ISBN Visualization • Hacker News Board

Re: ISBN Visualization

#11

Post by layer8 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 11:11 PM UTC

shevy-java wrote: post #4

One problem I see with annas archive is that there is a tendency towards older books. Now I do understand this for many reasons, but ... I recently read a book about steel construction in 1932, just for curiousity. I wanted to find a more recent one - did not even have to be, say, 1990 or 2000 or some such, but I simply could not find any (well, perhaps english speaking, but this is also a problem in that non-english…

In my experience, the availability of anything that isn’t popular or computer nerd-adjacent from before the age of ebooks is very hit and miss on AA.

Re: ISBN Visualization

#12

Post by kobbs » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 12:14 AM UTC

atulvi wrote: post #6

Is there a similar one for IP?

https://vad.solutions/ipmap/

Re: ISBN Visualization

#13

Post by FrustratedMonky » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 12:36 AM UTC

This is really nice.

When zoomed all the way, it is a book shelf. Totally un-expected, nice touch.

Re: ISBN Visualization

#14

Post by gzread » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:22 AM UTC

kobbs wrote: post #12

atulvi wrote: post #6

Is there a similar one for IP?

https://vad.solutions/ipmap/

Crazy how much more IPv6 space RIPE NCC allocated than ARIN. Really shows off their countries' different stances on innovation.

Re: ISBN Visualization

#15

Post by rosstex » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:54 AM UTC

This makes it feel like there aren't many books in the world

Re: ISBN Visualization

#16

Post by ghighi7878 » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #10

It's very strange to me how small Spanish is there. Second language in the world by native speakers, piracy being effectively legal in Spain (non commercially), and so on.

Spanish is second largest by people but not by revenue

Re: ISBN Visualization

#17

Post by C-x_C-f » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC

rosstex wrote: post #15

This makes it feel like there aren't many books in the world

That's funny, I came out of it with the opposite impression.

In the section for my native tongue, I zoomed in a few times, here and there, and I only once did I stumble upon an author I knew.

To me, writing a book feels like such a monumental endeavor that I find it hard to fathom the amount of collective effort that it took to write all this, especially considering how most of these works are almost forgotten by now (something something power law).

Re: ISBN Visualization

#18

Post by fakefish » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:41 AM UTC

The bookshelf is nice, but I'd love to be able to read the titles more easily - maybe rotate by 90 degrees?

Re: ISBN Visualization

#19

Post by sfRattan » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:30 AM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #10

It's very strange to me how small Spanish is there. Second language in the world by native speakers, piracy being effectively legal in Spain (non commercially), and so on.

Piracy of anything other than live streams of La Liga games... For those, Spain shuts down whole IP ranges and cripples the Internet at large while the game is live.

Re: ISBN Visualization

#20

Post by squigz » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:48 AM UTC

rosstex wrote: post #15

This makes it feel like there aren't many books in the world

There are 101,000,000 books visualized. Another way of looking at it is how incredible it is that we can catalogue (and archive) so much of humanity's writing.