Soyuz TMA-11 Comes Home, More or Less...

On Fri, 02 May 2008 18:34:57 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

......

And that's what I think will pretty much make libraries obsolete in
their present form.

Oddly enough, Pat, libraries seem to be surviving. Not exactly sure
why. Maybe because they have librarians. Sorta like fearing churches,
mosques and synagogues will disappear because you can find out every
thing you need to know in spiritual matters online.

Wax cylinders went to vinyl LPs, those went to CDs, and those went to MP3s.

Were wax cylinders ever commercially sold? A large proportion of my
5000 disk collection is on 78 rpm shellac coated disks, the vast
majority of which have never been put on CDs. 78's probably were
sold longer than vinyl. The Beatles even recorded on 78s, although
Sir Paul supposedly has them all.

Purists will still be spraying their LPs with de-ionized water and
electrostatic guns, before spending fifteen minutes carefully lowering
that $1,000 cartridge onto them while wearing a surgeon's mask and
rubber gloves

I'd be happy to sell you several cartridges at a 50% discount. I
collect jazz recordings, and while a fair share of that comes from
usenet, I have at least 7 LPs winging their way here in the mail
at the moment. None are available on CD, nor on the web.

It's great to be able to go to a website that speculates on what
the Nazi Luftwaffe would have been flying in 1982, but the wealth
of human knowledge recorded in books hasn't been totally replaced
yet. It might be one day totally converted into digital format, but
I suspect libraries will still exist. Sorry that you've let your
collection dwindle to 400 books. You're gonna be pretty bored while
sitting on the can one day

Dale

Dale Carlson wrote:

On Fri, 02 May 2008 18:34:57 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

And that's what I think will pretty much make libraries obsolete in
their present form.

Oddly enough, Pat, libraries seem to be surviving. Not exactly sure
why.

Mostly because they are increasingly shifting to being entertainment
centers - non fiction sections are being reduced to make way for the
latest FOTM fiction, CD's and DVD's are being added for checkout, and
free internet is being provided so kids can chat free of parental
oversight.

It's great to be able to go to a website that speculates on what
the Nazi Luftwaffe would have been flying in 1982, but the wealth
of human knowledge recorded in books hasn't been totally replaced
yet.

Not even close.

It might be one day totally converted into digital format, but
I suspect libraries will still exist. Sorry that you've let your
collection dwindle to 400 books. You're gonna be pretty bored while
sitting on the can one day

And that's the key problem with the Web, now and for the foreseeable
future... It's a great place to look up facts, it's a poor place to
look up information. (I.E. if you want to know the wingspan of a
B-17G, it's great. If you want to know the detailed design history of
the B-17, it sucks.) Too many people can't discern the unsubtle
difference between the two terms.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Dale Carlson wrote:
Were wax cylinders ever commercially sold?

I think they were at one point; they were quickly replaced by acetate
ones, and there may been some Bakelite ones as well.

A large proportion of my
5000 disk collection is on 78 rpm shellac coated disks, the vast
majority of which have never been put on CDs. 78's probably were
sold longer than vinyl. The Beatles even recorded on 78s, although
Sir Paul supposedly has them all.


I imagine the reason that few were put on CD was that the sound quality
of the existing tapes or master records was low enough that they would
sound pretty poor on CD with its higher fidelity.
Or simply assumed lack of interest on the part of potential customers.
5,000 phonograph records is a bit much unless you are a music library or
a large radio station.
A complete set of everything Pat Boone ever recorded really isn't
necessary to most people.
The Beatles remark does bring up a interesting story from the late 80's
- early 90's though, when the CD revolution was hitting full stride, and
LP fans were screaming bloody murder as the LPs were shoved into a bin
at the back of the record store.
This was the overheard comment as a LP fan observed two curious valley
girls going through the used LPs, as reported by Rolling Stone magazine:
"Look! It's Paul McCartney! I didn't know he was in a band before Wings!"
Tempus fugit.

Purists will still be spraying their LPs with de-ionized water and
electrostatic guns, before spending fifteen minutes carefully lowering
that $1,000 cartridge onto them while wearing a surgeon's mask and
rubber gloves


I'd be happy to sell you several cartridges at a 50% discount. I
collect jazz recordings, and while a fair share of that comes from
usenet, I have at least 7 LPs winging their way here in the mail
at the moment. None are available on CD, nor on the web.


No phonograph here... sold it shortly after the turn of the millennium.
Like classic jazz, hate modern jazz.

It's great to be able to go to a website that speculates on what
the Nazi Luftwaffe would have been flying in 1982,

Or how about nowadays:
http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/MA...%20METANZA.htm

but the wealth
of human knowledge recorded in books hasn't been totally replaced
yet. It might be one day totally converted into digital format, but
I suspect libraries will still exist. Sorry that you've let your
collection dwindle to 400 books. You're gonna be pretty bored while
sitting on the can one day


Actually 400 works just fine; by the time you get through that many, you
probably have forgotten a lot of what was in the first one and can start
at the beginning again.

Pat

Dale Carlson wrote:


And that's what I think will pretty much make libraries obsolete in
their present form.


Oddly enough, Pat, libraries seem to be surviving. Not exactly sure
why.

As far as our college one goes, the main reasons seem to be:
1.) Teachers assign library work to the students so they will know how
to actually request books and periodicals.
2.) The library serves as a study hall... a quiet place to do homework.
3.) The library's computers allow students to access periodical
articles free of charge.
As far as our city library:
1.) Teachers assign library work to the students so they will know how
to actually request books and periodicals.
2.) People who don't have computer access can use the library's
computers to go to the internet.
3.) People can read the newspapers and periodicals the library
subscribes to.
4.) People can look at periodicals via the internet.
One thing you particularly notice is that almost no one is checking
books in or out; in fact, few people are going anywhere near the main
bookshelves unless they are looking for something in the fiction
section. Most are at the new arrival books, the newspapers and
magazines, or the tables with the computers on them.

Pat

Derek Lyons wrote:
(I.E. if you want to know the wingspan of a
B-17G, it's great. If you want to know the detailed design history of
the B-17, it sucks.) Too many people can't discern the unsubtle
difference between the two terms.


Even the lowly Wikipedia article has a lot of info on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Flying_Fortress
And by the time you go through all the pages on the web devoted to it,
you could probably build one.
If you had a book on it, and wanted more info on some facet of it's
history, that would mean going to the bibliography and trying to get
hold of other books on it via either purchase or going to libraries.
The first alternative is expensive; the second uses both a lot time and
car fuel, particularly if you need to get books through interlibrary loan.
With the web, you can probably find what you want to know with a hour or
so of digging and around a dime's worth of electricity.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:
(I.E. if you want to know the wingspan of a
B-17G, it's great. If you want to know the detailed design history of
the B-17, it sucks.) Too many people can't discern the unsubtle
difference between the two terms.


Even the lowly Wikipedia article has a lot of info on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Flying_Fortress

Only if by 'a lot' you mean 'a bare introduction'.

And by the time you go through all the pages on the web devoted to it,
you could probably build one.

You could probably delude yourself into thinking you could build one,
you might even be able to build a cargo cult version.

But a working one? No.

If you had a book on it, and wanted more info on some facet of it's
history, that would mean going to the bibliography and trying to get
hold of other books on it via either purchase or going to libraries.
The first alternative is expensive; the second uses both a lot time and
car fuel, particularly if you need to get books through interlibrary loan.
With the web, you can probably find what you want to know with a hour or
so of digging and around a dime's worth of electricity.

For very low values of 'probably' and fairly high values of 'a hour or
so'. In too many fields the information simply isn't there, or it's
presence is masked in the search engines by multiple lower quality
pages.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On Sat, 03 May 2008 17:42:53 GMT, (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

You could probably delude yourself into thinking you could build one,
you might even be able to build a cargo cult version.

....Ah, but Pat has access to something the cargo cults did not: Home
Depot!

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

Derek Lyons wrote:
For very low values of 'probably' and fairly high values of 'a hour or
so'. In too many fields the information simply isn't there, or it's
presence is masked in the search engines by multiple lower quality
pages.


If I had wanted to write a detailed book about the B-17 in the 1960's,
with lots of illustrations and production details, I'd be looking
forward to around a year's worth of work easily.
I'd be sending information requests to Boeing, the Air Force, B-17
squadron remembrance groups, makers of sub-assemblies used on the
aircraft (like the Sperry Ball Turret), the production lines where the
aircraft were built at, and digging through all the other books written
on it by getting them via interlibrary loan.
It would be one hell of a lot of work, and would probably involve
expenses of thousands of dollars in today's currency as I drove all over
the US to gather info on it I couldn't get via mail, or find in books.
Today, it would be fully possible to gather all the info needed to make
a pretty good book on it off of the internet in around a couple of weeks
time, and at very low cost other than the rights to the illustrations
one would be using in it.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
Derek Lyons wrote:
For very low values of 'probably' and fairly high values of 'a hour or
so'. In too many fields the information simply isn't there, or it's
presence is masked in the search engines by multiple lower quality
pages.

If I had wanted to write a detailed book about the B-17 in the 1960's,
with lots of illustrations and production details, I'd be looking
forward to around a year's worth of work easily.

So the ef what? The topic isn't writing a book - the topic is finding
information.

Today, it would be fully possible to gather all the info needed to make
a pretty good book on it off of the internet in around a couple of weeks
time, and at very low cost other than the rights to the illustrations
one would be using in it.

For certain low values of 'pretty good', sure.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:

So the ef what? The topic isn't writing a book - the topic is finding
information.


Glimmer of the future as to where it's all going.
Books are going to vanish entirely inside of fifty years...maybe
twenty-five years.
Sure, if you want one, you can buy it at a antique shop.
It really surprises me that the old "space revolutionaries" of the
1960's are now being left in the mud by progress and have become in
effect reactionaries...scared as hell of Toffler's "Future Shock" and
its real implications to their world-view and life.
You want to know how you read a book in 2025?
You use the implant in your brain to download it and store it, and read
it at your leisure.
As you read it, you can instantly compare your assessment of it to all
the other hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of others who are
interested in it, because they are also in your mind.
What this all ends up being is all of humanity as one inter-connected
Super Mind in which each person is a particular facet of the universal
personality of what was once individual humanity.
Frankly, I can see that coming with the inevitability of the next Great
San Fransisco Earthquake, and hope I die before it occurs; because I
always had modest and romantic hopes of being born a Homo Sapiens, and
dieing as a member of the same species that as I born as...at any other
time in the history of humanity that would have been inevitable...today
it's not.

Pat