Originally published at: How USA Today beat the heat 10 years ago today | Boing Boing
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Haha it looks like the sun is playing a guitar
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I was thinking he was drinking a yard-long margarita but you’re right, it’s clearly a guitar.
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[quote=“thomdunn, post:1, topic:200767”]
Huffington Post claimed it was a legit scan of a print graphic, which Snopes confirmed as well [/quote]
Wouldn’t a library’s periodicals section have the original paper, or their microfiche archives? Heck, maybe their microfiche has all been digitized and can be searched remotely. 
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“Heat stroke likely” indeed.
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The idea that the danger of heat stroke starts at 130°f is dangerously inaccurate.
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That doesn’t look like a scan of a print graphic to me.
Most libraries don’t keep printed newspapers for more than two or three months, and microfiche is a thing of the past. Long before I retired from library service, we were referring patrons to individual papers’ online archives.
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Your points are true, especially regarding periodicals. However, microfiche and microfilm are still being used by a lot of archival institutions. IRS, Social Security, and a lot of other govt agencies still burn things to (mostly) microfilm for long term storage. Insurance companies, accountants, they have a lot of “born digital” data that needs to be preserved for a lonnnnggg time.
When I asked why film or fiche, I was presented with a thought experiment: “What will a computer look like in 500 years?” Can’t answer that. However, with technology that has been tried and tested for the past 100 or so years, information written to film media does not need an answer to the computer question. With a light source, a lens, and knowledge of the reproduction ratio, you can retrieve a copy of that information at a 1:1 ratio. This has the caveat of needing temperature and humidity control; but does not require the institution to repeatedly back up files or transfer to other digital formats. The company Iron Mountain is pretty cool, they have dug out storage facilities in limestone and other caves around the country- Time-Life, National Archives, IRS, Social Security and a bunch of others maintain full-time work-forces in their facilities down there that are 24-7 writing things to film; and pulling records from film that are not available in any other way.
(I keep going back to that image to see if I can find any “tell” that it was scanned, but I can’t on this screen).
Be well!
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Is really a failure if we are talking about it then years later?
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Looks like the sun is playing a solo given her/his/their expression!!!
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Heh. “Prolonged exposure”
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We aren’t talking about it being an effective graphic warning us about the dangers of heat exposure, we’re talking about the time when the Sun wanked a thermometer in a national newspaper.
I’d call that a failure.
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beat the heat
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