BYO - no more printed magazines

[Oldskewl]

Before covid I picked up this really neat magazine dealing with fermentation. Had all sorts of info on stuff, mainly foods. I liked it so much I ordered a subscription. It took a couple of months before I for my next issue, but I must've missed a mailer because I got a completely different magazine. Turns out it got discontinued after just one issue.

Print periodicals are all but dead. The magazine stand at my local drug store was probably 15 feet long. Now it just has old copies of Runners World and Elle.

I subbed to that magazine as well. I think it was called "Fermentaion". Sadly I didn't even realize I stopped receiving it until I read your post. I think it came out every 2 or 3 months. I only got 1 or 2 issues. Easily forgotten about.

I am also a fan of printed material(54 years old). I have always struggled reading a magazine online and hated that fact that when I stopped my subscription I could no longer access it. But being able to download PDFs of articles/issues I find valuable will alleviate that problem. I will give the online subscription another chance as I got billed right before the change over as well. But they should have given their print subscribers a heads up and not automatically renewed them. That was in poor taste.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

A couple of thoughts on building a browsable / searchable magazine library (assuming each magazine issue is a searchable PDF).

Note taking apps (I occasionally use Obsidian) will often include searchable PDFs as 'first class citizens'.

With Obsidian, I put the PDFs in a folder (or folders by magazine then by year) and it's easy to navigate to a specific magazine:

Obsidian supports links to pages within the PDF. So one could create notes page with links to the "recipes index" page within each issue. Then over time, create links to recipes that were interesting.

Could those recipe links be automagically generated? I'm still a 'noob' with python, but there seems to be a number of packages that would be helpful. Over in the .Net environment, there is a nuget package to generate HOCR from source PDF pages (so no need to OCR the page image to get the text - if the PDF is searchable). If you are interested in the next layer of details, PM me (but be aware that this 'rabbit hole' goes very deep).

 

[BrewDrinkRepeat]

I find it very difficult to read the digital versions, having to enlarge in order to read the words and then move the page around to see all the content.

That is exactly what I hate about reading magazines digitally. Unlike text-focused books (like novels) which are read linearly L-R / T-B, magazine are designed entirely differently and more often than not are formatted in a way that doesn't translate well to a screen.

I have yet to directly experience either BYO or Zymurgy in digital form, but I think I'd rather they were morphed into a paywalled website, formatted accordingly and adaptive to different screen sizes, rather than a PDF of how the magazine would have been laid out.

My BYO sub has at least a few more "issues" to go, so I guess I'll have to go log on and see how they're doing it.

But, if I'm being honest, the magazine hasn't been of huge interest for some time. It's comfortable, like an old friend, but I can't say I learn much from it these days. I'm reading it because I'm used to reading it.

 

[bwible]

That is exactly what I hate about reading magazines digitally. Unlike text-focused books (like novels) which are read linearly L-R / T-B, magazine are designed entirely differently and more often than not are formatted in a way that doesn't translate well to a screen.

I have yet to directly experience either BYO or Zymurgy in digital form, but I think I'd rather they were morphed into a paywalled website, formatted accordingly and adaptive to different screen sizes, rather than a PDF of how the magazine would have been laid out.

My BYO sub has at least a few more "issues" to go, so I guess I'll have to go log on and see how they're doing it.

But, if I'm being honest, the magazine hasn't been of huge interest for some time. It's comfortable, like an old friend, but I can't say I learn much from it these days. I'm reading it because I'm used to reading it.

BYO has had much of their content behind a paywall for a few years. They started selling seperate print magazine and online subscriptions awhile back. Many is the time I tried searching for something and clicking on a BYO article in the search results to hit a sign up page even though I was a magazine subscriber.

 

[kevin58]

My subscription ended today and I did not renew. I'm done. There are plenty other available sources of content and information that I don't need to spend my retirement income on BYO.

 

[BrewZer]

Whoa! At 150-ish°F I gotta believe anyone dry humping a mash tun will only try that once

Reflectix underwear solves that problem.