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I bought an encyclopedia

optoutproject.net

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Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#11

Post by bawolff »

What a confusing rambly article.

I read the entire thing, and I'm still not sure why he bought an encyclopedia. It seems like the stated main reason is so he can talk to his kids about how different sources are written and constructed. A noble goal, but it seems like a paper encyclopedia is pretty incidental to that goal.

Quite frankly, it seems like the real reason is the author has nostalgia for his encyclopedia growing up, and wants his kids to experience what he experienced as a child.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#12

Post by scandox »

cjk2 wrote: post #9

This article is mostly fluff. There's garbage in encyclopaedias as well and little possibility of finding errata. It also teaches the kids that you should trust one canonical source of information, which is bad. Teach your kids critical thinking instead.

He covers exactly this point you are making.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#13

Post by gary_0 »

scandox wrote: post #12
cjk2 wrote: post #9

This article is mostly fluff. There's garbage in encyclopaedias as well and little possibility of finding errata. It also teaches the kids that you should trust one canonical source of information, which is bad. Teach your kids critical thinking instead.

He covers exactly this point you are making.

In fact that's largely the point of the article if you read more than the first few paragraphs.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#14

Post by Neywiny »

bawolff wrote: post #11

What a confusing rambly article. I read the entire thing, and I'm still not sure why he bought an encyclopedia. It seems like the stated main reason is so he can talk to his kids about how different sources are written and constructed. A noble goal, but it seems like a paper encyclopedia is pretty incidental to that goal. Quite frankly, it seems like the real reason is the author has nostalgia for his encyclopedia gr…

Agreed. I think at one point I either saw that you could get an offline kindle-esque Wikipedia device or I contemplated what it would take to make one and saw it wouldn't be terrible. If I didn't hallucinate that product I'd expect it to be the better answer. The world changes so rapidly (unless all you need to know is stuff from an old game) that I don't ever consider using printed materials as reference anymore.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#15

Post by Mvandenbergh »

tpoacher wrote: post #5

There's a very implicit assumption in this text that the encyclopedia you buy in 2024 does NOT contain all sorts of AI-generated stuff. Not sure I have that much faith in the world anymore to trust that to be true.

The timelines for encyclopaedia article contributions, editing and publishing are such that I highly doubt that an encyclopaedia bought in 2024 has much if any LLM generated content.

I wouldn't want to make that bet for an encyclopaedia published in 2027 though.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#17

Post by Tomte »

mvc wrote: post #16

[flagged]

Oh yes. I‘ve got a Brockhaus, a German encyclopaedia, from around 1900.

Feminism is female behaviour in men, also women‘s movement.

Women‘s movement is about fighting for the rights that women are entitled to, according to their abilities and characteristics.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#18

Post by mvc »

Tomte wrote: post #17
mvc wrote: post #16

[flagged]

Oh yes. I‘ve got a Brockhaus, a German encyclopaedia, from around 1900. Feminism is female behaviour in men, also women‘s movement. Women‘s movement is about fighting for the rights that women are entitled to, according to their abilities and characteristics.

antisemitism "is a passing phase in the history of culture"

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/apr/10/ency...

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#19

Post by isolli »

That's my intention too. As soon as we're done moving houses, I will buy the latest print edition of the French Encyclopædia Universalis, from 2012.

A childhood memory I have is that my friends who had one at home had a much easier time doing their homework. I had to go to the library, and was never sure to find information on the topic I was looking for, whereas they had everything at their fingertips.

(Thinking back, I'm not sure why the library did not have an encyclopedia...)

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