I had one too
I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
151–160 of 202 posts
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A modern topic-exploration tool based on Wikipedia, Wikidata, Open Library, GBIF and other information sources. I find Wikipedia is increasingly relying upon meta-circular authority. Ie, a Wiki article will cite an expert who cites another expert who cites Wikipedia, and so ultimately the Wikipedia article is using itself as an authoritative source. Or the authority is fragile. Ie, the wiki article will cite a trus…
The Wikipedia policy on this is clear: "Do NOT use articles from Wikipedia (whether this English Wikipedia or Wikipedias in other languages) as sources." from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Wikipe... However, this is an issue to be watchful of indeed, as Wikipedia grows ever larger and gets used more and more. See also http://wikicite.org (storing citations in Wikidata) which could help bring…
The problem is, as noted, the meta-circular sourcing where following a non-wiki source eventually leads back to wikipedia.
Like dead link detecting, the Wiki policy on sources breaks down when the chain to the primary sources is longer than a single hop.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia certainly does have animations and videos. Here's a list of literally every article with a video, there are over 5,000 of them at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_containing_v... For comparison, Encarta had "over 300 videos". And while it's not interactive, there are definitely animations on Wikipedia to help understand concepts, like the top of the article on pi shows a circle unrolli…
There actually are two methods of interactivity on Wikipedia right now, the Graph extension [0] and Kartographer. [1] With the first you can create charts, timelines, and histograms, based on Vega. With the second, you can add points on maps (with images), have shapes, and outlines, from OpenStreetMap. Unfortunately, both aren't used as much as they should because most are comfortable using other tools and baking thi…
That's really interesting! I had no idea, I've never actually come across an interactive graph in the wild on Wikipedia.
But when I think "interactivity", I think of things especially in articles about physics, math, or sciences generally -- pulling on a spring to show oscillation, showing how the angles of a triangle add up to 180°, a real-time dynamic water cycle, etc.
I'm assuming Vega can't do stuff like that? Is there any tool that can?
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#154I spent a lot of time playing the maze game that came with Encarta, and like the author when I think of the "I Have a Dream" speech, I usually think about the version I watched on Encarta (as well as JFKs speech about going to the moon).
Just this morning at breakfast, my daughter said to me "Did you know about goliath birdeating spiders?" I told her that I did not, but I looked it up on wikipedia. I started telling them how wikipedia is a digital version of encyclopedias, which many of us used to have in our home, came in ~20 book sets and had articles about almost everything you could want to know about. My younger daughter's response to the idea of having a 20 book set about all sorts of different topics was "Why would you do that?" Not only are things like Encarta and Encyclopedias foreign to kids growing up, the logic on why one would need something like that is lost on them. It's not necessarily a bad thing (wikipedia is awesome in its own right), but it is interesting.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#155I don't know if miss Encarta but it does point out that in some ways Wikipedia feels like a step backward. Sure, wikipedia has more topics but where's a video? Where's the interactive explanations? Wikipedia feels like a 25yr old website. I know some people like that but it feels like a missed opportunity and stagnation to me
That's way more effort than writing some text. That kind of content doesn't make itself for free.
Is there a charity dedicated to making short CC0 instructive videos of fundamental concepts? That seems like a worthwhile cause.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#156I don't know if miss Encarta but it does point out that in some ways Wikipedia feels like a step backward. Sure, wikipedia has more topics but where's a video? Where's the interactive explanations? Wikipedia feels like a 25yr old website. I know some people like that but it feels like a missed opportunity and stagnation to me
Also, lot of Wikipedia articles are geared towards experts. Sometimes I'll go there looking to learn what something is and give up because understanding the article would require familiarity the parent domain.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#157While we're at it, a remaster of Pandora's Box with high-res graphics would be nice too.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#158That whole period of the PC industry where 'multimedia' became mainstream was pretty magical. I know the Amiga was well ahead of the PC ecosystem for a long time in capability but it never hit schools (at least where I grew up in South Australia) like PCs did. So with the emergence of VGA and Super VGA, widespread availability (and relative affordability) of 486 DX class PCs, Soundblasters and Optical Drives, the PC…
Hmm, to me the term "multimedia PC" already sounded outdated from the start, similar to the "a CD ROM can contain a whole library shelf worth of data" hype. I just thought like, this 386 PC could make sound and graphics and games. This Pentium can do it too, granted with more colors and a CD ROM drive and a fancy "where do you want to go today" movie, but does that warrant all this hype of being called "multimedia"?…
> "a CD ROM can contain a whole library shelf worth of data" hype
CD-ROMs were pretty incredible for their time. Remember that when they became mainstream around 1994, hard drives were only 200 MB and floppies were 1.44 MB, so they really were game changing.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#159I grabbed a copy of Encarta '97 at a street market in Kuala Lumpur for all of $3. I was 11 and it blew my mind how much info there was in it. Despite also buying FIFA '97 at shop, I looked forward to coming home from school and firing up a new article. They had a audio and video too! It's hard to explain just how incredible it was to have this info all in one place in the pre-internet age. Even today, I'd say having…
I recently watched some cringey home videos. When my brother got Encarta '97, I literally said "you're going to kick butt with that!"
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#160I don't know if miss Encarta but it does point out that in some ways Wikipedia feels like a step backward. Sure, wikipedia has more topics but where's a video? Where's the interactive explanations? Wikipedia feels like a 25yr old website. I know some people like that but it feels like a missed opportunity and stagnation to me
Wikipedia certainly does have animations and videos. Here's a list of literally every article with a video, there are over 5,000 of them at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_containing_v... For comparison, Encarta had "over 300 videos". And while it's not interactive, there are definitely animations on Wikipedia to help understand concepts, like the top of the article on pi shows a circle unrolli…
My crazy idea on the subject is to use existing lua support in wikipedia, transpile to js, and give it a .
Another idea that is thrown around sometimes is using scripted svgs in an iframe sandbox