4 ms·

Collective human knowledge just blows my mind sometimes. Consider how many obscure but useful, necessary even, things we've learned over the past thousand year

by ck2 3y ago

Collective human knowledge just blows my mind sometimes. Consider how many obscure but useful, necessary even, things we've learned over the past thousand years. Before the internet it would all be hidden away, only quickly available to specific experts in their fields. You'd have to go to a university library and dig for hours.

ars 3y ago
> You'd have to go to a university library and dig for hours. If it's not online it doesn't exist. /s We really need more of these obscure pieces of knowledge put online because people don't go to the library as much as they used to. There's so much specialized knowledge out there, but often you'll only learn about it from someone else, or a highly technical book. Like, say you want to frame and build your own house - there's bazzilions of YouTube videos about the beginning process. But very very few about the more advanced details you need to know.
- joshfederer 3y ago
  I believe that books continue to hold immense importance in the realm of internet knowledge. While the internet offers a vast array of information, books provide depth, rigor, and expert insights that are often lacking online. They are the repositories of specialized knowledge, offering in-depth exploration of complex subjects. Books provide a tangible, reliable, and authoritative source that withstands the transient nature of the internet. They remain invaluable resources, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of subjects beyond what can be found online.In addition to the significance of books, it is important to acknowledge the value of the internet in knowledge acquisition. The internet provides unparalleled access to a vast amount of information from diverse sources. It enables rapid dissemination of knowledge, facilitates global collaboration, and offers interactive platforms for learning. The internet also offers convenience, allowing individuals to access information anytime, anywhere. Its dynamic nature allows for the dissemination of up-to-date research findings and fosters the exchange of ideas across disciplines. The internet complements books by expanding the accessibility and availability of knowledge in an unprecedented manner.
- m0n4rch 3y ago
  youtube covers it all :D
- ramesh31 3y ago
  >There's so much specialized knowledge out there, but often you'll only learn about it from someone else, or a highly technical book. I remember my mind being blown by the Cal engineering library. Endless stacks and stacks of dense foundational knowledge from the 1950s-1990s you would never find on Google. Books are massively underrated these days.
  - generalizations 3y ago
    I wonder if that stuff is available on places like libgen. If it isn't, I really hope someone digitizes it.
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Many large academic libraries have extensive digitisation efforts, though the results more often turn up on Hathi Trust (something of a waste of electrons in my view) than anywhere truly useful. Hathi Trust itself grew out of Google's book-scanning initiative, and is shaped (and scarred) by copyright lawsuits. That said, I hope some number of those works also find their way to Libgen and ZLibrary.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "Like, say you want to frame and build your own house - there's bazzilions of YouTube videos about the beginning process. But very very few about the more advanced details you need to know." Advanced? All I need is some TooBa Fours and a Larry Haun book...
- ck2 3y ago
  At some point someone is going to figure out how to feed every scientific paper into an AI, including all measurements and formulas, and I have to imagine that is going to really make some progress towards less-than-obvious connections in knowledge.
  - JimtheCoder 3y ago
    "At some point someone is going to figure out how to feed every scientific paper into an AI" I'm sure the scientific publishers that charge $50 to view a single journal article will do everything in their power to prevent this...
    - arcanemachiner 3y ago
      Too late, we already have SciHub.
      - JimtheCoder 3y ago
        Yes, I know that site very well. This does bring up the issue of actual legal protections, though. If you are training an LLM on the open web, or things posted for everyone to view for free, than that is OK I guess when it comes to legal ramifications. (Definitely not a lawyer) When you start using data that you really don't have the rights too...and somehow someone finds out that their protected data is included in the dataset...then what?
        withinboredom 3y ago
        It might be protected if you are doing it yourself, for personal (non-commercial) use. Just like you can build any patent you want for fun, but the second you try to sell it, you need permission.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > If it's not online it doesn't exist. Even if it is online, it probably doesn't exist either - see today's threads about communities moving from Reddit to Discord. The "cozy web" is undoing a lot of progress of the past decades. Might be that we'll all need to go to the university libraries and dig for knowledge ourselves, hoping any of the more recent experiences and discoveries end up being published as books, instead of dying in private Whatsapp groups.
- ilyt 3y ago
  > Like, say you want to frame and build your own house - there's bazzilions of YouTube videos about the beginning process. But very very few about the more advanced details you need to know. That's an interesting factor of online knowledge - the most readily available one is the one that masses are interested the most because the views give the budget for people to care. It's also weirdy trendly, like how pandemic spawned a lot of woodworking channels coz people cooped up in their homes found a new hobby. To add to the point this [1] random video is an example, it does go into terminology and reasoning behind each element but won't tell you what kind of lumber to get, how climate would affect that decision, how to isolate the house and a bunch of other things. You might look for them and probably find some info but at some point just looking for a dedicated book might be the saner option. And uh, if someone knows a good one covering how to build and isolate your own shed I wouldn't mind recommendation... - [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fP0LZMEV5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fP0LZMEV5w
- oivey 3y ago
  Undergraduate electrical engineers learn this fact. It’s technical but in the scheme of things not all that obscure. That’s some of the value of a formal education.
- TillE 3y ago
  I've been lamenting for many years that the dream of an "information superhighway" has basically failed. There is so much deep information available in any large university library that is simply not on the internet at all. If you're researching any historical topic, there are at least a few solid books (and possibly hundreds) that draw from primary sources, compared to a couple pages of text on Wikipedia and very little else. You mostly won't even find ebooks. Somehow the best, most extensive free digital resource is a podcast like Age of Napoleon, which synthesizes information from many books.
shadowgovt 3y ago
And one challenge (as is so often true in software) is knowing what to know. It's not particularly intuitive that grid balance is necessary if one's entire experience with electricity is "I plug in a machine and the power comes out of the wall." It's actually a minor plot point in Stephen King's "The Stand" that after a viral apocalypse wipes out most of humanity, the survivors try to restart the electrical grid in a town. The first attempt proves fatal because they haven't properly isolated the circuits throughout town, so when they connect the plant to the main grid the plant's generators explode from trying to support the load of every home where someone died spontaneously while running a hair dryer.
- calvinmorrison 3y ago
  That book, well the most enjoyable parts for me of the 1000 pages or so besides the intro (king is great at starting plots) was the whole power station business. Otherwise 900 pages of fumbling with a plot. I should go reread it
asdfman123 3y ago
The internet has made "random fact retrieval" much faster for sure. In fact, I notice movies seem... less dumb than they were a few decades ago, and I have a theory that that is why. But to really know something, you have to have studied it, even in the modern era. I can read an instantly-available wikipedia article about power generation, but I'm only scraping the absolute surface.
BonoboIO 3y ago
And we still have people that think that the earth is flat. Kind of depressing.
cfn 3y ago
You are forgetting museums. Before the internet was widely available I visited the Electricity Museum in Lisbon which is a repurposed power station. They had a simulator of a power station with operating instructions and, according to the staff, it was realistic. I spent quite a few hours trying to startup the damn thing but it was too complicated. It was a bit like a game but with very low tolerance and a long list of steps which gave me quite an insight into how complex that field is. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museu_da_Eletricidade_(Lisboa) https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museu_da_Eletricidade_(Lisboa)

by ck2 3y ago

ars 3y ago

> You'd have to go to a university library and dig for hours. If it's not online it doesn't exist. /s We really need more of these obscure pieces of knowledge put online because people don't go to the library as much as they used to. There's so much specialized knowledge out there, but often you'll only learn about it from someone else, or a highly technical book. Like, say you want to frame and build your own house - there's bazzilions of YouTube videos about the beginning process. But very very few about the more advanced details you need to know.

joshfederer 3y ago
I believe that books continue to hold immense importance in the realm of internet knowledge. While the internet offers a vast array of information, books provide depth, rigor, and expert insights that are often lacking online. They are the repositories of specialized knowledge, offering in-depth exploration of complex subjects. Books provide a tangible, reliable, and authoritative source that withstands the transient nature of the internet. They remain invaluable resources, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of subjects beyond what can be found online.In addition to the significance of books, it is important to acknowledge the value of the internet in knowledge acquisition. The internet provides unparalleled access to a vast amount of information from diverse sources. It enables rapid dissemination of knowledge, facilitates global collaboration, and offers interactive platforms for learning. The internet also offers convenience, allowing individuals to access information anytime, anywhere. Its dynamic nature allows for the dissemination of up-to-date research findings and fosters the exchange of ideas across disciplines. The internet complements books by expanding the accessibility and availability of knowledge in an unprecedented manner.
m0n4rch 3y ago
youtube covers it all :D
ramesh31 3y ago
>There's so much specialized knowledge out there, but often you'll only learn about it from someone else, or a highly technical book. I remember my mind being blown by the Cal engineering library. Endless stacks and stacks of dense foundational knowledge from the 1950s-1990s you would never find on Google. Books are massively underrated these days.
- generalizations 3y ago
  I wonder if that stuff is available on places like libgen. If it isn't, I really hope someone digitizes it.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Many large academic libraries have extensive digitisation efforts, though the results more often turn up on Hathi Trust (something of a waste of electrons in my view) than anywhere truly useful. Hathi Trust itself grew out of Google's book-scanning initiative, and is shaped (and scarred) by copyright lawsuits. That said, I hope some number of those works also find their way to Libgen and ZLibrary.
JimtheCoder 3y ago
"Like, say you want to frame and build your own house - there's bazzilions of YouTube videos about the beginning process. But very very few about the more advanced details you need to know." Advanced? All I need is some TooBa Fours and a Larry Haun book...
ck2 3y ago
At some point someone is going to figure out how to feed every scientific paper into an AI, including all measurements and formulas, and I have to imagine that is going to really make some progress towards less-than-obvious connections in knowledge.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "At some point someone is going to figure out how to feed every scientific paper into an AI" I'm sure the scientific publishers that charge $50 to view a single journal article will do everything in their power to prevent this...
  - arcanemachiner 3y ago
    Too late, we already have SciHub.
    - JimtheCoder 3y ago
      Yes, I know that site very well. This does bring up the issue of actual legal protections, though. If you are training an LLM on the open web, or things posted for everyone to view for free, than that is OK I guess when it comes to legal ramifications. (Definitely not a lawyer) When you start using data that you really don't have the rights too...and somehow someone finds out that their protected data is included in the dataset...then what?
      - withinboredom 3y ago
        It might be protected if you are doing it yourself, for personal (non-commercial) use. Just like you can build any patent you want for fun, but the second you try to sell it, you need permission.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
> If it's not online it doesn't exist. Even if it is online, it probably doesn't exist either - see today's threads about communities moving from Reddit to Discord. The "cozy web" is undoing a lot of progress of the past decades. Might be that we'll all need to go to the university libraries and dig for knowledge ourselves, hoping any of the more recent experiences and discoveries end up being published as books, instead of dying in private Whatsapp groups.
ilyt 3y ago
> Like, say you want to frame and build your own house - there's bazzilions of YouTube videos about the beginning process. But very very few about the more advanced details you need to know. That's an interesting factor of online knowledge - the most readily available one is the one that masses are interested the most because the views give the budget for people to care. It's also weirdy trendly, like how pandemic spawned a lot of woodworking channels coz people cooped up in their homes found a new hobby. To add to the point this [1] random video is an example, it does go into terminology and reasoning behind each element but won't tell you what kind of lumber to get, how climate would affect that decision, how to isolate the house and a bunch of other things. You might look for them and probably find some info but at some point just looking for a dedicated book might be the saner option. And uh, if someone knows a good one covering how to build and isolate your own shed I wouldn't mind recommendation... - [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fP0LZMEV5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fP0LZMEV5w
oivey 3y ago
Undergraduate electrical engineers learn this fact. It’s technical but in the scheme of things not all that obscure. That’s some of the value of a formal education.
TillE 3y ago
I've been lamenting for many years that the dream of an "information superhighway" has basically failed. There is so much deep information available in any large university library that is simply not on the internet at all. If you're researching any historical topic, there are at least a few solid books (and possibly hundreds) that draw from primary sources, compared to a couple pages of text on Wikipedia and very little else. You mostly won't even find ebooks. Somehow the best, most extensive free digital resource is a podcast like Age of Napoleon, which synthesizes information from many books.

shadowgovt 3y ago

And one challenge (as is so often true in software) is knowing what to know. It's not particularly intuitive that grid balance is necessary if one's entire experience with electricity is "I plug in a machine and the power comes out of the wall." It's actually a minor plot point in Stephen King's "The Stand" that after a viral apocalypse wipes out most of humanity, the survivors try to restart the electrical grid in a town. The first attempt proves fatal because they haven't properly isolated the circuits throughout town, so when they connect the plant to the main grid the plant's generators explode from trying to support the load of every home where someone died spontaneously while running a hair dryer.

calvinmorrison 3y ago
That book, well the most enjoyable parts for me of the 1000 pages or so besides the intro (king is great at starting plots) was the whole power station business. Otherwise 900 pages of fumbling with a plot. I should go reread it

asdfman123 3y ago

The internet has made "random fact retrieval" much faster for sure. In fact, I notice movies seem... less dumb than they were a few decades ago, and I have a theory that that is why. But to really know something, you have to have studied it, even in the modern era. I can read an instantly-available wikipedia article about power generation, but I'm only scraping the absolute surface.

BonoboIO 3y ago

And we still have people that think that the earth is flat. Kind of depressing.

cfn 3y ago

You are forgetting museums. Before the internet was widely available I visited the Electricity Museum in Lisbon which is a repurposed power station. They had a simulator of a power station with operating instructions and, according to the staff, it was realistic. I spent quite a few hours trying to startup the damn thing but it was too complicated. It was a bit like a game but with very low tolerance and a long list of steps which gave me quite an insight into how complex that field is. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museu_da_Eletricidade_(Lisboa) https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museu_da_Eletricidade_(Lisboa)