. For recreation they have plenty of uses as well: Bird watching, hunting, and mountain climbing to name a few. They also make more heavy duty notebooks and special pens for writing underwater, a priceless ability when scuba diving for fun or work -- anyone who has fumbled around with a grease pen and a plastic tablet knows that. Then you've got people like me who are ardent journalists, but also like walking in the rain. Nothing is more annoying than being 30 minutes from any sort of shelter with several paragraphs of thought you'd like to get down. There are also some field guides that are published as waterproof. It is kind of annoying when your survival guide gets drenched and ripped apart in the bottom of a backpack after a spill.

      The problem is that the process is typically much more expensive than making regular paper. Also, I haven't used this new stuff, but the old techniques produce very thick stock. The kind I use is actually made from tightly weaved textiles and laminates. This makes it okay for a 40 page technical notebook, but somewhat unweildy for larger volumes. You won't see anyone making "flood-proof" books on a large scale any time soon. They would be awfully heavy, bulky, and expensive. It would honestly just be cheaper to buy a second copy after the first one is destroyed.

    • 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
    • What exactly is the POINT of a waterproof book?

      Here's an idea: spend 5 seconds looking at the article before posting to slashdot.

  • We'll be reading the dead oil well version

  • Just imagine (Score:3, Funny)

    by Martigan80 ( 305400 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @11:50AM (#4976900) Journal
    What this can do to Porn Mags!!!

  • good and bad (Score:2, Insightful)

    by enos ( 627034 )
    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.

  • Rub a dub dub? (Score:3, Funny)

    by MadFarmAnimalz ( 460972 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @11:58AM (#4976939) Homepage
    "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?
  • Among the books printed with the new technology are Aqua Erotica and Wet More Aqua Erotica, anthologies of erotic fiction.
    Well ... that definately fits my .sig ...
  • First comes hardback, and if the book is successful enough, they'll release a paperback version. And now, if a paperback is successful enough, they'll release the plastic-back. Sounds like a good idea to me.

    In most cases, there probably isn't a good ROI on releasing the "plastic-back"s. But these types of books might work well:

    • The Bathroom reader series.
    • Kid's books.
    • Reference books (that have a lot of regular use).
    • Porn (duh). And if you could stretch the porn, that could be interesting.

  • I am sooooooo tired of plastic!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AyeRoxor! ( 471669 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:12PM (#4977024) Journal
    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.
    • 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...
    • You do know that not a while ago Reader's Digest had an interesting article about recycling, and how the amount of energy put into recycling certain materials (they covered pop cans and milk bottles, but I'm sure it applies to plastic) comes from places that, when worked out, pollute more per item recycled than the original manufacturer did making it.

      So, next time you throw all your stuff into the recycling bin, think not only of how great it will be that the landfill is half the size, but of much smog you might, or might not produce.

      >Every time you throw away something made of plastic or metal or anything else non-biodegradable, you are demonstrating your ignorance.

      Dude, it's really not a good way to get people on your side to call them ignorant. As you can see, I've reasearched this issue, and, depending on how the city gets its power, sometimes I'd rather just crush the can and throw it in the trash.

      It all depends on what the source of energy is and the efficiency level of the recycling plant as to wether it's worth it or not. And sometimes it isn't. Although aluminum recycling isn't a bad bet, sometimes plastics and glass aren't worth the effort.

      FWIW, recycling aluminum is about 95% efficient (always worth the effort), plastic between 30% and 80% efficienct (I suppose the tech. is still pretty new for this), glass about 20% to 30% efficient, and paper about the same.

      In other words, if that plastic bottle was made by hydro-power, or another "good" source of power, yet your city runs on coal/gas power, do your lungs a favour and throw the thing away.
    • And what's worse, is alot of plastic isn't recyclable [ecologycenter.org].

      You have a yogurt container that says #1, and a green plastic strawberry container which also says #1, but they are actually two different kinds of plastic.

  • The Point (Score:4, Informative)

    by jACL ( 75401 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:16PM (#4977035)
    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 [slashdot.org].
    • It has been explained to me that plastics also have some sort of recycling limit. I can't remember why though. Probably something to do with crosslinked polymers. I think we'll see more and more of this plastic paper though. It will be the stepping stone between paper and e-paper.
    • You can't recycle plastic at all. You can burn it, but you can't recycle it any better than paper. Recycled plastic, at best, can be used to make some solid park benches or something, but it can't be re-used as plastic. Besides, plastic can't grow out of the ground, unlike trees. You have to make it from oil.

    • Re:The Point (Score:3, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
      Big deal, so a book can only make it through once or twice, as a book. However, it can be burned and the carbon released, it will eventually find its way back into trees, and be made into books again.

      It's not like we cut down old growth to make paper, at this point paper is all (or almost all) made from trees grown for the purpose. Then you do get into the issues of soil depletion and erosion, and they are real issues, but you didn't even raise them. Actually, a great deal of low-quality paper (such as that found in paperback books) is actually a "wood byproduct", meaning it's made out of sawdust.

      Plastic is cool stuff, it's good for a lot of things, but I think the actual point here is to make a more versatile book. There have been relatively few advances in book technology in the last hundred years, I think that's a fairly safe statement. Printing has come a long way, and book binding I am sure is cheaper and more efficient but what we have is basically a bunch of paper glued together, and the e-book which doesn't even do all the things a paper book does yet, a totally different approach to the same basic problem which nonetheless has plenty of shortcomings.

      The primary point is (I hope) to make a waterproof book. Any benefits from the fact that it happens to be made out of plastic are, I think, incidental. If not, it's a solution looking for a problem, and not quite finding one.

  • 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.
  • From the article : "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."

    So...are they talking the "Oh-face" dropping of the book or the "OHMYGODWHATAREYOUDOINGINHERE?!?!" dropping of the book?


  • 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
  • From the article [wired.com]:
    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.
  • 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.

  • books aren't dying. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by _outcat_ ( 111636 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:44PM (#4977187) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • Paper books suck. The only real advantages they have over ebooks are that they are rugged, you can annotate with a pencil, and they are here now.

      On the other hand an electronic text is (potentially) device independent, (sometimes) backlit, and it is searchable. I don't know if ebook devices annotate or not; they ought to if they don't. Perhaps some do?

      The e-paper as you describe it will almost take nanoscale engineering to pull off. It might be possible using some sort of intelligent deposits in the paper and with some sort of intelligent binding which can remember the state of each row on the page, spitting the information into the page sideways to reprogram it, but once the paper becomes too creased it will stop working. The current e-paper requires a conductive grid behind the page, and I seem to recall it was about 150 dpi, which is not quite good enough; I think somewhere around 300 is really the reasonable limit. I want to avoid eye strain. On a LCD screen your eye can pick out the individual pixels (I hope it can anyway) but fuzzy letters tend to annoy.

      Honestly we'll be better off with a PDA in a light alloy case, with a large color display, and some future battery technology. Perhaps fuel cells or microturbines, or... well who knows what else. But I think we'll be able to pull the star trek-style PADD off long before we have self-reprinting 50 page ebooks which are inexpensive and effective.

  • Books are great, but what I want is a bathtop computer.
  • 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)

  • Fireproof Books (Score:4, Funny)

    by Derling Whirvish ( 636322 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @01:10PM (#4977317) Journal
    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.

  • Plastic books are endlessly recycleable (Score:5, Informative)

    by Logic Bomb ( 122875 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @01:32PM (#4977423)
    Sadly, the Wired article totally misses the real point of plastic polymer-based books: the material can endlessly be turned into new books without any loss of material quality. Typically, "recycled" paper is "downcycled"; each time it gets remade it becomes more off-color, less usefully absorbent of ink, etc. With these plastic books, using either a chemical catalyst (which means the chemical is not wasted but recovered and useable again) or an extremely hot water bath (hotter than the tub at home), the plastic can be reliquidized, the ink separated, and a brand-new book created without harvesting new materials. This is extremely eco-efficient. Not to mention that the finished product, as Wired notes (sigh), is far more durable than the traditional paper format.

    About 7 months ago I did a book review for Slashdot of Cradle to Cradle [slashdot.org] 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.")

  • A few comments on the "Paper" (Score:3, Informative)

    by kendric ( 634134 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @01:40PM (#4977457)
    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.
  • .. stretch instead of tearing...


    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.
  • 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 [mamohanraj.com] and talks about this book here [mamohanraj.com]. 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.

  • Not Exactly New (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pinball Wizard ( 161942 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @02:01PM (#4977546) Homepage Journal
    We've had a display of Aqua Erotica in our bookstore since it was published, over two years ago. For some reason, I thought the goldfish bowl was our idea(our display looks exactly like the one in this picture [mamohanraj.com]), but apparently not.

    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.

    • Normally I prefer dead tree version because of poor indexing or navigation in E-Book form. It is also much easier to read a book looking down on a seperate page[than my monitor], one that isnt backlit or just plain throwing light at my eyes.
      If I had an E-Reader or something, I might use them, but the technology to deliver an enjoyable E-reading experience just isnt availible yet. Once we have E-Paper, I can just crack open a Tome of Everything, tape the corner of a page before I close the book, and always open right up to that page in the future. Then instead of actually turning the pages, I can just have the pages move around the book. E-Paper has the benifits of being electronic while still being able to be carried off to another room.

      I hope they make it waterproof.
  • 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.

  • Scuba Divers (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vonkoster ( 554107 )
    I am an avid scuba diver who does some pretty interesting long underwater dives. When your deco gets to be in the hour range there really is only so much you can do. I have often in the past brought magazines down to do my deco stops with (they only last about 2 hours though and 1 dive) and when you run into a 4+ hour deco stop it would sure be nice to read a good book.

  • How does printing work? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @03:16PM (#4977889) Homepage
    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!

  • 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.)

  • Even back in the 1980's the military was using Tyvek [tyvek.com] from DuPont for important operating manuals. Really tough stuff, stain resistant and tough to tear.
  • I know the title is gramatically painful, but bear with me.

    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 [mamohanraj.com]?

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