[HN Gopher] I bought an encyclopedia
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I bought an encyclopedia
Author : cratermoon
Score : 96 points
Date : 2024-06-13 23:18 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.optoutproject.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.optoutproject.net)
| ClosedPistachio wrote:
| 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/
| rnewme wrote:
| Very cool, thanks for the link
| simpaticoder wrote:
| If you're looking to be inspired to take the plunge into car
| repair, check out M359 Restorations YouTube channel[0]. It's a
| one-man shop in Frankfurt that specializes in BMW restorations.
| It's a good look into what it takes to do projects like this
| well: the tools, the space, the knowledge of the secondary
| market and parts suppliers, and when/how to repair a component
| rather than buying a new one. He does use repair manuals for
| some things, especially engine rebuilds, but a lot of what he
| does is based on "what looks right" to a person doing this for
| the last 10-15 years.
|
| As a beginner looking to start with minimal infrastructure, he
| does some of his restorations outside his shop, often in
| borrowed personal garages of subscribers. Project Salt Lake
| City is a good example [1]. For someone looking to do a more
| advanced repair (arguably the most advanced possible) there are
| some good engine rebuilding videos, especially with Project
| Frankfurt[2].
|
| One thing I find surprising is that he still uses a lot of 3rd
| party services. AC dis/charging, wheel alignment, tire mounting
| and balancing, dynamo measurement, block reconditioning, head
| and supercharger refreshes, and even car detailing (which he
| seems to be actively trying to avoid doing despite his
| instincts because it is a huge time sink). He is a dynamic,
| adaptable node in a fascinating, specialized capital network.
|
| 0 - https://www.youtube.com/@M539Restorations
|
| 1 -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a9rCI2zfPM&list=PLBcFoVFuPC...
|
| 2 -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyqZoNwKeOM&list=PLBcFoVFuPC...
| scrlk wrote:
| M359 Restorations is an absolutely fantastic channel,
| arguably the best car restoration channel on YouTube.
|
| I also recommend ChrisFix, especially for new DIY driveway
| mechanics as the videos tend to be more general tutorials
| using hand tools (e.g. "how to do an oil change", "how to
| replace brake discs + pads").
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@chrisfix/videos
| tiffanyh wrote:
| 1,766-pages.
|
| Wowzer.
| freakcage wrote:
| 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.
| eagerpace wrote:
| What about learning more about something you already own and
| use? It would give you an opportunity to have a more hands
| on, real world experience and if it does break you can fix
| it?
| Rediscover wrote:
| I really enjoyed John Muir pubs like How to Keep Your
| Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step by Step Procedures for the
| Compleat Idiot. They are available for a handful of vehicles
| (the Subaru one is a favorite of mine). Available at a used
| bookshop or new.
|
| Great drawings, useful for non-motor-heads. The Sub version
| has info like resuscitating a drowned lizard :)
|
| Avoid if You hate R. Crumb style drawings and hippies.
|
| Try entering 1566913101 as the search in Amazon, currently
| USD23.00
|
| Edit, adding: you don't need a specific one to gain great
| knowledge.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Conversely, I spent years convincing my parents to buy a computer
| precisely so I could read Wikipedia. It was pretty much my main
| hobby between the ages of 14 and 16.
| nottorp wrote:
| Wikipedia is one of the major positive use cases for the
| internet*.
|
| As long as they can keep up with curation, that is.
|
| Paper encyclopedias may be fun, but let's point out that he
| bought one for the kids to play a 20 year old game in an
| emulator. So they only need information from 20 years ago.
|
| * along with cat photos, obviously.
| tpoacher wrote:
| 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.
| Mvandenbergh wrote:
| 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.
| keiferski wrote:
| 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.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| AI disclaimers already appear in journalism. It's a short
| leap to the broader traditional publishing world.
| teeray wrote:
| Pre-LLM content is going to be this century's Low Background
| Steel[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| I don't get it. Does the set he purchased have the lost Beatles
| song? If not, what's the point?
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| I still have my 1979 World Book set (plus the 1980 Year Book!). I
| part-exchanged a 1952 set I'd inherited from an older cousin -
| many of the articles hadn't changed in the interim.
|
| It still serves as an excellent stabilizer for a set of
| freestanding bookselves.
| cjk2 wrote:
| 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.
| scandox wrote:
| He covers exactly this point you are making.
| gary_0 wrote:
| In fact that's largely the point of the article if you read
| more than the first few paragraphs.
| rambambram wrote:
| True. But "he" is a "she".
| surfingdino wrote:
| > It also teaches the kids that you should trust one canonical
| source of information, which is bad.
|
| And teaching the kids to trust the source that cannot give them
| facts and changes the answer every time you ask the same
| question is good?
| bawolff wrote:
| 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.
| Neywiny wrote:
| 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.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Yes, there was at least one physical Wikipedia device (the
| Wikireader, released in 2009 and discontinued in 2014), but
| these days a more practical solution is to put an offline
| Wikipedia app like Kiwix on an old phone.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader https://kiwix.org
| jiehong wrote:
| I think the last paragraphs say it clearly:
| Our information literacy project must start somewhere,
| preferably far enough from the meandering blather of generative
| systems that when we encounter them, we have the tools under
| our belt to evaluate their results. And that,
| ultimately, is why I bought an Encyclopedia.
| bawolff wrote:
| But at the start of the article he claims his kids are
| getting information from wikipedia and youtube videos.
| Neither of which are generative AI (well i guess it depends
| which youtube video).
|
| So he bought an encyclopedia to prevent his kids from using
| generative AI even though they weren't using it in the first
| place? It makes no sense.
| rambambram wrote:
| He is a she.
| isolli wrote:
| That's my intention too. As soon as we're done moving houses, I
| will buy the latest print edition of the French Encyclopaedia
| 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...)
| Perz1val wrote:
| Maybe they wanted you to search for the purpose of learning how
| to search for information. To be honest, this would make sense,
| but I suspect the real answer is something stupid that doesn't
| make sense
| michaelt wrote:
| _> 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)
| n3storm wrote:
| USA is deeply different. Looks like antigeneralizationism. I
| live in Spain and I lived in Limerick and libraries are
| mostly similar, both university and municipal ones.
| paulcole wrote:
| "I'm rich. I'm contrarian. I wish I was still a kid (and that the
| world was the way it was then, too). I'm looking to write a
| clickbait blog."
| cxr wrote:
| For the reasons given in the article, the author and readers here
| who are convinced might also consider getting a copy of Pocket
| Ref.
|
| <https://sequoiapublishing.com/product/pocket-ref/>
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_Ref>
| noefingway wrote:
| Cheers for PocketRef! Another tool in my farm shop.
| pixelmonkey wrote:
| 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 still open source:
|
| https://pediapress.com/code/
|
| I also Google'd around a bit on this topic and it looks like
| there is an alternative set of tooling, wiki2book, focused on
| doing the same thing, but generating EPUBs that look good on
| e-reader devices. It also smartly doesn't require a
| modified/extended MediaWiki server, handling the quirks of the
| live Wikipedia instance specifically. Here is the info on that:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/189qqxe/wiki2boo...
|
| https://github.com/hauke96/wiki2book
| globular-toast wrote:
| 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 been
| cached, but somehow having only the limited amount available
| meant I actually did read it all. Nowadays it's all available
| and lots of people don't seem to read anything ever. Sigh...
|
| There is an app for Android called Kiwix that lets you download
| the whole of Wikipedia for viewing offline. I keep meaning to
| do it but never got around to it, though.
| pixelmonkey wrote:
| 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.
| rramadass wrote:
| +1.
|
| Good tips.
| rramadass wrote:
| +1.
|
| I need to try this.
| fmajid wrote:
| Try Kiwix. It's an offline reader, you can download the entire
| English-language Wikipedia, complete with media, in about
| 100GB. They also have a bunch of other collections like Project
| Gutenberg. There are also less heavy subsets.
|
| https://kiwix.org/en/
| 2snakes wrote:
| I'm currently reading the Propaedia and looking up things I don't
| know or am curious about in Britannica app.
| keybored wrote:
| I have access to an encyclopedia. I remember there being like two
| small paragraphs per entry.
| TGIM wrote:
| I recently purchased a Britannica 15th Edition 32 Volume Complete
| from a yard sale. I'm not a doomsayer so to speak but if the grid
| ever gets hit with a big enough solar flare, I'll have plenty to
| read.
| fouc wrote:
| Would be nice if the Encyclopedia was detailed enough to be
| able to re-build the grid ;)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I have a two or three volume encyclopaedia-like work from the
| XIX that, as far as I can tell, was directed to factory
| owners. Its articles cover things like roofing that lets in
| natural light, how best to build private rail spurs into your
| factory, or even cheap and cheerful ways to provide worker
| housing in your company town, etc. etc.
| tivert wrote:
| > How do we make crayons?
|
| If you're being retro, old Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers episodes
| covered that regularly:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ_MEFVx5jM
|
| https://www.pbs.org/video/mister-rogers-neighborhood-competi...
|
| > We had just bought an emulator to teach them to play Where in
| the World is Carmen Sandiego? They loved it, but wanted to
| quickly look up clues --- quick, he drove off in a car with a
| blue and yellow flag! And which country uses pesos?
|
| The original versions of the games literally shipped with a copy
| of the World Almanac:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Almanac.
|
| Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole point of the game
| was to teach kids how to use that reference work.
| fouc wrote:
| My takeaway is that if we want an offline encyclopedia, we'd
| basically need to download the entire wikipedia including the
| full talk & edit history.
| westcort wrote:
| I did this too. I bought the 2021 version of World Book,
| specifically. When my kids ask questions, we use the encyclopedia
| to find the answer. My oldest taught me how to use the subject
| index. It fits in two milk crates. I find it comforting, as I
| grew up with a set, too. Except, the set I had growing up was
| much older.
| hedora wrote:
| We got an encyclopedia on craigslist free, and it's great.
|
| You can order new ones direct from World Book, and they offer
| steep discounts on ones that are a year or two old.
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