Slashdot Mirror
Is the Internet Your Source of Knowledge?
serutan asks: "How much do you rely on the Internet for information? Since getting online 7 or 8 years ago, I have gradually abandoned almost all other sources of news and information, to the point where they've pretty much disappeared from my life. I'm a geek, but at age 49 not exactly a child of the Information Age. I've been surrounded by dictionaries, encyclopedias and similar books for most of my life. I still read fiction in book form, but if I'm trying to look up something and can't find it online in a couple minutes I generally just blow it off, as if there's no other place to look. This realization seems sort of stunning. I'm very curious if other Slashdot readers have become dependent on the Internet to that level, and what their thoughts are on the subject."
For news, and timely information certainly the internet is the place I turn. The evening "News" is so corporate owned and supported that I don't really consider it a reliable source for information. Besides, I don't really know exactly what I get out of keeping up with how many people were murdered or died in fires in the tri-state NY metro area (there is a LOT of that on the news). So, I've just stopped watching. I was never much of a newspaper reader, but of course there is always the New York Times and many other newspapers that bring the information to you with a nice bow on it so you don't have to go scouring elsewhere. But if scouring is your style and you are a real information junky, the scouring certainly isn't that hard.
But if I am going to learn anything in-depth certainly books -dead tree media- is the way to be. My upper limit of reading an article on the crt is about 10 pages. Your mileage will vary there, of course it's highly individual. But maybe that's why places where the information is in digested for you allowing you to scan many stories at once and sample them all, because lengthy readings on a computer monitor are more tedious than kicking back and reading a book.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Pr0n! Like you I was surrounded by dead tree info but now my pr0n needs are delivered almost exclusively by the Internet. Seriously though you can definitely find stuff on the 'net that would be hard in a meatspace format especially fetish type stuff. Excellent news for small town folk who can't buy these things where they live. "The Internet's Hottest Nude Mujahudeen Amputees"? No problem.
But I'm always wrong.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Google says: Your search - "is the internet my source of knowledge?" - did not match any documents.
how many of us could replace the word "Internet" in this posting with "Google"?
great website for information
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
I use the internet for a lot of fact lookups. i.e. how do I setup so and so. Also for news headlines its a handy resources but I'm carful about opinion.s IMHO ( :) ) one of the strenghts + weakness of the internet is that anyone can put up information about anything. How do you check they are right?
This is why I still find resources such as paper encylopidias or the digtal counterparts a better resource. Also for some things such as book it is better to have paperback as you can sit out in the sun and enjoy life rather than being stuck in front of a computer screen
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I am 31 and have spent most of my life on computers. I use the internet as almost my sole source of information. I haven't been to a library in years...
But I also find the internet to be a better source of information. I can read multiple opinions, thoughts, and comments on most any topic. This gives me a better grasp of the situation then reading one book at a time.
I am not worried about this fact, I just see it as a newer way of gathering information.
-R
--Still waiting for that awsome sig to just leap out at me..--
Yep. It's the worst though when you're searching Google for "Google monopoly theories".
We refer to it as "the source of all Truth and Knowledge." (I am not making this up.)
We never use the phone book... We never call anyone to make travel arrangements... We never write checks and mail them to pay bills...
I often wonder how anybody did anything prior to the advent of "the source of all Truth and Knowledge."
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Yes, definitely. I just started college, and my roommate brought a dictionary with him. I stopped and realized that I'd never even considered bringing a dictionary or thesaurus with me because I've got M-W.com and even a second opinion with Dictionary.com, and then some non-words that should be at PseudoDictionary.com. It simply never occurred to me to bring a hard copy of a dictionary, because I've grown so dependent on those websites.
As far as encyclopedias go, Google has basically redefined the concept of an encyclopedia for me. With a little query-practice one can find a huge number of resources for just about anything imaginable. Google's almost like an encyclopedia to a library of encyclopedias.
Later,
Patrick
sitting on the table between the couches next to the phone, the little imac makes a great phonebook, notepad, internet research, music player..hibrinates instantly on and off with a push of that lit white button. ya it's nice. google has certainly made my dictionary and encyclopedia obsolete and with a web browser on my phone, i've got constant access to all the information in the world.
If I want deep historical data, the internet isnt the place I look for it. If I want a "google" on something I'm unfamiliar with, then yeah, the internet is all I need.
I think the real issue here should be "Why are we trying to sum up all the knowledge of a subject in one or two webpages?"
My last report came from 2 books and a video. No, I didn't have to use non-internet sources. But yeah, I chose to get concrete, in depth stuff that I could use.
hmmm.. to post anon or not to post anon.. oh well I dont care.
| - | - |
I'm not even 20 yet, and we adopted the internet fairly early, so I've definitely grown up using it as an information source.
/. and Fark are where I get my information about the world. Because of this, I never hear information about local happenings, but I live in a pretty boring city, so it's all good. Well, at least I think it's a boring city.. I don't really know...
I was too young to be interested in watching the news or reading the paper when we got the internet, so when I finally became interested in news, the internet was right there.
News on TV, and in the paper especially, is just far too slow and outdated for me. Google News,
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
I rely on the Net to provide me with a great amount of information, but I don't rely on it exclusively for any matters more important than just satisfying my curiosity.
As with other media, some Internet sources of information may be biased. Different websites may still rely on the same, possibly flawed, information. Others may intentionally attempt to spread false information.
And even when I can get accurate information, I may not be able to get all the data I need....or even if I can, I may not know exactly what to do with that information (think WebMD).
In short, the Net is a great tool for research but it is far from being a one-stop source of information. Thorough research will still require access to offline data in the form of subject matter experts and publications not available in electronic form.
OK, what did I eat last night? After my visit to the facilities this morning, I'm really wondering.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Slashdot is my sole source of knowledge.
Online, I can get the news quicker than waiting for the news or the morning paper -- and better yet, I can compare it from several different sources (thanks, Google News). I can find discussions which sometimes point me to additional sources. I can search for terms that I'm not familiar with. Plus, I'm on the computer eight hours every weekday, and the latest news is just a few keystrokes away.
On the other hand, the Internet is not so good at covering local news; I get that in my morning paper, which is actually easier to read than that same paper's website. (I live in Peoria, Illinois -- a city, but not a metropolis -- so the online news is only updated when the morning edition comes out.) It's also a little lacking when you're looking for non-contemporary topics -- the kind of thing that a good paper encyclopedia or the shelf at your local library gives you more thoroughly, because that kind of research costs money and most of the Internet is still free. More importantly, information online is often generalized and condensed, so if you're looking for in-depth facts on a particular topic, you usually need a book on just that one topic.
In short, information on the Internet is quick and broad, but rarely very deep or complete. A good trade-off in many cases, but certainly not all of them.
Yes. I have done this as well. I'm bored by the morning newspaper now. I already have read all the stories the day before on various news Web pages. We use the Internet as our TV guide and don't even bother saving it from the Sunday paper anymore. Stock quotes? Why does the newspaper even bother. And I'm all caught up on sports the night before I get the paper as well.
I am seriously considering cancelling the newspaper, except it is really the only good source of very local news. I find that a few casual minutes of browsing every couple of hours keeps me infinitely more informed than most.
I feel out of touch when I do not have decent Internet access. I get frustrated when I see people sitting around debating some fact (news, gossip, celebrities, sports...) and just want to drop some Cat5 wherever I am so we can hook up and resolve the issue immediately.
The weird thing is that I think I have good intuition about reliability of sources, etc. And I have proven this to be true over time. However, I notice that many, many people are not very good at this skill and end up getting hood-winked pretty easy by junk they read on the Internet.
The inherent naivete of the masses is the Achilles heal of the Internet becoming THE source of all info.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
The internet is good for gaining quick information on a topic to help you look at a library, but that's about all.
If I need to know how tall a mountain is, or how many lines of code are in FreeBSD, then the internet would be my source.
But when writing a research paper, libraries still remain king, especially at universities where they subscribe to many very expensive (too expensive, IMO) journals that contain publications that aren't necessarily on the web.
The Internet is my primary source of knowledge, and has been since I was in high school. The school never ended up teaching much that was relevant to.. oh.. anything, and the Internet had tons of freely available knowledge to eat up.
I still rely on the Internet, but it's becoming increasingly more difficult to do so as Google is the best search engine, and has become barely useful any more due to the search engine spammers.
I do think that a good search engine is key to extracting information from the Internet, and I look forward to a day when we once again have a good search engine.
I was just musing this morning that there is a wealth of knowledge in book form that I hardly ever go back to anymore but which is simply not available online. It occured to me that in my university's rather modest library there were reference books that had very in depth information on specific subjects. Example: translations and commentary for early music of, say, the trouveres. Can you find articles about them online? Sure, but the material is spotty. You can't find as many scholarly opinions on the matter or get at really useful information.
The problem is that the content that is readily available online never has the sustained depth that a book on the subject seems to. It's more likely that a scholar setting out with a purpose to explain a lot about a subject publish in book form even now. Unless the book has already been put online you won't find information of that depth...but I'm sure that the majority of books still aren't available online, no?
These days I only keep the Britannica "Great Books" series in my home and assorted DVDROM encyclopedias. I rarely use the DVDs though.
:-)
I used to buy the newspaper for movies. The telephone book for numbers. The TV Guide (in the Sunday paper) for TV shows. Now all of that is taken care of in Apple's Sherlock or Watson. I don't even mail anything these days...I use email. I do mail stuff for half.com sales and netflix.com....but even my bills are starting to be handled through an online bill pay service.
I am starting to get a lot of my news from the internet too. Soon, I will only watch TV for news commentary and shows...on Tivo, of course!
The Internet (well, the web in particular) is a fine tool for quick research, and has supplanted dead-tree media for me in that regard. No longer do I have to go down to the local library to look up a quick fact, or have a huge pile of reference books next to me with well worn indices. The true strength of the web lies in search engines, which provide an index to essentially every written work on it.
/random-access/ media yet developed, but is lacking for long serial accesses.
Similarly, it's supplanted making phone calls or poring through paper records to get service from another party. There are no more hold times for customer service reps or having to wait for business hours to get information. The computer is there, 24 hours a day.
The one thing that it hasn't supplanted, and I doubt that it will for a while, are long writings. If I want to read a book, rather than use it as a reference, far better to have it in print form where I can carry it with me anywhere and read it on something other than a computer screen. In short, the Internet is probably the best
The internet is a great wonderful thing....
I use it for the following:
- Yellow Pages
- Map to locations
- News
- Local Weather
- Learning new technology
One thing I've come across is that not all subjects are available in equal formats... meaning that I can find a pleuthra of info on programming in almost any particular language, but I find some difficult in finding that same kind of info about plants of woodworking. The more technical and closely related to computers the subject, the more I find. But as I go from away from computers, the less I find, and less consistant the quality.
It will still be some time to before we have wonderful resources for major subjects online.
Back in the day, at least.
The rumors of a thousand ill-informed people do not add up to the knowledge of a single well-informed person. So be careful to verify what you read before accepting it as Truth.
And never, never trust MapQuest.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
At 40, I'm a child of the computer age (started programming at 17 and was on the Internet when that meant using FTP or UUCP in the 80-ties.). Nevertheless, I read fiction and non-fiction in book form (as can be seen on the reviews on my homepage, a hobby of mine), but every time I need some quick info, I too google, msn, etc, for the information I need (I love google, but they don't have all information). Why do I still read non-fiction books? As I'm interested in Management (and has an MBA), I can tell you that very little of the information that you need to learn to become a manager (or MBA) can be found on the Internet. You need to find the books or journals and read them. If I need to understand how PHP parses regexp as compared to PERL or how the object classes of OCCAM is built compared to C++, I can find it on the Internet. More specialised, non-computer related subjects, is still best found on paper (I would love if it wasn't so, but that is my experience). For News on the other hand, I nearly always use the Internet, as it has the latest news, as it breaks and allows me to get different opinions (like the American, Canadian, French, Swedish, Israeli, Arab, etc opinions on the Iraqi question). TV, Radio and Newspapers are too focused on what they believe to be politically correct and it is hard to get an overview of opinions if I don't use the Internet. Also, the ensuing discussions, with experts, so-called-experts, crackpots and lay(wo)men is what I love about the Internet. The Internet today, is a wonderful complement to hard sources of information, but it is far from replacing them. Regards Roland Buresund
-- Roland Buresund MBA, MCMI, CISSP
I think overreliance on the Internet for information is why so many tech stocks bubbled and why so many techies are so insensitive to the effects of technology on people, as well as a sort of social darwinist ideology that the free market correlates perfectly with ability (even at the same time as M$ is bashed albeit often for anti-free market principles) or with public taste. If you don't see it on the screen, it doesn't happen.
That and getting information from games like SimCity (software is the cleanest and highest value of all industries) and Civilization (limited liability is an important moment of progress). The general conclusion is that corporate expansion and economic growth means greater efficiency, which is the way that all people become better off. This seems so self evident based on most of the information you get from the Internet that as soon as I write it I realize that the mere questioning of it will seem absurd to most people. The fact that the vast majority of people in human history did not believe this to be true is something you would have very little indication of from the informatoin available from the Internet. That is to say that the Internet is suffused with a Taylorist, efficiency based ideology.
I think it's coming to the point that, online, knowledge is more or less irrelivent. It's more about how resourceful you are. How potently you use your favourite search engine and how well your instincts navigate you between the junk and into the holy grail. :D
:D
People think I'm smart, but really it's just that I've learned how to find what I'm looking for. Smarts has little to do with it, as I have little of it.
- shazow
Books can't even compare to the flexibility of the internet, especially in areas like Computer Science which are rapidly changing every day.
But the internet is much more than that, its my source of news, shopping and reviews for just about anything. I can compare various weather reports, check out the radar images or click onto a web-cam anywhere in the world to see for myself.
The parent post brings up the issue of realiability. Now, while I will admit that there is a large ammount of usless, misleading and just plain false information out there, I have to remind you that this is because ANYONE can post ANYTHING THEY WANT on the web. This means that if you look around and compare sources, the internet will provide you with exponentially more viewpoints than any book or newspaper ever could. Just look at what's happened with the SCO thing on Slashdot.
I can't even count the number of times I've seen stuff on the news and said "Oh yeah, I remember reading about that on Slashdot a WEEK ago!".
Now if only technology could some how re-direct pharmaceutical r&d into actually curing diseases (when was the last time that happened, like 50 years ago?), especially deadly ones and those found in third world countries, instead of just finding new pills for heartburn and impotence. Actually what you really want is a computer that is not a sleep deprived resident or a narcissist who is only concerned with buying their next Porsche.
My commute is one hour each way, so it's Morning Edition on the way to work, then a mix of sports talk and All Things Considered on the way home.
Once at home, yep, it's the Net, with Google playing a big role. No TV news, no newspapers. That's really no significant change from before the Net, though. I might watch the Newshour on PBS once every two weeks instead of once a week; never have read a newspaper for anything except the comics and sports.
Are you talking about the Web?
The Web cannot be beat for current events. It's also a great source for directory information: phone numbers, locations, maps, and the like. But it falls flat on its face for in-depth information, unless you're looking for computer and related geekery in all 31 flavors.
Are you talking about USENET?
Great place to find an expert. On anything. This expert may even take the time to talk to you. Since the advent of Google archiving, it's become easier to search newsgroups for back posts--and there is a *lot* of good data passing through USENET.
Are you talking about P2P?
Right now, it's all pr0n and thr33z. I'm not sure this is what you're talking about when you say "information."
Are you talking about subscription-based database and index services, like LEXIS-NEXIS, CompendexWeb, PUBMED, and WorldCat?
These are where the professional and research quality information is on the Internet. They are useful, but expensive, and chances are you don't have access unless you are at a university or a company that pays for a subscription.
Are you talking about intranets?
These can be a source of good information in large companies and organizations. NASA has an excellent one, some of which they mirror to the Web where it's available to all, but the really spiffy stuff is only available to employees.
So to answer your question, I use the Web to follow the news, USENET for hobby interests, P2P for pretty much nothing, databases and intranets for some professional work.
But nothing beats dead trees for in-depth information--if you can find where it's been published. I went to my thesis advisor to tell him I couldn't find a paper that had been published only in conference proceedings from the 80's (it's notoriously hard to get your hands on conference proceedings), only to have him root through a file cabinet and hand them to me. This was in 2002. Professors are scary.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
I recall a time a friend was going to come visit me. I spoke to him on the phone, and started to give him directions from the main highway. It went thusly:
....
Me: Ok, take the HWY eastbound until you cross the toll bridge, then take the first exit and...
Him: No I looked it up on MapQuest.
Me: MapQuest has our area all screwed up, just write this down, take the first exit, go straight, take the second right and...
Him: nah, I already printed the maps out on mapquest
So, the day comes when he's coming over. I get a call..
Him: Hey, I can't find your house.
Me: Where are you?
Him: I'm at a WalMart
Me: WalMart? What city are you in?
Him: [name of city and closest street sign]
Me: Dude, you passed my street about 75 miles ago. Turn around, go back, take the last exit before the bridge and..
Him: No, that's wrong, MapQuest says..
Me: I FUCKING KNOW WHERE I LIVE!
Him: But but mapquest!
Though, as long as you stick to the more travelled areas, and get directions to businesses, MapQuest more or less comes through. It's just the rural and residential streets it sucks at...
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Newspaper is much better. You can use it as TP if you forgot to check the roll before sitting down. It doesn't matter if you drop it or it gets dirty. And if you're lucky there may even be some soft pr0n in the lingerie ads.
Gonna have to say "depends where you live". I recently got mapquest directions to a road that wasn't even paved. I live in NJ and have never had a serious mapquest problem.
.01 miles each.
Part of this may come from my diligence in ensuring that I know where I'm going. I don't just put it into mapquest and print it out. I review the directions it gives me, and follow them on the maps to ensure that it has given me a logical route. Since there are 1,001 ways to get from point A to point B in New Jersey, mapquest will sometimes dump you onto a highway you don't really want to be on (but will still get you where you are going!). Also, there can be some tricky intersections, and with the way mapquest divides roads up, it is usually easier to look at the map then try and decipher 5 legs of
In short, like most tools, Mapquest works great when you know how to use it.
This is just as true for my work, as a research scientist, as for general information and news. There has always been one large university library or another within two minutes walk of my office but over the last five years I could count the number of times I have been in it on my hands. Most of the time if I can't download a paper off the web I will just give up and decide it isn't worth reading. After all in the half hour it would take to walk over to the library, search through the journals, read the paper and walk back I could download, print out and skim through a dozen other papers.
It isn't just speed of access either. If I want a copy of a paper journal article I have to muck around with photocopying etc. where as for an electronic article I can download a pdf in seconds and if I want a hard copy I can print it any time I want. Of course there is always the odd really annoying case where there is some data I must have but its only in a table in a 20 year old paper in an obscure hardcopy only journal. That is when you have to resort to scanners and crappy OCR software but again it isn't actually of any use until it is in electronic form.
However on a more serious note there is such a vast amount of stuff, like catalogues of 100's of millions of objects that was just impossible before computers and only really useful using the internet. In some way it is making people lazy but the advantages are just so huge that they out weigh any disadvantages. We have so much data now that there are huge advances to be made just by finding better ways to sort and correlate it (data mining etc.).
On the news front the effect of the internet is just as profound. Not so much in speed as in variety of topics and points of view. Potentially everyone can be a journalist and contribute. Where things are lacking are in the searching and filtering aspects? The infomation may be there but even with Google it can be hard to find. Sites such as Slashdot in a way try to fill this niche but obviously there is only so much news they can cover.
What is really needed is some sort of distributed and semi(or fully)-automated system where good sources that individuals find can be distributed to everyone who whats them. It would be best implimented as some sort of web of trust where you would select a number of individuals whose opinions you trust and base on their recommendations and those of people they trust etc. new sources would be suggested to you which you can then rate etc.
It must be true, I read it on the internet!
If you haven't already, get yourself a laser printer, preferably the kind that prints on both sides. I agree and myself rarely read more than 10 pages online, but I have no problem finding 20, 50, 100, 300, 1000 page manuals (huzzah for .pdf, I don't know why people poo-poo it so much) and printing them out. Then I close the notebook, curl up in my favorite reading chair, and spend hours of time offline.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
The internet is a source of good info. It has timely news that in addition to quick availablity is also searchable, so I get only the news I want. However the amount of BAD info on the net is enormous. Anyone who has any doubt about this just check the validity of the last batch of internet factoids some friend spammed them with. Now subscription journals aside (remember the subject line) you are pretty much trusting that whoever posted info has a clue as to what they are talking about, and though there are a great many that do, unfortunately there are even more that don't. Books were submitted by and author, and the publisher decided that it was worthy of print. The editor decided how it was written was acceptable. If the book is in a library a librarian decided it was worthy of the shelf. So counting the author that makes at the very least 4 people that looked at the work. In reality that number is far larger. On the net the number is a total of 1. So libraries and pay services will always be generally better than the net itself.
"A wise man learns to understand and live with nature. Therefor all innovation shall come from unwise men." Abba Eben
The evening "News" is so corporate owned and supported that I don't really consider it a reliable source for information.
Agreed. Here is an interesting experiment to try. Find a major news story, preferably on Iraq or Afganistan. (It can be something else, but Iraq and Afganistan will yield more results.)
Check the story first on CNN
Then check the subtle changes in perception on the same story from these sites:
BBC NEWS
Globe and Mail
Then note the radically different opinions on:
Aljazeera
Antiwar
Note, I am not asking you to agree with any of the above opinions, or websites. Just begin to notice the different perceptions you can gain insight to on news stories on the net. This kind of insight cannot be gathered by watching local news, like NBC, CBS, or even the "most trusted" views of CNN.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Just FYI, mapquest doesn't seem to take neighborhoods into account when plotting direction. It always says to take a freeway.
Yahoo Maps, on the other hand, are a lot better.
Honestly, if it weren't for the Internet, I probably would have suffered from lack of education. Here's my story.
The high school I went to was crap. It didn't focus so much on education as it did it's flagship program, Football. To the administration and school board, that was their "public relations" project. The better the football team looked, the better the school looked. Therefore, the players were placed in the higher academic brackets, while the rest of us were sequestered to the lower end.
In all reality, though, the jocks were probably getting graded on a severe curve. Text books were old and outdated. World history books ended with the first launching of the Space Shuttle. Geography still looked at Germany as two seperate nations, the Soviet Union was still a world power, and computers were still clunky-looking boxes with monochrome screens.
And teachers didn't really care about what they taught. Well, a handfull did, but most didn't. One particular math teacher would spend his time during class drawing up football plays (he is the head coach). English teachers drilled the same concepts over and over when it was clear that we all had a good grasp on the language. Science teachers cared more for learning from the outdated texts than they did giving us a hands-on approach to learning about the world around us. Hell, my Biology teacher was the stereotypical Polish idiot who did things backwards, no lie.
I looked at that place and decided that there was no way it could give me the education I needed to continue in society. So I made my mother, against her wishes, get me an connection to the Internet. And thank the maker I did.
Whatever I wanted to know, I just hit the search engines (Google wasn't yet a verb) and downloaded to my heart's content. Soon, in math class, I was using mathematical functions the head coach hadn't taught us yet to solve the problems he gave us. And the funny part was, I was the only one doing this. I distinctly remember one such conversation:
Mr. Camberg: And how did you get that conclusion, Eric?
Me: Well, if you would have taught us this method, it would have made things a hell of alot easier.
Mr. Camberg: So what you're saying, Mr. Jacobson, is that you're criticizing my teaching methods?
Me: Yes I am.
Mr. Camberg: And just how did you learn about this method, seeing as how it isn't covered in the book?
Me: Well, because the book is over a decade old, I can't trust it. So, I went looking for it on the Internet.
After that, I was sure that the Internet would save me from Rural Public School hell, and it did. Thanks to what I learned online, I was able to graduate with honors despite being in a lower academic track, and move on to college where I furthered my education with the very things that saved it: computers.
My little cousins have since moved to this area and are attending the same school I did. And I tell them to make sure they keep the Internet handy, because they're going to get a sub-standard education. They know it, I know it. And hopefully, telling them to trust in the 'Net when school fails them will be enough to help them learn for themselves that, in fact, they need to learn for themselves...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I've been online since Delphi & MCIMail, The Well, AppleLink Personal Edition etc... I believed everything in "As We May Think" and in the Knowledge Navigator video(s).
Using OSX on a 'lowly' iBook 500 with a carefully cultivated suite of apps is getting close enough to the dream that I should stop dreaming and just revel in it. And get more done. Which I do.
It's not just the info at fingertips. I watched someone try to scan a book for a 60 year old article, then import it, try to OCR it and reformat it... nice, but it's on the web in text and I had it within seconds. Priceless.
I'ma teacher at a very non-traditional place with lots of need for proposals, classes, results, and lots of techie things happeneing anyway, but it's the everyday access that's needed, and the ability to do it all literally at your fingertips.
I can order the model rockets (in one typical case), check the weather for the best launch date, email all the parents to come see, fax the bus company to get the transportation, video and still photo the activities... create a summary of lessons that my students have done, download the stardust launch for them to see on a projection screen as part of class, prin their junior rocket scientist certificates, edit, compose and post their movies and pics to the web for all the parents to see, email parents or sms them or fax them to get all this done in the time it would take a staff of three twenty years ago.
could i just build the rockets,. launch the rockets and see how jazzed the kids were? sure. still do all that. plus add value to what the parents can get out of it too.
it's a faster more accessible source. i know i have the estes catalog around here somewhere, but where...
i know i have videos of other older launches, videodiscs of all of the apollo and shuttle test programs, but the batteries in the ldp remote are crusty, and well, this way all the kids can play the video to their heart's content...
i can send proposals as pdf attachments to email, submit all my nsf stuff online, if I don't know where I'm going this evening (vaguely know it's around yale somewhere) I jump to watson, get the address, see a map, add the location to my address book, sync my ipod before i leave and i'll get there one way or another. beats the big spiral bound map and hundreds of slips of paper i'd have carried around even 5 years ago.
i can do travel better. way better.
i can buy a car by driving around or going blind with classifieds in the local fish wrap
my wife and i can specify the house we want and get the info delivered to us without having to drive down roads nobody else drives down for days at a time trying to find that out of the way house or having to actually talk to a bevy of real estate agents ( i actually hear one of them refer to a old local place as an antique house - grrrrr... i prefer tocall them 'used houses' as in 'used cars' but don't get me started)
for that matter i can find out that a wedding can cost $1K or $100K and how to make it what we wanted, instead of taking someone's word on how much we should have spent.
ditto real estate. there's a wide range of what it will all cost when they fire the starter's pistol at the closing, and we know much more from the web - we could have just taken a single sources word for it, or bought a dozen books. an hour with safari and a broadband connection and we are much wiser. we hope.
i can get references to anything from various sources...
i can have my kids go research the mountains of little white lies us teachers have been spouting for years in the name of shorthand lessons... columbus, magellan, the pilgrims, abner doubleday, the wright brothers...
will i ever get rid of my books? never. ditto the back issues of bicycling or wired, my berke breathed paperbacks.
I'll always be able to put my hand on 'the compleat angler', 'a winter's tale'or the beaten copies of 'andromeda strain', 'banner in the sky', o
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Remeber in 1984 how it was somebody's job to go back and modify all public records of an old "inconvinient" fact. Just imagine being able to control dictionary.com / cnn and a few other heavily hit sites. You'll be able to remove any record that something existed.
-Michael
Not a pretty heading, but the Internet, though the greatest index that I have used, does have drawbacks.
They are: database rot; non-referred opinion masquarading as fact; outright flaunting of responsibility and a lack of respect of others.
Database rot - typically 2% of entries become incorrect per month. Interestingly, the cost of carrying physical inventory is deemed to be about 1-2% by the accounting profession. We won't get into what inventory turns means in databases ... ;^>
Non- referred information means that there is no scholarly agreement on the verifiable truth of facts presented. Opinions are fine, but contrast the popular Zen of anything with the scholarly work of D.T. Suzuki (who, by the way corresponded with Thomas Merton). Entire areas of knowledge require a discipline of practice and conversation just to begin to access their content.
To express an opinion, is wonderful, but to speak from experience, to the needs of the listener, in a mentoring manner, without knowing the person is a little dangerous. I personally have misspoken more then once, without realizing the harm that would come of it, in that circumstance.
Respect for other people can disappear in a mass of flameage. Hasty words often carry little wisdom. Who hasn't felt the seductive draw of flamebait?
On the other hand, as a quick overview the net can't be beaten - And I use it to cull the things I am researching. But you need a broad viewpoint, grounded in the physical reality to effectively use the internet in its' full potential.
This is progress?
I've been surrounded by dictionaries, encyclopedias and similar books for most of my life.
Here you define dictionaries, encyclopedias, and similar sources for information to exist only in book form. My guess is that these days when you want to look up a word's meaning, you still use a dictionary, except that it's online. Perhaps there should be a pair of categories; one that includes dictionareies and encyclopedias, and one that includes the ways in which they are presented. Either way what I basically want to say to you is, "don't be such a technophobe."
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
With around 425 replies so far (including trolls and flaimbait) I don't expect anyone to reade this, but I'm bored, so I'm going to write it anyway:
:)
I've become *almost* entierly dependent on the internet for news and information. Everyday, there are about a dozen sites that I load up (including slashdot, google news, and my local news paper's site) to get my news. When I want to look up information, I always spend time wading through the internet, looking for it there.
I do, however, use real books for programming (O'Reilly mostly) and physics (my text books from college). I also tune into BBC World News every evening to get my overview of world news (and it doesn't hurt that anchor girl Mishal Husain is rather attractive).
Okay. I'm gonna go do something else now.
I use http://www.everything2.com a LOT to look of topics, techinical jargon, general information, etc, as its the most up to date and general source of knowledge i have found.
yer mileage may vary.
Reference librarians are one of the finest research resources available in the US.
My degrees are in hard science (chemistry, physiology) and law and I could never have completed my undergrad or grad degrees without the assistance of these professionals.
When I'm faced with difficult legal issues I'll ask the reference librarian BEFORE I start to avoid wasting time. I know that I talk wth librarians more than just about any other professional and they are invaluable.
As I said in the subject line: librarians are the original database managers. Dewey is dead and the OCLC / Library of Congress rule - but it takes a professional only a few minutes to narrow my searches where I might well have spent hours getting to the same place.
Quick: find me authority for the legal proposition that an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the material stored on a computer used in the workplace - and, while you're at it find me authority for the rights to the data where the original computer used in the workplace was purchased by the employee but the data from the first machine has been transferred through three upgrades to the employer-owned computer. Let's add a dollop of employer policy that they recognize certain rights in the employee's work - and add that the employee is a public-sector employee with tenure.
Find that --- good luck on the web.
Being a 32 year old "computer geek" myself, I'm also finding I use the Internet as almost my only source of information for most things.
I don't get the local newspaper, for example. I do occasionally peek at the Sunday paper when I visit my parents (mainly for the advertisements). I'm sure I do miss out on a lot of "local news", but honestly - the Internet makes me realize how unimportant most of that is anyway. The newspapers and TV stations have been brainwashing us into believing we need their "fix" of local information, or else we're going to fall behind. In reality, I think I'm spending my time more wisely keeping up with bills in Congress that might affect our privacy rights, change copyright/patent law, or what-have-you, than knowing which building downtown caught fire last night, or the fact that (as usual), someone was killed in a fatal car crash on one of our highways.
Even for such things as "how to" guides for home improvement, I find better, more relevant information on the net than I do in the $20-40 books on the subject.
I've really found the net useful for learning about problems with my car and truck, too. Most problems seem to be experienced by at least a handful of other people, who talk about them on Usenet discussion groups. I may not want to do the repairs myself, but at least I can get a real good idea of what's broken - and feel like I'm not getting ripped off when they diagnose it and quote me a repair cost.
For computer or electronics purchases, there's absolutely no better method of research! Just do a Google search for "product-name opinion" or "product-name review" and you'll get everything you need to know, just about every time.
...until Slashdot can be accessed some other way.
Print media takes time to produce. Internet content takes little to produce. On average, analytic content found in print is better than web-only content. Raw data is different. For example, if you want economic data, there's little sense in waiting for the BLS report to be published. Just pull it off the web. If you want something that someone has spent time on, lingered over, then you want print media.
Eventually, you realize that the Internet's best feature is the ability to find basic info. Let's say you've never heard of something, like hysteresis. Search Google for it. Use another search engine. You'll quickly find basic information. You will learn that hysteresis is an economic phenomenona with certain details, etc, etc. You will have to look very hard to find much more than basic info, however.
Content on the Internet is a mile wide and an inch deep. It's a dictionary of everything. Yet, if you want something that is in-depth, there is no easy way to find it. If there were a search engine that would give you lots and lots of in-depth info on your search terms, that would be great. That's not what we have today. Today, all you can expect is basic info.
Furthermore, on the web, you have to go looking for opinions that are contrary to yours. You have to think, "Hmm, I believe that the minimum wage should be increased, so let me go find someone's essay that argues that it should not be raised." It is really difficult and counterintuitive to think that way all the time. As a result, you tend to visit web sites with content that you tend to already agree with. In this way, your intellectual experience is sub-optimal.
Books are different. When you open a new book, you don't know what you're going to get. When you walk through a library or a bookstore, you will find books that you've never heard of. Then you will pick them up and be surprised and often challenged.
In conclusion, the web is useful as a dictionary of everything. The web is not useful as an in-depth encyclopedia of everything. Books are still the best.
"I'm very curious if other Slashdot readers have become dependent on the Internet to that level, and what their thoughts are on the subject."
That's like asking a zookeeper if he likes animals. Or like asking a prostitute if they like money and sex.
Hypocrisy is the 8th deadly sin.
I used to go to the library once in a while, or ask people questions. But mostly, I just didn't have as much information. And it didn't seem to matter. I had a wider range of activities and I spent my spare time differently
1989: Cooked dinner for friends; read books, watched TV (gasp!); got married; chatted on ddials.
1993: Took road trips to insignificant historical sites; built a garden; redecorated the apartment; made felt; fenced a farm; chatted on IRC.
1998: Moved to Singapore; explored and travelled on weekends; wrote a play; took hundreds of rolls of film; started a mailing list and updated my website regularly.
2003: Same as you--get up, check e-mail, IRC, read websites, do some work, Google a lot of stuff, blog, send some e-mail, IRC, eat dinner, more Google, watch a DVD, IMDB, check e-mail, sleep.