71–80 of 199 posts
Everyone thought vinyl records were dead, but here we are:
https://www.bbc.com/news/64919126
Still, I'm not buying a set. Takes up too much space.
In the 80's the encyclopedia filled the same niche that a smartphone does for me now. Whenever I had a small number of minutes to kill I grabbed a random volume and flipped open to a random page.
Except I don't flip to a random page on the internet. Like you, I am remembering the serendipity of the encyclopedia (and libraries for that matter).
Now, SEO spam has convinced me it's actually a bathtub curve, and is rapidly shooting back up.
This makes sense, historically. I'm sure there was a time when literally anything that had been printed on a printing press was worth reading.
I witnessed the time when anything that had been stored on a CD-ROM was worth reading, since generating CD-ROM worth of data, then producing them was ridiculously expensive (that time period lasted about 1-2 years).
Anyway, early internet, it was hard to publish stuff. As of this year, it's less expensive to write and publish stuff than it is to read it, so curated repositories that are hardened against spam are going to be important again.
I loved reading my grandfather's 1980s edition World Book when visiting, pre internet. There was something kind of magical about that much information in one place at the time, but at a house instead of a library! Edit: I also remember browsing the Macintosh version of the Encyclopedia Britannica as one of my first school computer activities.
That's just coping after burning a bit of money on an useless shelf decoration... I'm sure he will use it occasionally instead of wikipedia just to feel he didn't threw away that money.
>Later, I introduced the encyclopedia to my kids. They had never used a print encyclopedia, and they looked at me like I was an alien, almost as if I were speaking a different language (such a trite expression, but man, is it accurate). I had hoped they could use the encyclopedia as an old-fashioned reference, but so far, they have completely and utterly rejected it, not even expressing interest or opening it once. T…
Same, and same, and I don't know why the author ever expected anything else. You can't give them a hoop&stick and then complain when they'd rather play with, I don't know, I'm old and childless, some modern toy.
>Later, I introduced the encyclopedia to my kids. They had never used a print encyclopedia, and they looked at me like I was an alien, almost as if I were speaking a different language (such a trite expression, but man, is it accurate). I had hoped they could use the encyclopedia as an old-fashioned reference, but so far, they have completely and utterly rejected it, not even expressing interest or opening it once. T…
My oldest child is a voracious reader, but she mostly reads fiction/fantasy. I got her a Neil deGrasse Tyson book that she liked. This article reminds me that I need to provide more of that sort of content.
> My family's reaction was disappointing, but I don't mind that the encyclopedia set is just for me. That's just coping after burning a bit of money on an useless shelf decoration... I'm sure he will use it occasionally instead of wikipedia just to feel he didn't threw away that money.
> My family's reaction was disappointing, but I don't mind that the encyclopedia set is just for me. That's just coping after burning a bit of money on an useless shelf decoration... I'm sure he will use it occasionally instead of wikipedia just to feel he didn't threw away that money.
I started reading them from start to finish. Gave up after a while, but at least I now know a lot of trivia about things that start with A, B, C, and D.