The Wonders of the Internet: Discovering the Winchcombe Meteorite

[Hornbein]

My parents downsized last year and offered them. No takers.

I picked up an encyclopedia from 1930 or so. Somehow the black and white photos looked 3D. I couldn't figure out how it was done. A lost technology.

If I could I would own an encyclopedia. They are far superior for browsing. Wikipedia has a random browsing feature but all I got was the histories of small organizations such as high schools.

 

[Astronuc]

The thing I occasionally love to do is revisit places I have resided using Google Maps. In particular it is so astoundingly detailed that I can situate myself exactly on the back porch of the tenement on Eddy St overlooking downtown Ithaca, for instance, or the see the exact view of the Blue Ridge from our house on Pantops Mountain in Charlottesville. It transports me immediately back!
Of course today I also discovered the obit of yet another friend I hadn't seen in too long...to quote Vonnegut "so it goes".

I do the same. The first house in which my family lived still exists, as does the third, and fifth. The second house I lived in is gone and has been replaced by a parking lot. The fourth house I lived in has been replaced by a larger house. In 1988, when I visited those old places, the fourth house was still intact. It was only in the last couple of decades that the old house was replaced. I wouldn't have known that without the internet.

The sixth house (one story) I lived in was demolished and replaced by a big box house (two story with skylights) about three or four times the size, and the new owner bought the house next door, and demolished it for a side yard.

I'm beginning to see a trend.

As for the internet, it is marvelous in terms of access to information. On the other hand, the internet is cluttered with a lot of nonsense and garbage.

Growing up, my dad had a library, mostly of the humanities. We had a Random House dictionary and the 1963 edition of The Columbia Encyclopedia. I asked my dad recently about the Encyclopedia, since he is downsizing in preparation of selling his house and moving in with my brother, and unfortunately, he got rid of it. He thought it was too old and I had no use for it. Growing up, I found it invaluable because it had a lot of historical and biographical information, and it reflected the knowledge (a perspective) of the time. It was in that book, I discovered the periodic table, chemistry, physics, radiation, sub-atomic particles, . . . as well as articles of American, World and Ancient history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Encyclopedia

We could not afford a set like the Encyclopedia Brittanica. However, one of the neighbors was a teacher, and she had the full set of EB, so I'd visit and spend time reading through it, while other kids from the house would play or watch TV.

 

[gleem]

I never was brought up in an environment that was very intellectually stimulating although education was encouraged perhaps because they both had limited educations themselves. They, however, were avid readers of the newspapers and a few periodicals. The only books we ever had in the house other than my school books were a cheap set of encyclopedias from a grocery store purchased one volume at a time. But still, I eventually discovered libraries which my father would often chauffer me to when walking was not an option. You had to work a little harder to find out about something. Back then books tended to be austere compared to those of today with their glitzy graphics, pictures, and overly highlighted text which does not leave much for the mind to grapple with, leaving me to wonder how students today learn. I am curious if our experience in obtaining information by "hand and foot" so to speak has not made us savvier in the way we use the internet.

 

[hutchphd]

My 90 year young mother tells

https://www.google.com/maps/place/E...45c96c873d7b4cfc!8m2!3d42.442333!4d-76.487498

Wow our "shotgun" apartment was on the top floor next to what used to be Hardees (now Mehak Indian) above the liquor store (now Metake Japanese). 414 Eddy if memory serves.