[HN Gopher] Why do old books smell so good? ___________________________________________________________________ Why do old books smell so good? Author : conse_lad Score : 246 points Date : 2023-08-19 12:21 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (scienceswitch.com) (TXT) w3m dump (scienceswitch.com) | mimd wrote: | We just need a Franciscan friar with a melodious Scottish voice | and we're all set for a murder mystery. | djmips wrote: | My father worked in a paper mill and told me about the incredible | fact that artificial vanilla was a byproduct of the forest | industry! | | https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/vanilla_is_a_forest_industry_b... | OfSanguineFire wrote: | Nowadays I would be curious, and rather worried, about known | carcinogens in those old books. I remember buying in the 1990s a | fantasy trade paperback from Tor Books that had an enchanting | floral scent, such that I frequently stuck my nose into the book | while reading. I don't know if the publisher and author had | deliberately used certain paper or treated it with a certain | scent, or this was just a nice coincidence. But now I wonder if I | was just giving myself cancer from some chemical that was | considered innocuous at the time. | Aperocky wrote: | Everything is basically giving you cancer according to | California. | wheelerof4te wrote: | Especially Californians. | zwieback wrote: | "There's no cure, there's no answer, everything gives you | cancer!" One of the great Joe Jackson tunes. | agumonkey wrote: | Good point. In general pay attention to old stuff. Pathogens | can be chemical or organic. | | And indirectly, there seems to be agent spread on books you get | from amazon too. I have an old 80s english CS book that smells | too bad, so much i get a light headache. (not too far from what | you get from some made in china plastics). It may be anti-fugal | treatment. | 3cats-in-a-coat wrote: | Life causes cancer. Which causes death. Not living life also | causes death. In short, don't fret about it. Enjoy it while you | have it. | BoppreH wrote: | And I can enjoy life for longer if I don't live in a house | with lead paint or eat scraps of forget my teflon pan on the | stove. | | I dislike platitudes like these that don't acknowledge that | life is about tradeoffs, and sometimes a little caution gives | large rewards. | ghaff wrote: | Or deal with flaking paint in an old house--which | inevitably does have lead paint that has been painted over. | culturestate wrote: | _> eat scraps of Teflon from my pan_ | | I'm sure there's a doctor or a chemist in here who can | correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always understood Teflon | to be super-duper-ultra inert. They literally make arterial | grafts out of Teflon. | mallomarmeasle wrote: | Doctor-chemist here. You are correct. The carbon-fluorine | bond is very inert to metabolism. Ingested Teflon would | be almost entirely eliminated unchanged. | | Takes pretty harsh conditions to break Teflon, but | interestingly it can react with explosive violence, as I | have witnessed, when combined with small particle sized | Mg. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Why all the recent fuss about ingesting PFAS and "forever | chemicals" then? I thought Teflon is a kind of PFAS? | [deleted] | [deleted] | CrimsonRain wrote: | I think it is the glue or chemicals used to bind teflon | is the issue. | StackOverlord wrote: | > Birds are susceptible to a respiratory condition called | "teflon toxicity" or "PTFE poisoning/toxicosis." Deaths | can result from this condition, which is due to the | noxious fumes emitted from overheated cookware coated | with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). | culturestate wrote: | Sure, but _burning_ Teflon and inhaling the fumes is much | different from _eating_ pieces of Teflon that flake off | in your pan. Plenty of otherwise-harmless things are | suddenly _not_ harmless when you burn and inhale them. | xeromal wrote: | I think it is but I believe the rub is related to cooking | temp. You're not supposed to heat it above x (400F? not | sure) and it breaks down beyond that. | mardifoufs wrote: | Yes but treating everything like possible lead paint is a | sure way to live a miserable life. We need to be careful if | there is proof of harm, not assume that everything is | harmful. | BoppreH wrote: | That's a perfectly fine message, but the original post | had none of the necessary subtlety. If your life advice | could be used in a cigarette ad, you've diluted it too | far. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Immediately what I thought of was smoking cigarettes. | Enjoy life but educate yourself about what can extend it | and reduce it. Indulge (or not) with open eyes. | postalrat wrote: | Are you enjoying life? | BoppreH wrote: | No joke, I'm writing this comment from a sunbed at the | beach, watching the crystal clear water with loved ones | around and a dog nestled at my feet. | | Yes, I'm enjoying life, thanks for asking :) | Wowfunhappy wrote: | Sure, but you should also probably avoid asbestos. | navigate8310 wrote: | Don't you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, | filled with regret, waiting to die alone! | j4yav wrote: | Those lead paint chips aren't going to eat themselves, live | a little! | jjgreen wrote: | A friend of mine used to tell a story of when he was young, | and asked an elderly relative at a family do how old he | was, "67" he replied; "I wouldn't want to live to 67!", | "You would if you were 66". | pluijzer wrote: | I think I will not lie on my death bed regretting not | having lived in a lead painted house, not having smoked or | having showed some common sense. Also I think I will not be | alone because of it. | wheelerof4te wrote: | "Not living life also causes death." | | Well, if you sit around all day and don't move much, sure. | You will shorten your lifespan by a lot. | | Or you'll live long, boring life anyways since you have good | genes. Nothing in life is certain. | Dalewyn wrote: | There are two certain things in life: Death and taxes. | wizofaus wrote: | Yes but some forms of death are a good deal worse than | others. Many cancers in particular can be an awful way to go, | especially when it's happening with your full knowledge of | its inevitability and lack of ability to do anything about | it. I'm not going to give up something I enjoy (or even the | indirect benefits of using a particular substance) just to | live a few extra years, but if doing so significantly reduces | the chances of a drawn-out painful death, then there's surely | an alternative worth looking for. | Balgair wrote: | I've had a few close family members pass from cancer. I was a | caretaker during these times for them. Talking with them, | changing them (people are really heavy!), feeding them, | medicating them, bathing them, etc. We had very good hospice | support and paid a lot for it, but during the pandemic, | everything kinda went to shit, so it was up to me and a few | others most of that time. | | Dying of cancer is unique to every person and their cancer's | progression. But, from my own experiences, dying of cancer is | a _fucking horrible_ way to go. | | The pain is quite bad as it colonizes various nerve bundles | and organs. Morphine only does so much and wanes as the | person gets addicted to it and requires more and more to get | the numbing results. As such, your mind goes with the | morphine intake, a welcome relief really. You can lose | function in your limbs and bowels too, though not always. You | stop eating and drinking, but you don't stop thirst and | hunger. Death really does become a welcome relief after | enough weeks/months of this. Then there is the just normal | health hazards and pains of laying down and generating filth. | The rashes and sores, the muscle loss, the boredom. It's | quite horrible. And that's with loving family members helping | you at a moment's notice. One pro-tip here, if you can get a | death doula. | | Look, I get the sentiment here. Yes, live your life, don't | worry so much about how it's going to end. There's likely | nothing you could have done different anyway. Your end is | going to really suck, no matter what. Better to have it be | quick and as painless as possible. | | But, I do want to advocate for taking common sense measures | about carcinogen avoidance. Those are absolutely worth the | time and effort. Do not smoke, don't have lead paint in your | house, don't be stupid or lazy about getting these things | away from you. Your future self will be very thankful you did | that. I know, I've helped dying people who didn't. | meristohm wrote: | I've been reading So Much For That, by Lionel Shriver, and | the description of a slow decline due to mesothelioma has | much in common with your experiences. I've learned more in | the last week about what it might be like to have some of | the many forms of cancer than I ever knew before. | david_allison wrote: | Be especially cautious around emerald green books. There's a | possibility they contain arsenic | | http://wiki.winterthur.org/wiki/Poison_Book_Project | | https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/these-gre... | foobarian wrote: | And this gem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15624037 | bighoki2885000 wrote: | [dead] | sethammons wrote: | Every now and then you realize people have vastly different base | experiences. The smell of old books makes me crinkle my nose and | take shallower breaths. I don't like it. Old dust is what I think | of. Stale. My physical reaction has always made me assume it is | bad for your health. Maybe hints of mold? | rwl4 wrote: | Not to be THAT guy, but I'm getting a definite ChatGPTish | generative text feel from that article. The short sections, the | FAQ restating the details from the article three paragraphs ago, | etc. I hate to lead a witch hunt, but... | brookst wrote: | Does it matter, any more than it would matter if a human author | was a 10 year old or a Nobel laureate? | Matumio wrote: | Yes, the author's background matters when judging the value | of a text. A nobel laureate is usually correct about the | basics of their own field. I wouldn't trust a 10 year old | child's knowledge about poisons. Even though some 10 year old | child somewhere might know their poisons better than most | experts. | [deleted] | xp84 wrote: | I felt that the FAQs were definitely bolted on by an LLM. Maybe | they were trying to pad it out? | booleandilemma wrote: | Yeah the FAQ section was weird and unnecessary. I figured | it's some kind of SEO gimmick. | canvascritic wrote: | chatgpt vibes, huh? maybe the author's just a fan. or we're all | bots in disguise. plot twist! | | On a side note, i can't help but wonder if, in a few centuries, | someone will be analyzing the 'VOC' equivalent of old USB | sticks to determine which early 2000s computer they came from | 6stringmerc wrote: | Why really really old books smell so bad: | | In the scribe days in England when literacy was exclusive and the | texts and manuscripts were intricate and long-term artistic | endeavors... | | ...the most frequent sealant used was sheep urine. IIRC. | Basically there's a LOT of reasons to wear gloves and a mask in | the kind of places where they are stored for longevity. | | Source: Early-Middle English course taught by an Oxford Man. | TheAceOfHearts wrote: | AFAIK, this claim of requiring gloves when handling old and | rare books is an outdated misconception [0] [1]. | | [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/arts/rare-books-white- | glo... | | [1] https://ask.loc.gov/preservation/faq/337286 | 6stringmerc wrote: | I'm not saying anything is mandatory and tradition in the | English scholarship field is...curious. | | Source: inducted to Sigma Tau Delta last semester I think to | cover their ass if I do something great eventually. The only | STD i knowingly have. | fauria wrote: | Jordi Roca, pastry chef from 3 Michelin star restaurant El Celler | de Can Roca, designed a dessert based on the scent of old books. | | He captures that characteristic smell using a technique called | enfleurage, soaking an old book in a neutral fat and then | distilling it using a device called Rotaval. | | He then pours some drops on thin wafers that resemble book pages. | | Here is a short video describing the process: | https://youtube.com/shorts/zN2uHgX0rRA | Solvency wrote: | That's legitimately disgusting and incredibly unhealthy (on top | of being a dessert). The amount of chemical shit being imbued | into that is nightmare fuel. | grogenaut wrote: | Madam or sir we should chat about your strawberry flavoured | whatever... I'm sure you've accidentally or on purpose | ingested paper before and are alive. Saw | fauria wrote: | Do you have any source supporting that claim? | | Reading the article, the compounds mentioned (benzaldehyde, | vanillin, ethylbenzene and 2-ethyl hexanol) are either | already used by the food industry, or exhibit low toxicity in | animal models. | | Considering the tiniest amount of any of them is used, I | wouldn't describe the dish as "incredibly unhealthy". | ThrowawayR2 wrote: | Hate to break it to you but people literally soak alcohol in | wooden barrels for years in order to leach a multitude of | chemicals out of the wood just for the flavor. | [deleted] | spamizbad wrote: | Eh I'd eat it | switch007 wrote: | Is he...OK? There's eccentric and then there's needing help | fauria wrote: | Apart from suffering from dysphonia and as far as I know yes, | he is OK. He was awarded World's Best Pastry Chef in 2014 and | his restaurant has been awarded either best or second best | restaurant in the world by Restaurant Magazine (50 Best) 5 | years in a row. Not sure if he needs much help, to be honest. | switch007 wrote: | I wouldn't care if he won a Nobel Prize - dirty old books | sound like a disgusting ingredient to use. | __MatrixMan__ wrote: | There was movie about that process (though not with books): | "Perfume, the Story of a Murderer" | | I liked it. | mola wrote: | It's also a very engaging book | resbaloso wrote: | Not particularly appealing for someone dealing with the | [Marikio Aoki phenomenon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariko_ | Aoki_phenomenon). | | Walking into a library and smelling old books triggers the urge | to defecate for me. | JohnBooty wrote: | Wow, that's wild. Certain rooms do that to me. In the house | where I grew up it was the upstairs room. (It wasn't the | stairs themselves; no other stairs in the house did it) In | our current home it's the basement. Sadly those rooms are not | filled with books. | | I can't tell if it's a statistically real effect. I had | always told myself it was _not_ real, but having heard of | "Marikio Aoki" phenomenon for the first time just now, I'm | wondering... | qup wrote: | I have a workshop that I credit with the same effect. Every | trip to the workshop is at least two trips, because I'm | interrupted. | | Also I associate this with gambling, no matter the stakes | or the location, including locations that don't trigger any | response in different contexts (like my living room). | Tokumei-no-hito wrote: | This is an incredible wtf article. It's so absurd it has to | be real, I don't know how it could be made up. | PaulBGD_ wrote: | One data point, I've been affected by this for decades now. | I had no idea before the article that others experienced it | too. | croisillon wrote: | Well that's interesting, i was in a paper shop this afternoon | (i love paper shops), and i suddenly wanted to go to the | bathroom and realized it happens often there! | jjw1414 wrote: | "Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a | foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy. Lord, there | were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go". Ray | Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. After reading this as a kid, I always | found this to be true. In particular, the public library pulp | paperbacks on those rotating wire racks back in the 1980s. | lonetools wrote: | Apparently I wasn't the only one. | demondemidi wrote: | I never understood this. They smell like old attics. Or old | closets. Or, old people. None of which smell very good. I must | have that soap/cliantro gene but for books. | bigbacaloa wrote: | Old books don't smell good. They provoke allergies. | brandonmenc wrote: | My favorite scent maker sells one that captures this, and it's | pretty good: | | https://www.cbihateperfume.com/306 | jrmg wrote: | Ha! This post immediately made me think of this old gem: | | https://smellofbooks.com/ | | I'm glad someone made it real! | webnrrd2k wrote: | I wish the artical attempted to address the "good smell" part of | the title. | | I read this article and I didn't find it engaging... It lists | some of the chemicals that cause the small. It's no suprise that | there are aromatic chemicals that cause it. | | I would really like to know why they small _good_? Is it like | petrichor? Childhood experiences that influence my perception? | kortex wrote: | Vanillin, benzaldehyde, and 2-ethylhexanol are all found in | edible plants, and in particular, those three smell very good. | | Paper is wood pulp (natively comprising lignocellulose) where | the lignin has been broken down. The lignin breakdown products | are primarily polyphenols (the building blocks of lignin), | including vanillin and related compounds, which for whatever | reason smell really good to us. The smoky smell of wood char | and campfires? Polyphenols. | AltruisticGapHN wrote: | Always loved the smell of ink in books and graphic novels. Often | times the first thing I do when I have a new book is just open it | halfway and burry my nose in between the pages. Maybe it is a | fetish? Hmmm. Never thought of that. | | I also always enjoyed smelling the gas at gas stations when I was | a kid, would open the window. | | I do wonder if it's a psychological thing, or if there is really | some chemical substance that is slightly addictive. | fuzzfactor wrote: | >What chemicals cause that nostalgic old book smell? | | >Compounds like benzaldehyde, vanillin, ethylbenzene, and | 2-ethyl hexanol are often responsible for old book scents. | Benzaldehyde has an almond-like scent, vanillin smells like | vanilla, ethylbenzene is sweet and plastic-y, and 2-ethyl | hexanol is lightly floral. | | All of these are chemicals having very characteristic strong | odors in their pure form, and can be somewhat overwhelming. | | Ethylbenzene is an Aromatic hydrocarbon normally found in major | concentrations in some paints and thinners, and industrial | felt-tip markers containing the xylene-based inks which are | flammable, toxic and can make you dizzy breathing too much. | | 2-Ethylhexanol smells even worse, it's really rough. If you get | one drop on your foot, you're going to want to leave your shoes | outside when you get home. | | These kind of things just smell unique and are detectable in | such low concentrations, plus can form a type of barely | perceptible "bouquet" that imprints well enough to guide a | potential effort toward its elusive source. | | I would have to estimate the dose makes the poison like so many | other things. Freshly printed publications seem to have more | solvent offgassing than aged materials. | kortex wrote: | > 2-Ethylhexanol smells even worse, it's really rough. If you | get one drop on your foot, you're going to want to leave your | shoes outside when you get home. | | I find it really fascinating the differences in subjective | experience of various smells. Personally I find 2-EH to be | sweet, almost sickly sweet but not overpowering, floral and | vaguely fruity. It's not directly nice, like vanillin, but | it's not bad, like pyridine or butyric acid. | canvascritic wrote: | Lignin breaking down smells nice, sure. but let's not forget, old | books might be carrying mold spores that can trigger allergies or | worse. Not to mention asbestos which was used in bookbinding till | the 70s. | snvzz wrote: | _sniff_ _sniff_ | | i-is that a BOOK I smell? | | _sniff_ _sniff_ | | mmm yes I smell it! BOOKSMELL!!!! I smell a book! W-What is a | book doing here?!?! omygosh what am I gonna do?!?! THERE'S A BOOK | HERE! I'M FREAKING OUT SO MUCH!!!! calm down calm down and take a | nice, deep breathe.... | | _sniff_ _sniff_ | | it smells so good! I love booksmell so much!!!! It makes me feel | so amazing. I'm getting tingles all over from the delicious | bookscent! It's driving me bookCRAZY!!!!!! | | if u are a book and u are reading this, I just wanted to say | hiiiii cute book!!!! I love you! | HL33tibCe7 wrote: | I was hoping this would be a copypasta but googling throws up | nothing | snvzz wrote: | It indeed is a copypasta[0]. | | I became aware of it through the vtuber community. | | 0. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/boysmell | jjgreen wrote: | That smell makes me want to crap, and I'm not the only one: | https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/general-science/unbearable... | braymundo wrote: | This is fascinating. I always experienced this uh, urge. Glad | to know I'm not a unique weirdo. | jjgreen wrote: | For me, old books in particular ... a bit of an issue as a | researcher often needing to go into the deep stacks of the | University library. I always had to, err, prepare myself, | beforehand. | danparsonson wrote: | Wow I never knew this was a thing... thank you for sharing, | I think :-) | __MatrixMan__ wrote: | The question of "what is old book smell?" is well answered. I was | hoping to get some musings about why. That is, what is it about | us that makes us associate those chemicals as positive? | | I think there can be coincidence. Some things just have a smell | because like chemistry and such. The brain must represent that | particular chemical signal somehow. But when it's a noteworthy | smell, when it's the kind of thing people write articles about, I | expect a little more. | | Truffles smell good to animals because if they didn't, animals | wouldn't dig them up and help distribute the spores. Decaying | meat smells bad to animals because if it didn't, we might eat it | and get sick (that battle having been already lost to the | decomposers). | | So with that in mind, why do old books smell so good? | inimino wrote: | Publishers wouldn't choose papers and ink that smelled bad. | There's a lot of ways to make paper and ink, so it's not that | surprising that we'd eventually nail the aesthetics. | nickpeterson wrote: | I don't know, I think it's not so much the smell but how | distinctive it is, that mixed with knowing what it is (compared | to something macabre) reinforces nostalgia. I think it also | helps that many books are timeless | phero_cnstrcts wrote: | Because they want to be read. | dools wrote: | There's another book smell which I noticed in lots of kids books | when I was a kid, that totally smelled like vomit. For years I | thought it was because kids barfed all the time but it turns out | it was the printing chemicals and paper. | candiddevmike wrote: | I remember a magic school bus book with this exact smell. | vinyl7 wrote: | I wonder if that's to prevent kids from eating the paper. | Similar to Nintendo's cartridges having a bad flavor. | 1letterunixname wrote: | Parm also contains butyric acid. | cosmojg wrote: | It's a common additive in baked goods as well! I used to work | at a bakery that would pump it through the HVAC to attract | customers. People loved it, but all I could smell was vomit | after being around it for so long. I rarely eat pastries | anymore. | bruce343434 wrote: | What's parm? | behrlich wrote: | Parmesan cheese | purerandomness wrote: | Who calls Parmesan cheese "parm"? Is that a US thing? | djmips wrote: | Yes | sshanky wrote: | On the east coast you'll also hear "pruhjhoot", "Muhtz" | and "Sopresat" (prosciutto, mozzarella, soppressata). | Solvency wrote: | I remember exactly the same thing as a kid in certain books. I | acutely remember the feel/texture of the paper of those vomit | smell books too. So funny. | Waterluvian wrote: | Oh wow I forgot about that specific smell for 30 years and | suddenly I can smell it again. | hanniabu wrote: | So is it a health hazard to work in a museum library? | wrp wrote: | If you mean a library of old books, yes, it can be if toxic | books are not properly handled. | 1letterunixname wrote: | Depends if the building has Legionnaire's or asbestos. | | Moldy books also exist. Those can't be great for your lungs. | nologic01 wrote: | I was under the impression that all books smell "good" (or in any | case, smells that are quite distinctive and generally not | disagreeable). With time the scent changes. | | Together with the tactile feel of the densely stacked pages the | physical experience of books is just phemomenal. | mensetmanusman wrote: | Whatever it is, I'd you concentrate it 10000x and inject it in | mice it probably causes cancer. | keepamovin wrote: | Fisher library in Sydney Uni. Millions of volumes in open stacks | over 9 (i think) floors. "Buzzing with knowledge and light" as | someone said back on campus many years ago. Very cool place to | just go hang out. It was where I first discovered some old worn | copies of Murakami "Hear the Wind Sing" and "Pinball 1973" in | English. Only place I've ever seen them in fact. | yieldcrv wrote: | I wonder if there is something to that association, mentally | | I've been more into digital books my whole life, but before the | last 10 years or so, my preference was seen as absurd by | seemingly anyone that prided themselves in reading books | | I wonder if that book smell experience is core to those people | | I can smell it, and I remember it from being a kid too but the | downsides to me outweighed it and I had choices then too. The | downsides being that physical books don't keep their page and are | uncomfortable to hold, more so for kid hands, and laying down in | bed to read or trying to prop up a book exacerbated its | technological inferiority. | | I always suspected for others that the smell was a greater part | of the experience and association with reading a book. and maybe | some prior social benefits doing it in public. | [deleted] | ghaff wrote: | There's some combination of snobbery, appreciating the tactile | nature of physical books, and having bookshelves and piles of | books in the house that appeal to many people. | | IMO ebooks are inferior for some purposes. Books that are meant | to be appreciated as books--e.g. books of photography. | Cookbooks in which I make notes and put stickies. Various other | cases. | | But if I'm mostly just reading flowing text, especially fiction | but non-fiction as well I appreciate a format that lets me | carry a library in a form factor that's smaller than a | hardcover and which I can easily read in any lighting | conditions. | hotnfresh wrote: | I think ereaders are a worse UI for all but wholly linear, | light reading. If I'm reading some trashy fiction, ereaders | don't bother me--anything else, and they're worse than a real | book. | | The two-page-at-a-time interface is a ton better and enables | features like facing-page translations or setting a full-page | illustration or other graphic opposite some text. Got two | (largish) books, you can have both open and visible at the | same time, four total pages. Footnotes are a lot better in a | real book. Typesetters can control formatting--text placement | on the page, were page-turns fall, that kind of thing--much | better, so poetry texts may be better in a real book. I find | holding or marking an endnote or index section and flipping | back and forth to that faster, and less error-prone than | doing the same on an ereader. | | The book being a distinct physical object aids with memory. | You see the title and author as it sits on the table in a | room you're occupying, even if you're not reading it (I'll | often forget who wrote an ebook I'm reading, even if I've | spent hours with it). Spatial memory is powerful. I not- | uncommonly use it to locate parts of a book kinda by _feel_ , | like tracing a familiar but poorly marked trail in the woods. | Ebooks feel like trying to find a particular spot on the open | ocean, with no stars and out of sight of land. | | Full text search is the only directly book-related feature of | ebooks that I think gives them an edge, but that's no | replacement for a good index, and if I had to pick only one | of the two, I'd take the index. It's pretty good, though. | | What remains in their favor is _compactness_ , and boy is | that a big advantage, so I do read ebooks even for some books | I'd prefer to read on paper. But IMO the UI is, overall, a | whole lot worse than a real book. | | [edit] oops, sold ebooks short on one point: you don't need | to hunt down separate large-print editions, with them. Same | thing that makes them so bad for text that benefits from a | human having taken care with text formatting and placement, | makes them great if you need large print. | kristianp wrote: | I remember Dr Dobbs journals in the 90s would have a strange | plasticy smell. Whenever I smell that smell in a new book I have | memories of the newsagent I used to buy them from and nostalgia | for the enjoyment a new issue would bring. | hoyd wrote: | I once blogged about the lack of word for this smell[0], and came | across someone else that has asked this[1] too. Just like | 'petrichor' for the smell of fresh earth following rain. | | I made up my own word for this, in Norwegian: 'Gammelbokduft'. | | [0] https://earth.hoyd.net/lukten-av-gamle-boker-118/ [1] | http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/57416/word-for-th... | pohuing wrote: | Does that just translate to rotting book smell? | logdahl wrote: | I would say it translates to old book smell | hoyd wrote: | Yes, that would be it. The word "gammel" means most of the | times old, but I can see where it would be used as | something rotten too. | mjochim wrote: | In Scandinavian languages, gammel or a similarly-spelled | cognate means "old". I dont know about rare cases where | it might mean "rotten", I dont speak any of them well | enough. But in German, "gammeln"/"vergammelt" doesnt mean | old. It means to rot/rotten. | carlmr wrote: | Not Norwegian but sounds like it to me, a German. In any case | in German this is exactly how you'd create a new word. | Gammeln (rotting) + Buch (book) + Duft (scent). Then you have | Gammelbuchduft. | | In French maybe you can make it _parfum de livre_. | amelius wrote: | Kind of disappointing that we don't have the technology to store | smells, say, in an iPad, and retrieve them when we open an | e-reader app. | | Scent was the first sense that we acquired in evolution, yet the | last one we technologically master. | navigate8310 wrote: | This was exactly what I was contemplating when I read that | article. I believe that olfactory-augmented innovations could | undoubtedly enhance the value of devices that are currently | only performing acrobatics (flipping and folding). | amelius wrote: | Don't forget VR helmets. | SapporoChris wrote: | There have been multiple attempts at this. None have ever | been successful. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_scent_technology | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_and_sniff | | Novelty items at best, I can't imagine any VC getting excited | about this stuff. But I didn't imagine they'd get excited | about crypto either :) | falcor84 wrote: | To actually synthesize the smell molecules would pretty much | require (Star Trek) replicator levels of technology. | | Also, if/when we do have them, I'm sure that HN will fill up | with inflammatory content about whether it's ok that the | companies that make them only sell a "censored" model that | disallows synthesizing toxins. | neontomo wrote: | That's only if we're trying to replicate the smells | physically though right? I mean, we could also trigger the | brains neurons to "think" that we're smelling something. Not | sure how we'd know which ones to fire, but with brain | implants advancing I wouldn't be surprised if this became a | reality one day. | 1letterunixname wrote: | _" But I want the real, cancer-causing new car smell with | benzene and styrene VOCs!"_ | | Home theater odor playback was already tried in the 70's and | 80's and it was a colossal failure. Argument about it is moot | because it's a stupid idea that went nowhere, and that | doesn't even begin to address attempting to make a mass spec | digital nose. Plus, it's unlikely odors are noticed or | perceived uniformly across individuals. | amelius wrote: | I'm not sure if that is true. E.g. we might be able to | synthesize smells like we cook food, where there is little to | no danger of producing toxins from innocent ingredients. | 1letterunixname wrote: | Neither desirable nor possible. | soligern wrote: | My dad lost his sense of smell during a surgery and he says he | doesn't miss it in the slightest. Makes no difference in how | good food tastes or anything else he encounters in life. In the | modern world, it really is a "nice to have" sense. | GuB-42 wrote: | I have always thought that food taste is much more smell than | actual taste. Taste is rather limited in complexity with only | 5 tastes, compared to hundreds of different smells. Or so I | heard. | nmeagent wrote: | This article immediately brought to mind a particular | conversation in season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer... | | Jenny: "Honestly, what is it about them that bothers you so | much?" | | Giles: "The smell." | | Jenny: "Computers don't smell, Rupert." | | Giles: "I know. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory | there is. A certain flower, or a a whiff of smoke can bring up | experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and-and-and rich. | The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it, uh, it has no no | texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If | it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, | tangible, it should be, um, smelly." | inopinatus wrote: | There was an attempt to standardise scented content back in the | '80s, but it didn't stick. The root cause of market failure was | consumers deterred by a format war between the compressed odour | format, Nosepeg, and the higher fidelity (but patent- | encumbered) WIF | dmoy wrote: | But the real failure was the always-bad-smelling PNGent. Not | sure why they thought that would have worked at all. | WalterBright wrote: | My brand new economics textbook in college smelled like vomit. | I since noticed other new textbooks now and then with the same | smell. | seabass-labrax wrote: | Do you think it might be psychosomatic? The quality of many | textbooks' content would be sufficient to evoke the odour of | vomit, I tender... | WalterBright wrote: | I expected a comment comparing the smell to the content, | but it really did smell like vomit, from the moment I | opened it. I kept my other textbooks, but sold that one as | soon as the semester ended. Didn't need it stinking up my | bookshelf! | | I'm sure it was the VOC's in the glue. | seabass-labrax wrote: | I know; sorry, I couldn't resist :D | | In all seriousness though, there is a lot about textbook | publishing that is inexplicably different from other non- | fiction books. For instance: | | - Why not use the conventional paperback size if the | textbook is not reliant on large diagrams? Why do | textbooks always have to be massive? | | - Why are there so many 'infoboxes' and 'did you knows' | and 'warnings' (a characteristic that textbooks share | with do-it-yourself and self-help books)? | | - Why do almost all textbooks start with lengthy 'How to | Use This Book' chapters? If you're in a course, you | should have already been told, and most of those seem | pretty common-sense anyway. | | My favourite business textbooks that mostly avoid these | disadvantages (as I see them): | | - Managing without Profit, Mike Hudson: an almost | complete guide to the mechanics of non-profit | organisations; perfect if you already have a good grasp | of for-profit business fundamentals. | | - A Manager's Guide to Self-Development, Mike Pedler, | John Burgoyne and Tom Boydell: mostly tests in the same | vein as Myers-Briggs, explaining various aspects of | personality, behaviour and strategy. | | - Interpersonal Skills at Work, Maureen Guirdham (not the | John Hayes book of the same name!): very academic look at | the social dynamics of workplaces, with proper citations | to actual studies for further reading; very thought- | provoking and genuinely useful if applied carefully. | selimthegrim wrote: | Oxford UP textbooks always smelled like this, Atkins in | particular | SECProto wrote: | Butyric acid is a highly unappealing compound characteristic | of vomit. Cellulose acetate butyrate is used in inks and | coatings and can decompose to butyric acid. Maybe how it | happened | WalterBright wrote: | The explanation I was looking for! | kabdib wrote: | I have some Radio Shack solder that I bought in the mid 1970s. | It smells /wonderful/ and takes me back to building kits when I | was a teen. | ktpsns wrote: | Computers can be smelly, too. Ever booted up your old Windows | 95 box from the basement? The dust blown from the fans has a | particular smell. It is even more dramatic for real vintage | computing like punch card machines, which smell very oily, in a | similar way like very old cars and planes. | Retric wrote: | The complaint is more websites don't have a distinct smell. | | Walk through a library and a dozen different books can all | have distinct smells. Perhaps this book was taken to the | beach a few times while that that one used a slightly unusual | glue. Based on book age and the publisher involved you can | even encounter similar smells looking at different copies of | the same book at different libraries. | | So yes a computer has a distinct smell the way a library does | but that smell doesn't change based on the knowledge you're | browsing. | roguas wrote: | I am from eastern europe, my dad was vice principal in high | school. I would pay good money today to smell again that | dusty computer lab room filled with good'ol 386 and mario | sounds. | bombcar wrote: | > Sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was | young | | How come I'm never able to identify where it's coming from? | | I'd make a candle out of it if I ever found it | | Try to sell it, never sell out of it, I'd probably only | sell one | | It'd be to my brother, 'cause we have the same nose | | Same clothes, homegrown, a stone's throw from a creek we | used to roam | | But it would remind us of when nothing really mattered | | Out of student loans and tree house homes, we all would | take the latter | nuancebydefault wrote: | As well as teen spirit and napalm | listenfaster wrote: | How about the smell of a dying C64 power supply? Anyone else? | reaperducer wrote: | _Computers can be smelly, too_ | | Yep. The specific smell of the VOCs burning off a new | Commodore 64 or 1541 brings back a flood of memories of cold, | dark Winter evenings standing in the driveway waiting for the | UPS guy. | biofox wrote: | Disassembling and building computers as a teen, the smell | of a freshly booted motherboard was almost intoxicating. | The clicking and buzzing of the floppy drive. Crackling of | the screen. Warm hum of the fan. It all transported me to | another world where anything was possible. | semireg wrote: | I feel like this could be rendered as a 16 bit screen | saver. | stpe wrote: | Indeed so. Once in my youth I brought my Amiga 500 to a | friend's place, and he had a cat that peed on the edge of it. | | The computer was ok, but it was basically a flood of cat pee | seeping in into the memory expansion slot underneath. | | Tried everything to get rid of the smell. Including perfume. | Didn't make it better. Especially when it got hot. | | Still today, when I smell cat urine I instantly think of | Motorola 68000 assembly. | temac wrote: | > Still today, when I smell cat urine I instantly think of | Motorola 68000 assembly. | | I did not expect to read that today. Or ever. | whoopdedo wrote: | There's some kid today who will experience future nostalgia | from opening an Alibaba package. | devoutsalsa wrote: | When a friend incorrectly wired up an AT power supply, | causing the power cord to explode on power up, that made a | distinctive smell. | chaxor wrote: | I love the smell of doing a good wipe on my hardware by | sticking all of it in the microwave. | | The smell of burnt silicon in the morning is what keeps me | waking up everyday. | 6stringmerc wrote: | Relevant: | | Ooops, I forgot to put the paste on the processor | thret wrote: | It reminded me of a similar sentiment by Marcel Proust: | | "So we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't | recall it but if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell we | are suddenly intoxicated and similarly we think we no longer | love the dead because we don't remember them but if by chance | we come across an old glove we burst into tears." | Sinidir wrote: | Funny i know about Proust from The Sopranos. | tomjakubowski wrote: | If we're sharing I learned about him from the preeminent | Proust scholar in the United States, while I watched Little | Miss Sunshine. | grogenaut wrote: | Same | nuancebydefault wrote: | When i'm sawing wood and the dust starts smelling burnt, I'm | immediately transported back into my late dad's workshop. | Easily happens when the teeth are wearing out. Also, somehow | the fumes of his sigars smelled very similar. | Jugurtha wrote: | We call it "Madeleine de Proust" in French. | | https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_de_Proust | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_memory | | "Proust Effect" or something like that in English. | jwmcq wrote: | I think I've seen "Madeleine Moment" most often in English. | LoganDark wrote: | Apple trackpads have a certain smell and I don't exactly know | how to describe it, but it's similar to Scotch tape. I really | like that smell. More things should smell good like that. | dhosek wrote: | Then there's the scene in the beginning of Gary Shteyngart's | _Super Sad Love Story_ where the protagonist is reading a book | on an airplane and the young woman next to him complains about | the smell. | el_benhameen wrote: | The first computer shop that I went to as a kid (back when | computer shops were a thing) had a very distinct smell that | still evokes very strong memories for me now. I guess it | probably wasn't the computers themselves, but maybe that foamed | rubber material used for mousepads and such, plus maybe some | static charge in the air from CRTs or something? Any time I | catch that smell, I'm immediately back playing Loom and Monkey | Island and oogling at Pentiums and 1 GB hard drives. | YZF wrote: | Dust burning in those monitors perhaps? | Forge36 wrote: | I don't know what you smelled. But this conjured up the image | of an old blue mousepad I used as a kid (and the smell!). | Well done. | hattmall wrote: | Are things just not as fascinating now? Is there anything | similarly cutting edge today. I know that part of it I was | much younger but I also remember most of the people around | were way older and seemed to share in the wonder and | amazement at those GB+ hard drives and the thought of 32mb of | ram. | | I guess there's just not anything new that's advancing so | rapidly.?.? Like my computer is 13 years old and is still | overpowered for 99% of tasks. And they are still selling | brand new computers with far lower specs. Imagine in 1997 | being satisfied as a developer with a computer from 1984! | | I also have other interests and it feels like they have | plateaued similarly. I guess I'm still getting some dopamine | from solar and battery tech, price drops at least, and some | neatness around microcontrollers and IOT but like even food | has stopped seeming innovate. It used to be worthy of a day | trip to drive into the city to eat at new exotic offerings | and now every small town has mostly the same stuff and | there's nothing really new in the city either. | grogenaut wrote: | You missed out on 3d printers in the last 2 decades | apparently. Those have gone leaps and bounds from very | rickety prototypes like the og MakerBot to cheap | workhorses. Stepper motors used to cost like $75 ea and are | now like 4 for $15. | | Smart phones as well. | | Many of these things you don't notice till they're | everywhere. | | If I spent more time I could list many other things I think | but I don't know your filter | serialNumber wrote: | Please list more things if you have some time | dr_dshiv wrote: | Electric bikes and scooters | echelon wrote: | The last two decades seemed to have progressed glacially | slow. | | We've had smartphones for fifteen years and they haven't | really improved much. Better camera, a few more sensors, | more durable glass. Incremental improvements. About the | same for laptops and desktops. | | 3D printing has come a fair way, but we're still not | printing cars at home. (I totally would download a car.) | | Now all of a sudden we have AI/ML, self-driving cars, | high fidelity consumer mocap, AR/VR. The types of things | coming out now seem way more sci-fi, cutting edge, and | optimistic. A return to the imagination and dreams of the | 1950's - 1990's. | | 2000 - 2020 was a speed bump. | [deleted] | xcv123 wrote: | From 2000 to 2010 we progressed from the Nokia 3310 to | the iPhone 4. | failuser wrote: | Nokia also released 9210 about the same time as 3310. | From that perspective iPhone was even less of an | improvement and a step back in some aspects. | buescher wrote: | In 2001 you could get the Kyocera Palm phone, which is a | more valid comparison. But yes. | nuancebydefault wrote: | The point is more - today's smartphones are the first | iphone with a better camera and faster data connection. | | That said in other areas there's much more improvement, | for example EVs, solar panels, intelligent search | engines. Remember the days when we used scripts that | would parallelize searches over lycos, yahoo, webcrawler, | altavista, alltheweb, ... | wddkcs wrote: | The counter point is that the innovation never stopped, | it just moved down a level. We 'optimized' the hardware | (as in gave it sufficient form to fulfill necessary | functions) then did the same for the application space. | Twitter, Facebook, Google, music streaming, all | solidifying their phone presence over the past ten years. | | Just as the application space has begun to stagnant, | suddenly our data is speaking back to us through LLMs. | Such models will be the next space we'll 'optimize', but | these models will also be optimizing themselves. Strange | loop. | citizenpaul wrote: | the short answer is pretty much all tech we use was | invented in the 1970's and is just being iterated on at | this point. There really is not much new coming out and all | the really cool stuff has turned out to be too difficult to | be reliable or require too much power to ever get beyond | toy status. | shubb wrote: | The smell of a newly opened rewriteable CD | Schiendelman wrote: | What you're experiencing is largely that now everything is | nearly instantly discoverable. In the 1980s and 90s, you | would find out about new technology or product _at_ a | computer store. You might read an article in a computer | magazine about a technology, but for a product, you 're as | likely to learn about it from a knowledgeable clerk. And | clerks had to be knowledgeable because they _were_ that | initial discovery mechanism. | | Now, you find out about a new technology or product | instantly, and you learn about them _constantly_. It is | rare that a company develops something new enough that it | 's significantly differentiated from something you already | know about (or even have) that it's exciting. | | Even Apple had a lot of leaks before Vision Pro (which is | potentially the most exciting new technology product, at | least for me, in years). They had to balance when to | announce it with the leaks - to maximize the impact while | ensuring you didn't have to wait _too_ long to get one. | causality0 wrote: | It feels like the consumer base is much less diverse than | it used to be. Tech used to look like a cornucopia of | different shapes, colors, features. Now it's all the | same. Twenty years ago the "gaming phone" was an Ngage | and the "fashion phone" could pass for a tube of | lipstick. In 2023 the "gaming phone" has an extra pair of | invisible touch sensors and the "fashion phone" comes in | pink. | sublinear wrote: | I think you're missing the point. Even the Vision Pro is | just incrementally better than Hololens almost a decade | later. | zimpenfish wrote: | > the Vision Pro is just incrementally better than | Hololens | | Hololens had 1268x720 per eye[1] or 1.8MP across both | eyes. Vision Pro is 23MP across both eyes. Are you | _seriously_ saying that 's "incrementally better"? It's a | literal order of magnitude more pixels! | | [1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/419869/we- | found-7-critical-h... | ryanmcbride wrote: | I know it was just a quote in a show but I can call to mind the | electricy smell that old computer labs had and it puts me at | peace | Solvency wrote: | What about Magic The Gathering cards? I started playing during | Weatherlight as a kid and the smell of those cards was like crack | for some reason. | | I'm sure it was just some carcinogenic chemicals though. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-08-19 23:00 UTC)