do people read at all anymore?

[inSight-NEO]

How about being blocked by hotel computers?

Assuming that a hotel actually "provides" computers, other than those used by staff, try searching without using such words as "gun," "weapon," "rifle," etc. Instead, try using words relating to makes and/or models and possibly those related to specific parts or assemblies. This is unless, of course, all information containing the words "gun," "weapon," etc., are blocked entirely. But, this seems a bit of an overkill-type situation to me.

Seriously though, Ive never encountered such ridiculous restrictions as of yet, so I cant comment. But, then again, I do most of my online info gathering/literature ordering at home and the rest occurs at the local bookstore. So...in my case, hotel computers do not really factor in all that much. Of course, most hotels I have visited simply provide wireless access points or manual docking stations. I guess they could restrict access to certain material via their server settings, but I have yet to encounter this.

Besides, there are other ways to access the internet while away from home (without needing a laptop and/or suffering certain restrictions). You just need to be resourceful.

 

[wrs840]

At the Hol. Inn in downtown Sioux Falls, SD and the Guesthouse (former Best W.) in Grand Forks, ND, the computers provided by these hotels block any gun topics.

Uhhh... When did hotels start "providing" computers ?? ...And where are they?

Les

 

[Grey_Mana]

do people read at all anymore?
OK I am showing my age[52] but I see question's posted on here that anyone with even a basic gun library would never ask. I don't mean difficult question's like what are the CC laws in state X,but fundamental stuff like the difference between a .223 and a .22 rimfire. Has the internet killed books in the under 30 crowd?

If accessing readily available sources of information, and making informed decisions based on that information were a widely taught skill set, we wouldn't have the elected officials we have today.

Seriously though - in the liberal parts of the US, public libraries don't stock books on guns (4dakidz) and book stores don't stock books on guns or books by conservatives. The only places to buy are Amazon.com or the rack at the local gun store (and the gun store books have an insulting mark-up).

 

[1-UP]

Kids still read books. I see them do it all the time. They may or may not be able to write as well as previous generations, but making a statement like that could drag you into a prolonged discussion about the evolution of the English language.

I will say that traditional research is certainly withering. As near as I can tell, the local libraries have abolished the Dewey Decimal System in favor of alphabetically storing books by author, most likely to better accomodate computer-based searches. The school's librarian says that trying to keep non-fiction texts in stock is a losing battle - they're out of date too fast for most purposes. They're also glacial compared to using electronic sources.

NPR had a story a few months (years?) ago about Wikipedia's accuracy. Fact-checkers indicated that it was on par with printed material. I know I spot 3-4 errors in whatever textbook we happen to be using and my students generally catch a few more, so print is hardly perfect. They're *usually* typos, but I've seen a few things I would consider to be inaccurate. The bigger problem I've noticed is that, at least in science, they present one theory as being the only theory. The kids are generally surpised when I tell them that scientists argue about pretty much everything and can't even decide how to split life up at the Kingdom level of organization.

My suspicion is that television and the internet has simply exposed you to a greater number of stupid people than previous generations have had to endure. 50 years ago the town idiot was the town idiot, now it's any moron with a keyboard.

 

[Aquila]

There's not a dime's difference between the man who cannot read and the man who doesn't...

 

[Rellian]

I think that in the same way that youth is wasted on the young, so too is wisdom wasted on the old.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Book sales have declined these past few years. It's not the literacy has declined, rather, it's a reflection of less disposable capital. I tend to spend a couple of thousand on books every year. With twenty-one packed bookcases in my house, I enjoy reading and presently read a couple of books a week. Right now I'm on an easy read Civil War book (soljers' letters, diaries or journals are generally quick reading). I've quite a collection of firearm books too as well as a bookcase of naval books and a couple of shelves of airplane books. Then there's all those tank books.

 

[PCGS65]

I know many that think AR means "Assault Rifle" :banghead:

 

[LAK]

Television .. the drug of the nation.

 

[RockyTop]

What's this thread say?

 

[JohnL2]

I think the OP is trying to say that there is less analogous information when you are doing a web search. I think Microsoft is going to give Google some good competition in that respect with their new "Bing" search engine. It will be interesting to see what will come of it in the next few years.
For all its promise search engines are aggravating when doing research. They excel when it comes to buying stuff. The real serious tomes are out there, as well as hefty technical manuals and archaic subjects. I try to use the internets strengths in proffering these publications up for digestion. Kind of like a concierge or a chamberlain.
You still have to do the leg work to get the real meat of a subject. The net is just a good facilitator. That is how I view it.
I understand the lament of the seeming loss of a higher lexicon. I've read some old books; specifically from the early days of America. Those people back then were brilliant. At least the ones who wrote stuff worth printing.
I also think that our education system has been dumbed down to a degree. I recall with a wince my experience, albeit short, with higher education. The thought in the back of my mind was, "No wonder we are going down the toilet.". I had to make up on my own. Funny how that is mostly the case.

 

[ezypikns]

Just in case we lose our way,.......

Here's the original post:

OK I am showing my age[52] but I see question's posted on here that anyone with even a basic gun library would never ask. I don't mean difficult question's like what are the CC laws in state X,but fundamental stuff like the difference between a .223 and a .22 rimfire. Has the internet killed books in the under 30 crowd?

I just turned 62.

My two cents? Some people are readers, some aren't. I don't think whether we read or not tells us too much about a person's intelligence.

I am a little dismayed that so many folks (even here on "The High Road") find it difficult to communicate a simple idea in words.

You may be really bright, but if you can't spell, or use simple grammar to make yourself understood, no one may take you very seriously.

 

[mcdonl]

You may be really bright, but if you can't spell, or use simple grammar to make yourself understood, no one may take you very seriously.

Hang on ez... it is going to get worse. I listened to a news program yesterday about teachers who are getting papers turned in to them written in "text lingo"...

So, u need 2 get used 2 it. lol

But, that being said I like to get my information from THR. Yes, I have a decent number of firearms books and I know how to use Google, but to be honest... Google returns THR posts 99% of the time when I do a search anyway.

 

[WillDe83]

With the internet as a new source of knowledge, many ppl my age (26) and younger come here to look for quick answers to our questions. We still read books, I read mostly history and select non fiction... i read about the history of the firearms but when it comes to technical data i tend to ask ppl who have had first hand experience and thats when I head to forums (90 percent of the time this one) and read and question experienced and knowledgeable individuals.
And I still do get alot of my answers by doing online research (not wiki) and if I am still confused or if I want more knowledge or if I cannot find what I need, I will come on here and ask. hopefully it is not an inconvenience.

 

[SSN Vet]

Reading isn't the issue.... they read the answers to their posted questions...

It's called Laziness ...

and it has infected Americans in epic numbers....

Why research a topic when I can throw my questions out there in cyber space and let someone else do all the work for me.

I'm guilty of this myself at times.... but am more and more getting tired of receiving opinions for answers instead of facts and find researching sources (on and off line) more rewarding. Then I can post questions about the finer points that still need clarification.

 

[ghoster]

i think they might just want experienced peoples answers instead of reading a lot of technical info that they dont understand thus confusing them more.

if someone wants to know somthing i know about i give them my take on it.

if they decide to ask it after it has just been discused i figure they didnt see the info they needed and want some more answers from people that didnt answer in the first thread.

just because i answered a question i dont consider it dead.
i guess i dont consider myself a all knowing god in my own mind.

48 and been shooting since i was a kid by the way.

cant tell you how many times i looked for info only to find a cupple morons tring to win a darwin award.

my comp time is limited so i ask experinced people all the time so feel free not to answer cause there are lots of people that take questions as a complement and want to help not just read what they wrote.

 

[mustang_steve]

Books are at an awkward phase. They are about the last thing that should be digitized, but is not.

If these books were in digital format, more people would probably buy them from an online bookstore or the like, download it to their PDA-phone, and read about this stuff when they are experiencing some downtime.

Back when I lived in california, I lived near a stadium....I got off work about when the game finishes....imagine the traffic nightmare. For this reason, I kept a palm pilot loaded with electronic books to read while sitting in 1 block per hour traffic speeds. I've read close to 3-4,000 pages of text on a palm pilot. It's very doable, and very practical.

However, with real books, there's many factors that makes people not want to seek them....the wait for shipping is one of them, lack of local availibility just amplifies this, and lack of libraries with copies of them makes it even worse. So in the end, all they see is "buy this book", when they may just want a single thing answered.

Yes, my generation and those after it are impatient...all youth are impatient

I'd love to see Ayoob's books in a digital format...I'd buy them up. Honestly, I dislike collecting books...I'm too migratory as is (I work in a very volatile industry, thus I move to whereever the next job is when mine evaporates)....so I'm not fond of having excess things. A single USB flash drive can hold a sizable personal library of information...all in a package a little bigger than a pack of DoubleMint gum.

The other side is the reduced cost of manufacturing/shipping ebooks can result in a price that's lower for the buyer, and better net profits for the author...it's a win/win situation.

as far as not searching: sometimes people just can't figure out the magic words to get google to spit out the information, or they get flooded with so much irrelevant crap they just throw their hands up.

 

[WinchesterAA]

I'm a good 30 years younger than you, OP.

I've noticed the same thing, not just on the internet, but in my community, too, and all the other communities I've been exposed to.

It's not that people stopped reading, it's that people stopped wanting to learn.

I, on the other hand, didn't. The only thing I like more than examining my 1911, is crunching numbers, books, and recently - programming in C.


Strange thing about it, though, is that I'm having a hard time finding work in Houston, Texas. I figured people would appreciate a well educated employee, but it seems more like the employers I approach expect me to be as dull and uninterested as the rest of the masses. Damned shame it is, all I want is more knowledge and experience, and enough money to keep me in school and hopefully keep that roof over my head, too.

Til then, I'll just keep reading, and experimenting. One of my next investments will be a high power microscope, so I may begin analyzing even more of what makes this world so beautiful. I guess it'd help if I had a degree, but personally, I learn faster on my own than in a school setting, and doing it myself is mostly free.

Where on earth do I fit in anymore?

 

[KarenTOC]

I wanted to reply to this thread, but the thought of reading 4 pages of thread on my old monitor was just too much for me to bear :::groan:::.

[well, as long as i'm here... pet peeve: seeing a news headline on an internet page and clicking the link so i can read the full story... and getting a video! i guess it's too much to ask to read the news, you gotta have a mini-movie with lights and color and sound and pretty-people banter. :::sigh:::]

 

[dev_null]

Seems pretty likely that we're seeing a dumbing of the country. To answer your question, no, a lot of people don't read books. They watch the idiot box, get their entertainment (which they pretend is important 'news') from tv, radio, and websites, and surf the web. They get pre-chewed infotainment on their iphones and twitter. Even if they know where it is, they couldn't tell you their local library's hours if their lives depended on it. They can't even read and write their own language, and before anyone blames spellcheckers let me point out that even with spellcheck some 30-50% of the posts on this forum contain basic spelling and grammar errors. And they blame everyone else: politicians, "the media," their parents, the government, the terrorists, the liberals, the conservatives, people over 30, people over 50, people under 30, blah blah blah... everyone but themselves. There was a time when this country boasted some of the best and brightest in the world, but we have become a nation full of Blutarskys: "fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

 

[Isher]

Last time I moved, it was over 100 boxes of books.

112, I think.

Don't even get me going on this subject...........

isher

 

[PT1911]

ok serious questions... when I hit the little plastic buttons on this computer these lines come up on the screen ..... they seem to create patterns.... I think they may be letters... you know what, when the letters are put together in certain ways they make words and words sentences and sentences paragraphs. WOW...


How bout the fact that some people just want the opinions of another.. I sure wish there was some place that allowed people to ask questions and get answers without feeling stupid or inferior in some way. OH WAIT.. that is why we are here....

What is the difference between a .223 and a .22 rimfire?
One is centerfire while the other is rimfire.
One is has a longer overall length.
One has greater range.
One has superior speed.
One exits the barrel at a greater velocity.
One uses heavier projectiles.
One is great for small game while the other (in factory form) is too much in most cases.
One IS suitable (though questionably appropriate) for deer.
One is much more expensive to shoot.


And if I thought about it there are a hell of a lot more differences in the two... not all of which is readily available to find on the internet with a simple search. Why sit at a computer looking up everything everywhere when you can ask a simple question and get answers from experienced people rather than what some editor thought was appropriate?


Here is a question for you... At which point did it become inconvenient for you, or anyone, to answer the questions of a beginner? More importantly, what is the purpose of this site and others like it if not to ask and answer questions posed by fellow shooters, gun owners, hunters, fishermen, survival enthuisiasts, and those who are just curious?

 

[LibShooter]

Like many in our generation (I'm 46) and many members of The High Road I started learning about firearms (as well as cars and home repair) as soon as I was old enough to follow my Dad around to hand him tools and hold the flashlight. This basic knowledge of how things work gives us a foundation we need to find answers we don't know.

Many didn't have this early exposure to things mechanical. They turn to the THR to fill in their knowledge. I think it's everyone's responsibility to cheerfully pass on what we've learned.

 

[JCisHe]

I read a lot... I just finished a book "Eternity in Their Hearts" and I am starting another one, "History for Historians."

I'm 29

 

[Jim Watson]

My kids can "google" the answer before I can FIND the book.

There are a lot of questions asked on the boards that are answerable with a GOOD Google. Either the askers are lazy or they do not know how to frame and refine a search query.

I find information about equally by looking in pre-Algorenet books and being more willing to punch the keyboard than the O.P.