Someone needs to make a machine something like a cat scanner but that can take a 3D image of an entire book so that the pages can be singled out and OCR applied to them without damaging the book. Then we could get on much better! :-)
Bob On Feb 15, 2012, at 7:35 AM, Bernard Devlin wrote: > Alas, I think it is not a new phenomenon. > > I am not young enough to know everything. > -- Oscar Wilde > > Whenever I walk into a large library, I feel a sense of awe in the > physical presence of so much that I do not know, and will never know. > Being able to click between Facebook, Google and Wikipedia is unlikely > to instill a sense of the vastness of knowledge and the limited > lifespan we have. Reading about advanced ancient civilizations also > makes me wonder at how much we have lost in terms of knowledge. > > The internet is great as an instant encyclopaedia (even given the > partiality of much of the information). What it lacks is depth and a > scale by which to realise one's ignorance. Getting an overview of a > subject on the internet, then going to a real library to read around > it makes me appreciate the physical library even more. > > But I'm not knocking the digitisation of information - I would hate to > have to physically search through a stack of old copies of the New > York Times going back through the last century. > > There are some obscure books printed in India in the 1930s that I want > to look up soon. I've found physical copies, but I have no hope they > will ever be digitised. And that makes me wonder about what knowledge > we will lose about our own past. > > Bernard > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Bob Sneidar <b...@twft.com> wrote: >> It is frightening to think that so many "kids" grow up to be adults and >> NEVER form the thought, "Maybe I don't know all about...". What positions do >> they eventually come to hold where doing the wrong thing means damage, pain >> and suffering and even death to themselves or others? > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription > preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode