-cvj

I’ve just emptied my snail-mail-box. Unbelievable what amount of spam adds up in 2 weeks. Since we were talking about going paperless: next to our mailbox-wall there is a huge trash bin. It was the same where I lived in CA, in AZ, and in many other places I’ve visited. I am pretty sure I am not the only one who just throws away all the ads that are distributed. It must be an enormous amount of paper each year that ends up completely unread in the garbage.

Now, why I wonder about this is: in Germany you can go buy a sticker saying ‘no ads please’ (Keine Werbung Bitte) and put it on your mailbox. These stickers you can buy in almost every grocery or supermarket or the like. If I recall that correctly, since a decade or so there is a law saying you can in principle sue a company that ignores the sticker and spams you, which means that it actually does work. If you want to make an exception for a certain newsletter, say, from your favourite store, they will usually provide you with a sticker saying ‘YES’ and their name, or a logo. Why haven’t I ever seen that in the US? It is simple, it works, it avoids annoyingly full mailboxes and a lot of unnecessary garbage.

Best,

B.

Artistic pulp figures, or designed fibre paper, depending on what kind of fibre you use, or reuse, makes for interesting items. Loosing the “craftsman” in this change, is like loosing part of what society had learnt and developed, requires a new breed of developers. No books or magazines? No newspapers.

Soft tissue we will always need unless you can make synthetic fibre that is soft enough woven into a mat and is sensitive to the skin.

I can speak from experience about intuitiveness developed in process controls, has now been overtaken by such technologies. Loosing that art form, and some may say how so, is part of change. It was hard to adjust.

No one thinks of the livelihoods attach to those things that will go by the wayside?

thanks for the links!

Hi spyder,

I think recycled plastic has it’s limitations, because it’s usually mixed up from various plastics that are basically glued together. I.e. used plastic is collected, shredded to pieces and pressed to new forms. The resulting stuff can usually not be formed arbitrarily good. It’s used mostly for fairly solid things for which also the color doesn’t matter much. Like benches, children’s playgrounds, outside furniture, stuff like that. I have my doubts it’s possible to use it yet for fine works. This would probably require that one separates all the various plastics very precisely as to their chemical composition. Best,

B.

I believe there’s nothing stopping you from taking a sharpie marker and scribbling on it. I don’t think that there’s any facility for removing that scribble though!

Seriously, I do think that some devices are including touch input, and maybe write input. Have a look at the iRex iLiad as an example. That device and the Sony Reader are using E-ink’s technology for displays, which is maybe a bit different from Plastic Logic’s (?). See also the Sony Librié, (bigger screen) which has been replaced by the Reader.

https://www.irexshop.com/product_info.php/products_id/28

http://www.eink.com/

http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/assets/itpd/reader/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librie

-cvj

I’ve also followed that for some while, and I’m really looking forward to it. I hope it actually looks like paper… I HATE reading on a screen. However, I wonder whether it comes with the option to scribble on it? And how carefully do you have to treat it? Best,

B.

I’ve seen a device using one of these screens. It’s just like reading paper. It is wonderful.

-cvj