shit don't feel the same when you're not around

This whole Viktor thing… well, it’s a pretty big deal, right? Should we say something, make a formal gesture?  Welcome him as brothers? Should we, I don’t know, mark the occasion somehow? 

there’s this place called a library. and they have these things called books. and then there’s this thing called Google Search. where you can find books in PDF form.

friend: let’s check wikipedia in 2 seconds on our phones

Wikipedia as a reference resource is fantastic because, just like print encyclopedias, it serves as a jumping-off point for research… and so do librarians! A librarian isn’t going to just write your paper for you, we’re going to point you to the books, articles, and websites that contain the information. Wikipedia is great for that, too, because any article that gets more than a bit of traffic will wind up with sources and external links. But print encyclopedias don’t go that far in citing their sources, and because they’re static media, the references may not only be outdated, they might be entirely inaccessible due to age, obscurity, or cost of access.

And there’s an interesting thing about all those books we have on the shelves… anyone can write one, and usually they only have a handful of other people checking their work. Academic journals are somewhat notorious for the ease with which a completely falsified paper can see publication (especially in cases of electronic journals), but printed books can also be easily falsified, whether as a result of publishers with an agenda or just fact-checkers slacking off.  

 As has been pointed out above, wikipedia is really great at getting obscenely specific in terms of the topics of articles. It’s an amazing collection of data, and more importantly, it’s an amazing collection of sources of data.

Not only that, but Wikipedia cites its sources. It tells you right at the bottom of the page where all its info came from, so if you want to use a fact from Wikipedia but don’t want a teacher annoyed with you, just cite the source in the footnote. Teachers and professors are (a) not likely to check up on this and (b) it’s a real source so even if they do it’s legit?

The list of other languages in the sidebar? Look at it and check whether the article has a version in Simple English.

It’s available in 285 languages.

Two. Hundred. And. Eighty. Five.

No, not every article is available in every language. But do you have an idea what a wealth of information is there for countries where getting to paper media might be difficult, due to extreme remoteness or civil unrest or poverty? (I’m specifically thinking of what a blessing Wikipedia would have been to Russian and Eastern European students and adults in the couple of years immediately following the fall of the USSR.)