Was in at Dunedin's University Book Shop today - it's one of New Zealand's finest book stores - and as usual I was not able to escape their excellent premises without acquiring yet another yummy book. One more won't make a difference will it? (I wonder about the strength of the foundations of my cottage...)
This time: New Zealand Astronomical Yearbook 2009. What a bargain at $19.95. It has star maps for each month, explanation of phenomena to look out for, informative articles (for example there's one on Matariki and another on Galileo's Legacy: 400 years of the telescope), tables for sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset, links, addresses, and a useful Glossary.
Repeat after me:
I will not clink on any links to wikipedia.
I will not look at what wikipedia says about anything.
I will not read the wikipedia article.
I will read a real book or look for a reputable website.
I will not look at wikipedia.
Wikipedia sux.
(Repeat until you can cure yourself of the lazy habit of consulting wikipedia, in which anything of value is overruled by the bullies and the psychopaths and the trolls who live under the bridges there and find fertile manure to flourish in.)
Yes, I really, really despise wikipedia. It is sick, and it is stupid. The nastiest people 'win' there, because for them, knowledge is not even just a popularity contest, it's a battle which only the most devious and two-faced warriors can win.
I'd rather consult a book. Or a website run by the experts on a subject. Wikipedia has actually banned all experts now. But that doesn't 'democratize' knowledge; it makes a nonsense of it.
I wish I was wrong. Like Christianity and communism, a collaborative encyclopedia was a good idea, but it hasn't been tried yet.
But back to my new almanac: Omg it's February already! What happened to January 2009?! Even though that month has sped past me in the wink of an eye, I will be able to study what the sky looked like...
Galileo is one of my heroes of all time, so it's going to be good to celebrate 2009 as "The International Year of Astronomy" in this, the 400th year since Galileo first started experimenting with making his own telescope and pointing it at the night sky.
7 comments:
Well, I don't believe Wikipedia is that bad!
And there is perhaps a kind of subtle irony in your definition, you could maybe add it here! ;)
All The Best!
UBS is wonderful!
There is a chain of bookstores over here called Waterstones and they are designed in the same style. And they employ book lovers.
I love losing myself in a bookstore for an afternoon...
Lovely post :)
Ah dammit, gonna have to go down to UBS now and get that yearbook.
Wikipedia IS that bad, Daleks, but you'd only know it if you had an area of expertise on a topic, and the wankerpedia articles around that subject had been hijacked by a person or a group who took longterm control of the editing in order to impose a bias and carry out a personal or political agenda.
That has happened to topics I care about so I know the place is toothless in the face of malicious but clever and relentless campaigns to subvert the bias of an article. The constant obsessive tinkering and reverting requires an energy that usually only emanates from hostility, so it is usually haters and enemies who have the longterm perserverence to control the tenor of an article.
The good and rational people finally realise it's insane to stay and fight with small-minded devious people, in such a loaded unfair environment. As with many internets environments - bulletin boards were ever so - the naive well-meaning people of good will are driven away and the vicious trolls remain victorious over the shit heap they have created.
All those of us who have seen the truth of the way wikipedia operates, can do, is malign the worth of the enterpise.
And worry about hacker attacks if some wikitroll notices the criticism.
OK a lot of the encyclopaedia is probably OK, especially the really controversial stuff where the debate is evenly matched, or the completely non-contoversial stuff (if such a thing exists) but who is there to tell you which bit you are reading?
I say don't trust any of it. The cause is rotten to the core.
Yes, I suppose it depends on what subjects are of interest to the reader - I imagine anything 'contentious' would be vunerable to persistent malicious editing.
I mean ... I wouldn't even begin to endorse the wikipedia article on daleks!
Lol. :-)
Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!
Post a Comment