Terrible News (for some of us)

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

ilmarinen - MODERATOR
Moderator
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Aug 20, 2004
Messages
37,925
Britannica Corporation announced today that they will be going all digital, and the 2010 printing of the Encyclopedia Britannica will be the last hard copy.
This will make availability and cost much better, but we will loose the memory benefit of reading printed text. Even tablet readers don't store in the brain the same way, from what I have heard.

I spent the last 55+ years looking up words in the dictionary and information in the encyclopedia. The hard format made you read all the info, and you learned far more than just the one tidbit that you were looking for. Additionally, I would read the entire page of the dictionary, to expand my vocabulary and knowledge, and in the encyclopedia, the article after the one i was looking up. If time allowed, I would also read the pages before and after the one I was on .

The good news is that there are still 4000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica 2010 edition available....for $1200 each.

BTW, back in my early days I was an encyclopedia salesman for Britannica, selling what was then called, "The Great Books", which was a fairly good starter library.
 
Like you I grew up with books and I liked the smell of libraries, but technology has changed all that and like the encyclopedia in paper form, libraries are going the way of the dinosaur too... But, with the internet we have all that information at our fingertips. It is still the same information but stored in a different manner. Having said that the Britannica encyclopedia has not died and will live on and be available to anyone who wants to read.
 
The problem comes with the refinement of digital information.

Case in point;
Two new makers want to Ht their 1084 knife.
Maker A googles "HT 1084 Steel" and gets - 1450-1500F quench in water, temper at 400-600F for one hour.
Maker B gets a copy of a basic HT book and reads about Ht and understands the process. He also finds out that thin sections of 1084 can be quenched in oil. The temper for a knife is also about 400-450F.

Results -
Maker A will be posting, "How do I HT my 1095 blade" on a month, or "My 1084 knife broke????" this week.
Maker B will probably be the one to inform him where he went wrong.

Also, memory is stored in several different places in the brain. Some are readily available to recall, others are volatile, and some are hard to recall. The method of storage is partly going to determine which it is. Also there are ways to lock a memory in so it becomes front page reference. Learn it by reading, do it yourself several times, teach it to someone else - try this and see how well you remember the info.
 
I think it comes down to learning how to use digital media, but I agree, it's not a change for the better when a product like this is no longer produced in hard copy.

Stacy, your example is a bit flawed if you're trying to show that digital is the culprit here. The problem lies with Maker A not doing his or her homework properly. Just because you read it on the net doesn't make it true, but neither does reading it in hard copy. There are good sources, bad sources and unverified sources for information regardless of the format. For example, when I was getting ready to do some work on my car that I'd never done before, I googled the issue. I found dozens of sites discussing the work, some of which seemed very generic or written by people who didn't really know what they were doing. Others were written by mechanics, for mechanics, and assumed the reader had tools and knowledge that go with that career. Then there were sites that outlined it in a way that worked for someone like me, with basic tools and understanding, but not familiar with this specific task on this specific car. Even inside that group, some were more reliable than others, and I evaluated that based on things like feedback from other users and other little indicators.

I'm with you on the retention issue though, and I'm a guy who's been reading on the computer screen since childhood, including books for pleasure, technical information, school work, business... I like it, I'm comfortable with it, and I still buy or print hard copy of most technical information for reference. I still prefer reading something I want to learn and remember in hard copy. Back when I was in college we often got assigned material to read that would be online, generally in a pdf file the professor had put together. In almost every case I'd open it, skim it, then print either the whole thing or the parts we needed to learn and use the printed copy.
 
Actually, I'm learning to love e-readers. I got the Kindle app for my tablet and have used it to read the original King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table... something I would NEVER have bought as a paper book, but because it was free I had no problem downloading it and reading the whole thing. Now I'm reading Treasure Island for the same reason.

E-readers give you access to a LARGE number of public domain texts, many of which have long been out of print.

I believe there will always be a place for paper books, but that ;place will shrink over time. And that is also to the good (though my wife surely disagrees).

- Greg
 
I do the same thing, Greg. Lots of public domain books to be enjoyed and easy to store a wide collection. I have moved quite a few times in the past ten years and try to keep my clutter to a minimum. The result is that my book collection has been shrunk to just favorites and certain reference works. Quite a bit of my recent reading material is only bought digitally because it means I don't have to find room for another hard copy book. If I ever settle somewhere and know it's likely to be a long time, and has space for it, I will probably wind up with quite the library, but it's just not practical for now.
 
bladsmth said:
The problem comes with the refinement of digital information.

Case in point;
Two new makers want to Ht their 1084 knife.
Maker A googles "HT 1084 Steel" and gets - 1450-1500F quench in water, temper at 400-600F for one hour.
Maker B gets a copy of a basic HT book and reads about Ht and understands the process. He also finds out that thin sections of 1084 can be quenched in oil. The temper for a knife is also about 400-450F.

Results -
Maker A will be posting, "How do I HT my 1095 blade" on a month, or "My 1084 knife broke????" this week.
Maker B will probably be the one to inform him where he went wrong.

Also, memory is stored in several different places in the brain. Some are readily available to recall, others are volatile, and some are hard to recall. The method of storage is partly going to determine which it is. Also there are ways to lock a memory in so it becomes front page reference. Learn it by reading, do it yourself several times, teach it to someone else - try this and see how well you remember the info.
Click to expand...

Maker B, having found his HT bible blithely goes about his merry way and makes perfectly serviceable blades with obsolete information.

Maker C, having refined his ability to search through- literally- a world of information on the internet is able to; learn from the successes and failures of every knife maker and HT guru with an internet presence (or a following with an internet presence); access the stacks of nearly every brick and mortar library, college, and university on the planet; and in many cases get personal feedback from luminaries in the field- all from the comfort of his couch, kitchen table, or shop bench.

Without having the burden of printing a new edition every year, Britannica will be able to make real time revisions to their product and keep it up to date with current learning in a way that they have never been able to up to now. I remember the set of encyclopedias we had when I was growing up. No more science or history papers crafted from 20 year old encyclopedias- sounds like a step forward to me...
 
hlee said:
Britannica will be able to make real time revisions to their product and keep it up to date with current learning in a way that they have never been able to up to now. I remember the set of encyclopedias we had when I was growing up. No more science or history papers crafted from 20 year old encyclopedias- sounds like a step forward to me...
Click to expand...

This is the part that scares me.
 
I spent my extremely boring 3rd grade reading the 1980 World Book Encyclopedia set that was next to my desk. I made it through the letter T before the teacher demanded that I stop and pay attention. It shows how little attention she paid, it took months to read that far and she never noticed!
 
Carl_First_Timer said:
This is the part that scares me.
Click to expand...

The sun revolved around the earth until it was discovered that the earth revolves around the sun. The earth was flat until it was discovered that it is round. It was common knowledge that you could sail off the edge of the earth and monsters lived at the edge of the known world, until it was discovered that you cannot and they do not.

Some people wrap themselves up in, and derive comfort from, the errors in our current state of knowledge and their unending propagation. However, the ability to recognize and correct these errors- to REVISE the state of our knowledge is a good thing. Britannica's product will be immeasurably better as a result of going digital. Printed encyclopedias (and text books for that matter) are out of date- obsolete- before the printing is complete.
 
You guys know I'm kidding about the printed copy of Britannica being the end of all things as we know them, don't you?

I was serious about how many people only get part of the data ,due to the way search engines work so well.
 
A friend told me yesterday that he was dumping his whole collection of comics for what he could get for them now?! His fear is that these comics will get digitized and downloaded therefore taking some of the FUTURE collectability and value from them! I argued the point that his collection would still increase in value, becuse nothing beats the real thing, and the turning of pages and the smells of ink, and old fonts, will always be better than digital reality!
 
My income depends on technology, understanding the cutting edge, problem solving it but I HATE e-readers and fear the day that books become relics.
 
Interesting.

Do you think that because of the switch to the digital age that this generations young people will have a harder time retaining learned information? Conversely, since kids are exposed to computers and technology at such an early age, are there brains predisposed to learn more effectively using electronic means? I'm sure there have been studies done, I just wonder how different the ability to retain information from a digital source is from someone in say their 50's to someone in their teens to early 20's today.

I can see how it might parallel with how easily someone my age or younger is able to grasp and master new electronics without much instruction. But it takes weeks of learning and instructing my parents on how to program a PVR. Different times... but i'm really curious about this.
 
The studies show greatly higher use in the storage areas where digital info is stored. It is almost instinctive in very young children, for them to store info that way now. Brains evolve. The development of speech was the last great boost in out brain size and capacity. Some feel that becoming "networked" into other computers will cause another evolutionary leap. We may well end up looking like the 1950's drawings of future people with big heads.
As you suspected, older people, who have been hardwired for print, have a harder time. The future belongs to the youth, but we older folks will still worry about their possible problems. Most of the "Mad Max" scenarios involve things changing with no one realizing the impact until too late to do anything about it.

One concern of some educator is that the ability to find any needed info within seconds gives a false sense of security. The brain is a very energy conservative, and thus will will take the shortest route to an answer. Now, take away the ability to find that info, and the brain gets disoriented, and goes into panic mode. When young people today are stranded at home in a snowstorm, they do not know what to do, because their system is geared toward online info and entertainment ( we used to make Smores, play board games by candle light, and tell ghost stories). In a stress situation, they can shut down and do nothing ( Brain shuts down and goes into self-preservation mode). The scouts have already noticed this trend.

We all have been at the checkout and seen an 18 year old clerk making change for 18.26 form a $20 bill. Just after they hit the button, you say, "I have the penny." They take it from you and just stand there trying to figure out how much change is due now. The machine says it is $1.74...but what is it now?????? I have seen them stand there and finally re-ring the sale to get the proper change.

For those who don't think there is a difference in how we store the data, pick up a book you have read a few times, say a HT book. Now, look up the specs for 1095....I bet you knew what part of the book to look in, probably even went to the page in a few seconds. With digital storage, the brain does not recall the location, because it is (literally and figuratively) in a cloud. It just has you look it up again....letting a fellow computer do some of its work, thus conserving energy.
 
Last edited:
I'll wait for the neural chip implants. The left-click and scroll button has become to cumbersome for me..... I wan't it faster but more importantly, easier. Maybe I'll search out Stacy's home phone number and just start calling him directly for answers. Listening means less work on my part and I can do it while going to the bathroom.:cool::thumbup:
 
I understand where Stacy is coming from. I mean just think of threads. How many time do we skim thru and pass over what could be super valuable information where as the way books are normally layed out you wont just google and find that one sentance telling you exactly what you want. Withbooks you amost have to learn more then you originally wanted.
 
BINGO!!!

(Bingo is an archaic game played by people back in the days when they interacted in groups)
(It also was a famous dog)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top