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The Kernel Hacker's Bookshelf: UNIX Internals

The Kernel Hacker's Bookshelf: UNIX Internals

Posted Sep 3, 2008 23:54 UTC (Wed) by mattdm (subscriber, #18)
In reply to: The Kernel Hacker's Bookshelf: UNIX Internals by pr1268
Parent article: The Kernel Hacker's Bookshelf: UNIX Internals

Which is a shame, really. It's interesting to see how both the quality and availability of information increased substantially after the printing press was invented, but now with the Internet it seems that the quality is decreasing even though the availability continues to increase.

I'm certain the exact same comment was made around 1450 or so about the printing press vs. hand-lettered books. I think actually the 90%-of-everything rule still applies, just has it always has. It's just a lot easier for you to see more of it, and if you take a certain attitude it's easy to let the junk occlude the good stuff.


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The Kernel Hacker's Bookshelf: UNIX Internals

Posted Sep 4, 2008 1:32 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

Good point. I was going on pure intuition when I mentioned that the quality of articles increased after the printing press was invented--my intuitive thought was that errors in hand-scribed articles likely decreased. But then again, with the rapid proliferation of printing press-published books, those few errors that made it through propagated rapidly and extensively. Not unlike the Internet of today....

And thanks to JoeBuck's comment below. I agree that those who publish quality content online aren't doing so for the $$$ (or €, ¥, £, or whatever). :)

90%

Posted Sep 4, 2008 3:03 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

The 90%-of-everything-is-crap rule is known as Sturgeon's Law.

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