04 April, 2012

Why Wikipedia has supplanted the great Encyclopedia Britannica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom

You may have read the news about the final print edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Much of the blame for this has been attributed to Wikipedia and there is one simple reason.
To quote the classics,
...though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper...

All it needs is the words Don't Panic printed in large friendly letters.
Wikipedia is now officially the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Posted by Bill at 8:42 AM
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2 comments:

  1. Bondles4/4/12 10:31 AM

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: An iPad with a Don't Panic cover and access to Wikipedia is functionally indistinguishable from the Hitchhiker's Guide.

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  2. Bill4/4/12 11:41 AM

    You're absolutely right. I can't believe that amongst the gazillions of iStuff accessories, someone hasn't made on of those. I do believe there's a Guide app in development.

    In fact, the website H2G2 predates Wikipedia as a crowd-sourced database of useful and/or interesting articles.

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