Great, I long ago lost my copy of the issue with the article about triremes so navigate through and click on PDF and

To read this article in full you will need to log in or gain access through a site license (see right).

You suck, Nature.

Oh, I see now. The part that is out of copyright, 1845-1909, is free temporarily. Not the entire archive.

*fap*fap*fap*

I got the file I wanted via an account on a system with site license access. The PDF is unreadable. xpdf, gs, and MacOS Preview all choke in different ways. You suck, Nature.

Some of them work, though. Browsing the covers sure brings back memories.

August, 1980: "In the near future an optical system in which information is stored and retrieved by laser will make possible the storage on a disk of the contents of a library of several thousand books."

March, 1979: Ancient Catapults (the other article I lost and miss). "Most complex catapult invented in ancient times was a repeating weapon designed by Dionysius of Alexandria." Showing a gravity feed magazine dropping arrows onto the launch track.

I want to see the controversial 1964 issue where it was just all pictures of super close-up dog anuses.

Woohoo! Get your Nerd On.

Scientific American started out as a magazine for the modern working man with an interest in science and other contemporary issues. The earliest issues are a somewhat comical miscellany of articles about science, technology, religion, etc. Yes, there's also bad poetry and jokey commentary on current events plus gossip. It was very close to the "small town newspaper" model.

You've come a long way, baby!

I would be willing to buy the archives on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM at a price point below $100, say.

I already have the National Geographic, The New Yorker (and cartoons separately), MAD magazine, and the first 30 issues of Fortean Times. On my wish list is Punch (1842-1992) and any other great newspaper or magazine that I might read occasionally at least. I wish I had spent more time reading Punch when I was an undergrad--my university had a complete collection from 1842 to GOKW.

I don't have room to keep all the periodicals I buy but digital collections are not a problem and I would happily buy a lot of stuff I'd never have time to read, ever. I've already done that about 20 times over, so what's to lose?

You can get quite a few back issues of magazines on Google Books.

Popular Science is a lot of fun. My uncle gave me a pile of back issues when I was a child. You can also get a few World Weekly News issues (just the last few years). Still the most reliable news source. You can count on 85% of it to be completely made up. Fox News doesn't have that kind of consistency. Many of the weirdest items were real items from newspapers and magazines around the world. Many of the obvious fakes were based on a kernel of truthiness.

I can't wait to catch up on the latest efforts in the search for the ever-elusive phlogiston.

Soooo neat but I still have a stack of forbes,spin,maxim and playboy to read.

/Online freebies can sometimes bury you in magazines.

Cake Hunter: I want to see the controversial 1964 issue where it was just all pictures of super close-up dog anuses.

That was National Geographic.

I can remember reading an article sometime in the 80's that dealt with self-referential linguistics.
It had some *really* good and inventive examples.
One of which was "When you aren't looking, this message is in Spanish".
I would dearly love to find that article and read it again.

November 2, 1907 has a section called "The Heavens" and features the night sky for the month. Including "The Great Nebula" of Andromeda.

This, before they knew about galaxies. Heh.

I just checked out their Wright Brothers coverage. Wow.

Must remember to check for articles on "hysteria" in the morning.

cryinoutloud:



"In this issue: What can we learn from dog anuses?"

Oh, *that* one is from the Watchtower magazine...