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Thread: When finding the answers was a lot harder

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    Standing Wolf's Avatar Senior Member
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    When finding the answers was a lot harder

    My younger kids - and several of you - probably don't remember a time before the Internet...when the answers to questions, important and trivial, were a lot harder to come by. My father used to buy the new World Almanac every year, along with the Guinness Book of World Records - a practice I continued for many years. (He apparently had a problem with tossing the old Almanacs, because when I cleaned out the folks' house after my mother's death in the '90s, I found Almanacs going back to the late '50s in his library.) The Book of Lists and Leonard Maltin's books listing virtually every movie ever made were also great references.

    I can remember the local library in the small Indiana town where I lived as a kid offered a service where you could call and they would look things up for you. In the '70s, I purchased a set of Collier's Encyclopedias, and always bought the annual Yearbook, which - in theory - kept the Encyclopedia current. When you bought the Encyclopedias, they gave you a paper containing a hundred little coupons, and if you had a question you couldn't find the answer to, you could write to Collier's, attaching one of the little coupons, and they would mail you some kind of answer - usually just photocopied newspaper articles, or something like that.

    I'm sure that many formerly very useful and popular reference books are no longer even published. With the answers just a few mouse-clicks away, the need for them has largely gone away.
    Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard

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    Common Sense's Avatar Senior Member
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    I remember when we used to bet on a fact and never really could answer who was right. I wasn't going to pour through an encyclopedia or microfiche for answers. Now we just use our phones.

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    I used to love libraries. I discovered our town library, above the firehouse, when I was under 10 and spent many an afternoon and weekend in there pouring over books and magazines. In college, when not in class, or at a bar drinking and playing pinball, you could fixnd me in the library.

    After that it was bookstores.

    Not anymore, it's all online.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    The intetnet is becoming so saturated with junk, spam, untruths and is becoming ovengineered to death that doing anything on it is becoming virtually impossible.

    Going back to paper - books, encyclopedias, index cards is quickly becoming a more feasible option

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    I remember the days of no internet. In a lot of ways, it was better.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Obvious View Post
    The intetnet is becoming so saturated with junk, spam, untruths and is becoming ovengineered to death that doing anything on it is becoming virtually impossible.

    Going back to paper - books, encyclopedias, index cards is quickly becoming a more feasible option
    Let librarians filter what you have access to? No, thanks.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Let librarians filter what you have access to? No, thanks.
    Instead you would rather big brother, Bill Gates and capitalism filter your results.

    Gotcha

    Keep in mind we are just marginally freer than NK on the freedom index.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Obvious View Post
    Instead you would rather big brother, Bill Gates and capitalism filter your results.

    Gotcha

    Keep in mind we are just marginally freer than NK on the freedom index.
    Except they don't.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Except they don't.
    How would you know?

    And of course they do.

  10. The Following User Says Thank You to Captain Obvious For This Useful Post:

    Captdon (10-12-2017)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Obvious View Post
    How would you know?

    And of course they do.
    How would you know?

    Gates, or M$ might control the content of their encyclopedia but they do not control countless others, from which you are free to choose.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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