I Drank a Cup of Hot Coffee That Was Overnighted Across the Country

Alternative title: "New Users of Vacuum-Insulated Containers Amazed at How Well They Work". I've used vacuum-insulated containers for decades, and as I read the article I kept waiting for a punch line that never came. The whole point of the article was "wow, it can keep coffee hot for 24 hours". Has the author seriously never opened a day-old Thermos of coffee and drank some?

As a side note, Thermos suffers from Kleenex syndrome as the only short version of "vacuum-insulated container" I can come up with is...Thermos(tm). But Wikipedia not only has a better generic name ("vacuum flask"), it also has the interesting history of how Dewar never patented it, and the glassblowers who did the work for him started Thermos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_flask

i believe a lot of the scientific community used to call them "dewars" (i've seen the name used in old sf stories). not sure if that still prevails anywhere.

What a stunningly successful PR exercise. The Atlantic will cover it and explicitly mention that its a PR campaign -- essentially, news coverage of PR.

Not quite "across the country", maybe halfway. Still rather impressive.

Ew, clean your coffee mug.