[Foundation-l] Stategic planning : Sharing textbook knowledge

Fri May 8 06:10:06 UTC 2009

Andrew Gray wrote:
> 2009/5/7 Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>:
>
>   
>> Certainly not zero.  Perhaps 10%?  Neither textbooks nor wikipedia are
>> normally designed to give a total soup-to-nuts explanation of how to
>> do something.
>>     
>
> Ha.
>
> [[Wikibooks:Constructing an Industrial Civilisation from Scratch]].
>
> ==Chapter 1: on flint nodules==
>
> (...)
>   
Son, flint is easy to knap, but if you want to do serious hunting,
you want to go with something more durable. Like a canoe shape
axe of granite.
> ==Chapter 307: smelting copper==
>
>   
> (...)
>   

Copper is easy. Try tin. Thataway you can make bronze. Mucho
hard, bronze, even if not quite iron or steel. If copper is gold
"thrice removed", tin is the philosphers stone thrice removed.
> ==Chapter 87,823: the basics of nuclear fission==
>
> (...)
>
> I love it as an intellectual exercise, but the plausible *utility* of
> the whole thing might be open to question!
>
>   
I think this is the lesson that will have brought us to lesson
number one, if there ever will be one.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen