Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I bought an encyclopedia

optoutproject.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 119 posts

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#31

Post by pixelmonkey »

globular-toast wrote: post #29
pixelmonkey wrote: post #23

This article reminded me that many years ago I used to make PDF compilations of related Wikipedia articles using some tooling developed by PediaPress, and then read those offline on my laptop or iPad. I recently encountered one such compilation of cryptography & security related articles in my EBooks folder, and noticed the PediaPress metadata on the PDF. Apparently PediaPress is still around, and its tooling is stil…

I used to take advantage of the browser's "work offline" functionality. This started to work less and less reliably, even by the early 2000s, but Wikipedia still worked nicely. I would dial up at night when everyone was asleep and click through to all the pages surrounding some topic, like internal combustion engines. Then the next day I'd work offline and digest it all. I was sad when I clicked a link that hadn't be…

On Android, the official Wikipedia app is surprisingly good at marking articles for offline reading, organizing them into collections, and downloading them, including related assets like images. When I'm traveling I install the app on my "travel phone" (which is Android / Google Fi) and take advantage of it along with Kindle app offline reading for Lonely Planet guides, and the Google Maps offline maps feature.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#32

Post by tiffanyh »

ClosedPistachio wrote: post #2

Similarly, I purchased a copy of "Bosch Automotive Handbook" [1]. For $65 it will literally walk you through every component of a vehicle, from the metals required, the fuel, to the electronics. It's presence on my bookshelf is meant to be aspirational. https://www.sae.org/publications/books/content/bosch10/

1,766-pages.

Wowzer.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#33

Post by keiferski »

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.

Knowledge of and use of AI tools in non-tech industries is still pretty low. I wouldn’t expect a publisher of encyclopedias to implement AI tools for years.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#34

Post by casey2 »

mvc wrote: post #18
Tomte wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"Though anti-Semitism has been unmasked and discredited, it is to be feared that its history is not yet at an end."[2]

That's just a quote mine. If you read the whole article [1] It mentions other times where antisemitism was regarded as a "ephemeral craze" which later entered mainstream politics and agitation (duels between antisemites and jews and mob violence). It mentions revivals of organized antisemitism as recently as 1907. Nobody would read this article and come away with the impression that antisemitism was "a passing phase in the history of culture" unless they were talking about a thousand years in the future.

Furthermore the entire article is extremely biased in the jews' favor (particularly noticeable when the article glosses over widespread investment banking fraud but calls antisemitism a "barbarian movement" and calls out popular antisemites by name and accuses them of fraud and having "evil notoriety". You also have the fact that most readers would consider Europe in the late 1800s to be more or less the same enlightened and liberal continent as it is now. So that particular section about antisemitism being a passing fad is just wishful thinking which would be picked up by most readers.

Also it's well known that you can't predict the future, to my knowledge the 11th doesn't predict WW1 which is generally considered as being influential in the rise of the Nazis. People buy encyclopedias for their information not as an oracle.

[1] https://archive.org/details/EncyclopaediaBritannicaDict.a.s....

[2] https://archive.org/details/EncyclopaediaBritannicaDict.a.s....

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#35

Post by freakcage »

ClosedPistachio wrote: post #2

Similarly, I purchased a copy of "Bosch Automotive Handbook" [1]. For $65 it will literally walk you through every component of a vehicle, from the metals required, the fuel, to the electronics. It's presence on my bookshelf is meant to be aspirational. https://www.sae.org/publications/books/content/bosch10/

As someone who never owns a car and wants to learn about car. Do you think it's a good book?

I am still contemplating between buying book about car or buy pc games called Car Mechanic Simulator.

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#36

Post by casey2 »

casey2 wrote: post #34
mvc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

antisemitism "is a passing phase in the history of culture" https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/apr/10/ency...

"Though anti-Semitism has been unmasked and discredited, it is to be feared that its history is not yet at an end."[2] That's just a quote mine. If you read the whole article [1] It mentions other times where antisemitism was regarded as a "ephemeral craze" which later entered mainstream politics and agitation (duels between antisemites and jews and mob violence). It mentions revivals of organized antisemitism as rec…

I also found the original quote, which isn't in the article on antisemitism. https://books.google.com/books?id=NHDHBNoqFwIC&newbks=0&prin...

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#39

Post by teeray »

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.

Pre-LLM content is going to be this century’s Low Background Steel[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

Re: I bought an encyclopedia

#40

Post by michaelt »

isolli wrote: post #19

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 bac…

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

Different libraries often have very different collections, depending on the community they're serving.

A university library might have 10 copies of the same undergraduate introductory physics textbook, a copy of a few dozen other undergraduate introductory physics textbooks, and a load of more advanced texts in the same area.

A community library might have a large selection of children's books and romance novels, crime novels, mystery novels, some popular science, audio books, travel guides, local history, but no college-level physics books.

A high school library might have plenty of young-adult novels and high-school-level textbooks, but no children's books or advanced physics texts.

Perhaps you were in a community library and they didn't get many kids doing homework?

(Of course, libraries can almost always get any book you ask for on inter-library loan so that community or high-school library could get an advanced physics textbook if someone asked for one)

Post reply on HN