wrycoder's comments

On: Librarians are dangerous

[wrycoder]

My town votes 50/50 Republican/Democrat, yet our newly rebuilt library is filled with lib/women oriented non-fiction and contemporary women’s pulp fiction. They no longer even have paper sets of encyclopedias. It’s not possible to learn much about science or technology there anymore - they weeded much of that out during the remodeling.

[fuzzer371 → wrycoder]

> They no longer even have paper sets of encyclopedias

Honest question from someone who has never actually had to use a paper encyclopedia. Do they still print paper encyclopedias?

[amanaplanacanal → wrycoder]

They are likely stocking the books their users are asking for. If you ask for something else I'm sure they can get that too.

[dahart → wrycoder]

> They no longer even have paper sets of encyclopedias.

Why would they? With Wikipedia being freely and always available and up to date, and most/all for-profit encyclopedias being online now, who goes to the library to use a paper encyclopedia? Have you used a paper encyclopedia recently? I haven’t for decades, but I still visit the library. Google tells me World Book is the only encyclopedia left doing print runs, and it’s more geared toward students, so maybe only purchased by schools. I wouldn’t hold up paper encyclopedias as evidence of what the library has or doesn’t have.

[grandempire → wrycoder]

It’s safe to say the market who purchases books is women, under the age of 40.

[alabastervlog → grandempire]

Women reading mostly romance and the occasional “young adult” fantasy book is practically the only market left for authors, if they want to sell fiction.

[djeastm → wrycoder]

>They no longer even have paper sets of encyclopedias.

They don't publish many of them anymore as paper sets.

I used to love them, but Wikipedia changed everything

[dpkirchner → wrycoder]

Bummer. Do you have to go far to find another library that has paper encyclopedias when you need to look up some texts?

[9x39 → dpkirchner]

Science and tech is obsolete like the format of paper encyclopedias? (It isn't.)

It's worth considering if a short-term focus on stocking fad romantasy comes at the long-term expense of a body of knowledge. Consider the classic value of college degrees - they're (largely) not optimized for fad pop knowledge or even vocational skills, instead optimizing for a rounded body of knowledge considered to be broadly 'educated'.

[BeFlatXIII → wrycoder]

Tyranny of the busiest patrons.

On: Show HN: Physical Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and e-paper screen

[wrycoder]

LOL, read the one star reviews [0]. The problem with the mechanical ones is they are shoddy these days and can't be depended on. It seems no one knows how to make a high quality mechanical timer any more.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B07H59ZL1L/ref=acr_se...

On: Designing Electronics That Work

[wrycoder]

Yes. Think of it as a CAPTCHA. There’s a reason.

On: Apple Exclaves

[wrycoder]

He did

[kennysoona → wrycoder]

By bending a knee?

On: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

[wrycoder]

And yet the ranks of proofreaders and editors never blinked.

On: Lynx Browser: The Land That Time Revived (2022)

[wrycoder]

IMO, a most useful thing is Lynx in DIRED mode. A great read-only directory browser - just enter a local url when you start it. For example, <lynx .> or <lynx /> .

[dredmorbius → wrycoder]

FYI, w3m also supports this.

In fact w3m was originally intended as a filesystem browser and file pager, with HTML functionality added to it. See: <https://w3m.sourceforge.net/>

On: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

[wrycoder]

Constitution, yes - but following it, not so much. I would really like the Federal government to improve in that regard.

On: How the strengths of Lisp facilitate complex and flexible applications (2016)

[wrycoder]

From TFA, ...the creator of the R programming language, Ross Ihaka, who provided benchmarks demonstrating that Lisp’s optional type declaration and machine-code compiler allow for code that is 380 times faster than R and 150 times faster than Python

On: The Origins of Wokeness

[wrycoder]

Yeah, and who is doing the killing?

On: Ships must practice celestial navigation

[wrycoder]

I have one I paid $150 for. But bubble sextants are usually only used on aircraft.