Latest and Last? issue of Elapsed Times

[gbdolfans]

Hi Guys and Gals,I found the latest issue of my favorite magazine,Elapsed Times on the newsstand of a local food store.

It says on the cover that it is the last issue!!

I have almost all back issues,except for the first one(trying to find it on E-bay for a reasonable price)

Get it while you can. A GREAT reference tool and even better stories!!

If it is true,I will sorely miss it.

[Mark]

I don't understand the magazine business...they're letting this one go, they axed Rod & Custom but kept Street Rodder...

[Ace-Garageguy]

I don't understand the magazine business...they're letting this one go, they axed Rod & Custom but kept Street Rodder...

Same kind of logic that dumped Pontiac and kept Buick. Whatever mediocre pablum sells best gets saved, the slightly offbeat and interesting stuff goes away. Business now is mostly all about numbers, devoid of passion.

Beige is the new candy-apple-red.

[Harry P.]

Magazines... well, print magazines at least... are all facing problems. Fewer people buy print magazines these days, more are turning to digital e-mags. There is growing pressure on print mags to stay in business when the alternative (no paper costs, no printing costs, no shipping/mailing costs) is so much cheaper to produce. It's no wonder that a lot of niche magazines are disappearing as printed periodicals. Same problem that newspapers face... trying to sell a product based on old (obsolete?) tech, when the alternative is growing by leaps and bounds. It's a trend that isn't going away anytime soon.

[Greg Myers]

Have you been to Barns and Noble and looked at their magazine selection? Yeah, I know, "Book stores, a dying breed." 

There are more titles covering more subjects than one could imagine. and, they sell vinyl . Yep, old obsolete tech. Who woulda thought? 

I think the problem is distribution. Fewer places are willing to give up the space to showcase these titles. Places where only a few years ago carried many titles are down to only what they feel are main stream titles. What really gripes me are all the "Mens " magazines that fill the racks, muscle this and body building and the gossip magazines. 

Edited January 3, 2016 by Greg Myers

[Ace-Garageguy]

Magazines... well, print magazines at least... are all facing problems. Fewer people buy print magazines these days, more are turning to digital e-mags. There is growing pressure on print mags to stay in business when the alternative (no paper costs, no printing costs, no shipping/mailing costs) is so much cheaper to produce. It's no wonder that a lot of niche magazines are disappearing as printed periodicals. Same problem that newspapers face... trying to sell a product based on old (obsolete?) tech, when the alternative is growing by leaps and bounds. It's a trend that isn't going away anytime soon.

And with any luck at all, we'll shortly see all the e-mag articles written in txt-spk, to save on bandwidth and the huge rental fees on the electrons needed to sustain the whole e-culture. 

In another generation, nobody is going to know how to read anyway. Already, most people don't seem to be able to write coherently...including many "professional" writers with degrees in communication.

And, as cursive writing is now obsolete technology, it's only natural to think that communicating via hard-to-understand combinations of symbols called "letters" (with all their stupid, arbitrary and hard-to-remember rules and conventions) will fall into disrepute in the foreseeable future. 

 

[Greg Myers]

LOL. OMG! 

[oldscool]

And with any luck at all, we'll shortly see all the e-mag articles written in txt-spk, to save on bandwidth and the huge rental fees on the electrons needed to sustain the whole e-culture. 

In another generation, nobody is going to know how to read anyway. Already, most people don't seem to be able to write coherently...including many "professional" writers with degrees in communication.

And, as cursive writing is now obsolete technology, it's only natural to think that communicating via hard-to-understand combinations of symbols called "letters" (with all their stupid, arbitrary and hard-to-remember rules and conventions) will fall into disrepute in the foreseeable future. 

 

You are right to some extent Bill, but I have no idea who John Galt is.

I just bought this issue of ET this morning at the local Wallyworld. ET and Hot Rod Deluxe are the only car rags that I still buy.

Edited January 3, 2016 by oldscool

[Harry P.]

Have you been to Barns and Noble and looked at their magazine selection? Yeah, I know, "Book stores, a dying breed."

Waldenbooks. Gone.

Crown Books. Gone.

B. Dalton Booksellers. Gone.

Kroch's & Brentano's. Gone.

Border's Books. Gone.

2014: B&N closes its original NYC flagship store.

From the Wall Street Journal: Barnes & Noble expects to close as many as a third of its retail stores over the next decade, the bookseller's top store executive said, offering the most detailed picture yet of the company's plans for the outlets Mr. Klipper said his forecast assumes that the company will close about 20 stores a year over the period.

 

So you tell me... are bookstores growing? Or dying?

[oldscool]

Yeah, bookstores are dying with the possible exception of the little hole in the wall used book stores. Same reason as hobby shops are dying - internet sales.

[Ace-Garageguy]

 

So you tell me... are bookstores growing? Or dying?

When literacy and intellectual curiosity die, bookstores, libraries and even online content longer that a soundbite aren't far behind.

[Harry P.]

In the past 10-15 years, as one national bookstore chain after another went out of business, guess which book seller actually grew over that period?

Answer: the book seller with no book stores. Amazon.

[Petetrucker07]

Iam sad to see this mag go away. I loved it. It was dedicating to the motor sport I've loved my entire, so far. I'm a drag racer, grass roots, small track participant. I love going to watch the big boys race, the smell of nitro on a crisp morning in Pomona brings an ear to ear smile to face. I ALWAYS bought this mag off the newstand, whether it was the grocery store or Barnes and Noble.

I think my generation was the last to actually use a library for research for a school project. Our Internet was dial up and in some cases, we could go to the library, get what we needed and go home before some things were loaded. I'm sad to see book stores going away. I hope our BnN stays around for awhile. I enjoy going in there and buying mags and books.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Petetrucker07

[Ace-Garageguy]

I do try to be balanced in my view of things, and in defense of "technology", I have to say that devices like the Kindle and other e-book readers have made available content that was otherwise simply not accessible (because of prohibitive publishing costs for a very limited market).

The problem is what it's always been though...having a huge library down the street, or access to billions of terabytes of written material on the net isn't the same as actually reading, thinking and understanding.

There will always probably be some "quaint" printed periodicals aimed at the weird folks who still enjoy the sensual pleasure of turning a page...just as vinyl as a music-storage medium still has some adherents, and new content is regularly available.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

When literacy and intellectual curiosity die, bookstores, libraries and even online content longer that a soundbite aren't far behind.

I don't think literacy and intellectual curiosity are necessarily dying. What's dying...or changing.. is the way in which we get our information. In fact, for me at least, my "intellectual curiosity" has grown. When I was a kid we had a paper encyclopedia in the house. And I used it for school work, but rarely otherwise. Today, I search google and Wikipedia on average several times a day. And not because I have a school assignment to do, but because I want to. The ease with which I can now access information has made me much more active as far as searching out that information, not less so. And I doubt I'm alone in that.

It's like when the automobile replaced the horse-drawn wagon. It's not that our need for transportation died, it's just that the way we moved around changed.

[Ace-Garageguy]

I don't think literacy and intellectual curiosity are necessarily dying. 

Which must have something to do with why 25% of Americans think the sun revolves around the Earth.

The truth IS out there, but why bother to look for it for oneself when you're told, cradle-to-grave, what to buy, what to think, and what to believe.

[Force]

Magazines... well, print magazines at least... are all facing problems. Fewer people buy print magazines these days, more are turning to digital e-mags. There is growing pressure on print mags to stay in business when the alternative (no paper costs, no printing costs, no shipping/mailing costs) is so much cheaper to produce. It's no wonder that a lot of niche magazines are disappearing as printed periodicals. Same problem that newspapers face... trying to sell a product based on old (obsolete?) tech, when the alternative is growing by leaps and bounds. It's a trend that isn't going away anytime soon.

I think it's a sad development, I prefer a printed paper copy over a digital one any day.
I hate to see this one go.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Force

[1972coronet]

I'm very tactile , always have been . That's a huge part of being an artist , being creative : that tactile sensation . Now , discarding that , let's look at the advantage of printed periodicals :

- It exists . It's in an orgænic form that will long outlive any digitised format . It can be accessed at any time , especially if there's , oh , I don't know , a power outage (!!) or some other electronic malfunction .

"E-books" and the such are just fine ; I have zero "problems" with their existance . I just prefer the experience of being connected to what I'm reading ... the tactile experience.

BTW : Notice how not only vinyl records are "back" , but that Poloroid cameras are a "new" and "mysterious" thing to all of the born-1985-and-later kids ?

[Harry P.]

The truth IS out there, but why bother to look for it for oneself when you're told, cradle-to-grave, what to buy, what to think, and what to believe.

Told by who?

If a person is the type that doesn't think for themselves or takes the word of others as gospel without doing their own critical thinking, then I don't think the internet is at fault. People like that always existed... the difference is, today they are much more visible because they have "social media" to express themselves on and perpetuate their own simplistic (or incorrect) opinions and beliefs. Today we have the technology available to the masses that allows the masses to make themselves much more public. Back when these technologies didn't exist, the lemmings were still among us. We just didn't hear from them nearly as much... and never from outside of our immediate circle of friends, relatives, and acquaintances. Today we hear from the lemmings no matter where they live.

[Petetrucker07]

Hey, I miss Polaroids. Instant copy of your pic.

[Harry P.]

But today you can have an infinite number of copies of that pic. And easily, too.

[Petetrucker07]

I know. It's just something about the click and noises it makes, then the whole flapping it back and forth, which was totally useless, that's comforting.

[Erik Smith]

Which must have something to do with why 25% of Americans think the sun revolves around the Earth.

The truth IS out there, but why bother to look for it for oneself when you're told, cradle-to-grave, what to buy, what to think, and what to believe.

What percentage believed the sun spun around us 200 years ago? 100? Even 50? Probably higher than 25%...

Ignorance isn't going away. It's been here as long as humans - heck, there were probably ignorant neanderthals. 

I have never read this particular magazine, but why would I buy it? Really? For me, this item would be for reference purposes. I can use the Google machine and get exactly the photos I need - and a lot more of them, for nothing.

I am an off and on avid reader and prefer print. Where do I buy? Amazon. I like to occassionally browse a bookstore, but books are out of stock at a store - not so online. I am sorry to see bookstores and print media decline - but I guess not enough to support them financially on my own.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Erik Smith

[Ace-Garageguy]

Told by who?

If a person is the type that doesn't think for themselves or takes the word of others as gospel without doing their own critical thinking, then I don't think the internet is at fault. People like that always existed... the difference is, today they are much more visible because they have "social media" to express themselves on and perpetuate their own simplistic (or incorrect) opinions and beliefs. Today we have the technology available to the masses that allows the masses to make themselves much more public. Back when these technologies didn't exist, the lemmings were still among us. We just didn't hear from them nearly as much... and never from outside of our immediate circle of friends, relatives, and acquaintances. Today we hear from the lemmings no matter where they live.

Told by who? Marketing constantly screaming hysterically that you NEED this or that new-improved-same-old-same-old, the mainstream and off-center media, politicians, Limbaugh and his ilk (on either side of the fence), you-tube conspiracy idiots, flat-Earthers, masses of uninformed morons blithely content to mindlessly repeat wrong information over and over and over again on the web, ad nauseum.

I agree with the rest of your statement, and I don't blame the internet for anything. I think it's a wonderful tool for communication, research, information-sharing...and I've wholly embraced it in my own life as just that...an additional tool in my box, not a replacement for everything that came before.

But to go a bit farther with your thought, the net has given voice to millions upon millions of "lemmings" who otherwise wouldn't have much impact, but because of the widespread lack of critical-thinking skills and ignorance of science, math, history, politics, economics, day-to-day physics, ad infinitum, they're in a position to exert some influence, simply by the strength of their numbers.

 

Edited January 3, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

But to go a bit farther with your thought, the net has given voice to millions upon millions of "lemmings" who otherwise wouldn't have much impact, but because of the widespread lack of critical-thinking skills and ignorance of science, math, history, politics, economics, day-to-day physics, ad infinitum, they're in a position to exert some influence, simply by the strength of their numbers.

Yeah, like I said. Ignorant boobs were always with us. Today's technology just makes them so much more visible to us than they were, say, 50-100 years ago. The amount of ignorance hasn't grown, but the ability of the ignorant to make their views public has. I think that's the real difference. It just seems like there are a lot more idiots around today, but the reality is we're just hearing from them more than we did in the past.