do people read at all anymore?

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I don't understand, if you feel the question is tooo simple to be asked, don't take it personel...they aren't asking YOU, unless they send you a pm....just skip it an let someone else deal with it an go look at another thread...is that so hard????
What I don't like is asking a question, an someone with NO knowledge voices in an try's to insult you for asking....had this happen when I was asking about using a muzzle brake, should of seen the Stupid response I got from a MODERATOR....but to my surprize, another MODERATOR took offense an had a few statements for him.
I was always asking questions, no matter how simple in the military, my Sgt. use to call me Bonehead for asking so much!!! But guess what, only 6 guys in the CO. maxed AO Eagle testing....I was one of them...Sgt. said good job!
 
Long, rambling tirade on effect of diminished reading on internet language skills deleted. Replaced by short list of pet peeves:
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you forgot puntuashion kapital letters and spelin
 
Mr. Rogers noted,

I frequently carry out "classic" math calculations on paper but the trick that really amazes the electronics dependent person is the ability to perform rapid, reasonably accurate, mental calculations. I love it when a calculation comes up and I can provide a good working answer in seconds while the "engineer" digs a calculator out of his briefcase to get the same answer 2 minutes later.
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We had to learn that skill in high school when we went into slide rules --approximating an answer before even using the slipstick. (Circa 1950.)

I've lost most of that skill, but what I remember still kind of stuns some people. Like about a month ago, instead of multiplying by 50, I multiplied by 100 (by adding two zeroes) and took half of that.

"How'd you do that in your head?"

One of the simpler techniques I still remember, but stunning to someone who just uses a calculator.

Terry, 11500RN
 
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My last teacher in grade school was Mr. Shakeshaft. A feature of his class was the Friday morning 100 question quiz. This was a random mixture of logic, math, grammar and trick questions. I loved it and, strangely, it was probably the basis for the rest of my education.

Many years later, having progressed well in my career, I realized what a contribution this man had made to my life so, when I was back in my home town for a visit, I went and found him. He was well into retirement but still bright and with great memory. As I left his home after thanking him for his efforts with me, a prickly student I'm sure, I felt as though I had paid a debt I had owed for years.

This man fostered my love of reading because, along one wall of his classroom, he had a long table full of donated books the subjects of which were extremely wide-ranging. If you finished your allotted tasks early you were encouraged to take one of these books and read until the rest of the class had completed their work.
 
...in the snow, uphill, while reading Kafka, both ways!
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Kafka in the original German. :evil:

Well, I dunno about the whole question. Something like 14,000 people have downloaded my novel. I assume at least some of them have read the thing. And our BBTI site has had 800,000 hits since it went up six months ago - and there's more than just numbers on it. Yeah, sure, reading is down in overall surveys, but still . . .

Jim D.
 
Well who writes books? Hopefully someone who has had experience on the subject, someone who has gained knowledge either by trial and error or learned from someone else. So what do we have here on these forums? A wealth of knowledge, most good, some bad. I would bet there is more information here than 20 or 30 books. Books are expensive. this is free. If someone doesnt understand the difference between a 22lr and a 223 then we should do our best to explain it to them and help. Why put them down and turn them away? The more people we can educate and help, the more people we can inform about the subject the better, for all of us. Were you born with a waelth of knowledge about guns? No you had to learn. This forum is supposed to be for just that. Its the same as reading a book just a different way of getting the information. At least people are asking these questions and trying to learn. Please no matter how elementary the question may seem to some its still a serious question to someone trying to learn from scratch. Have you ever read your owners manual for your gun. Obviously not. I have read all of mine and not one of them gives me even an inkling of ballistics differences between different cartridges. In fact they give you very little information at all. Just my 2 cents.
 
The first steps of an education are to ask for knowledge. Be glad your being asked. Your replies just might spark someones interest to learn. Putting your knowledge to practical use for the greater good. Are you resentful? Of the sharing.
 
The problem with today's youth from what I was reading was that they seem to possess no critical thinking skills. Example: during the election they'd actually watch podcasts and such of the candidates speeches and debates and pay attention to what they said, BUT they wouldn't fact check. They'll go to college but just listen to whatever the professor spews out without checking. Their opinions result from this.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I think that you have to be. I won't believe hardly anything a politician says; I'll go straight to Google and Wikipedia and see their voting record, their voting records lie far less often than their words. Don't get me started on most media outlets; the Wall Street Journal is one of the few I trust, and I even fact check them sometimes.

I still read books a good deal, mostly non-fiction. Right now I'm reading The Third Reich at War and I've got The Gamble: GEN Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006 - 2008 lined up next. I think the Internet should be seen as a supplement to books, and of course is pure awesome for fact checking.

Wikipedia has a good deal of guns & ammo articles and I haven't really detected a bias in them, just facts. If you want to read on 7.62x51 or 5.56x45 or terminal ballistics they've got articles. In the case of the AWB, they have this next to the effort to re-instate the ban:

"On the April 18, 2007 showing of MSNBC's program, Tucker, Tucker Carlson interviewed McCarthy concerning the Virginia Tech massacre and her proposed reauthorization of the Assault Weapons Ban. He asked her to explain the need to regulate barrel shrouds, one of the many provisions of the Act.[10] She responded that more importantly the legislation would ban large capacity "clips" used in the Virginia Tech massacre and that the class of guns chosen were those used by gangs and police killers. However, she was in error. The Virginia Tech shooter did not have high capacity magazines. They were the legal, 10 round variety. After admitting that she did not know what a barrel shroud was, an item which she was so adamant to see banned, McCarthy ventured a guess, "I believe it is a shoulder thing that goes up" ".

The Internet is important along with books. Wikipedia seems to have only the facts on guns & ammo, not what some antigunner thinks, feels, or believes. And the more the general public knows the facts, the dumber the antigunners look.
 
I am 30 and can honestly say we have over a thousand books in this house. I am normally reading 2-3 books at any given time. Personally I think the TV did more to end book reading than the Internet, but I think the Internet did affect it to some degree.
 
I'm no kid at 50, but there are a lot of things I don't know. Thanks to those at THR that have helped me with some of my stupid questions. I really appreciate the patience I've gotten from a lot of folks here.

OTOH, when I post an opinion that others find flawed, on any topic, I don't mind being taken to the woodshed for it. I can learn from that too!

Regards,
Les
 
I think we are somewhat comparing apples to oranges here. The internet and these forums are wonderful things, there is more to be learned here than one person can possibly absorb and it is all available at our fingertips for instant recall.

There are advantages to books, also. The joy of owning a good library devoted to your areas of interest cannot be replaced by a keyboard and a monitor. For instance, I have a collection of both Gun Digest and Shooter's Bible, the Digest every copy from 1944 to the present and the Shooters Bible from 1938 to the present. I also have a little collection of American Rifleman from the early '30s to about 1960. I get a great deal of enjoyment from occasionally taking one down and reading through it just for the nostalgia factor. I also have probably 250-300 volumns of military history, most of them long out of print, and about 100 volumns on the history of the American West, also mostly out of print. Nothing on the internet can come close to bringing me the satisfaction I get from these books, but I sure wouldnt want to do without my internet either. :)
 
I'm 52 and a children's librarian. I try pretty hard to keep appropriate books on this subject on our library's shelves.

It's difficult.

Our system has been pressured to purchase only what is available from Baker & Taylor. That pretty much limits us to mass-media books that are less than five years old. Yeesh!

Anyway, as my library weeds the old gun books and gives them to our Friends of the Library Bookstore, I've been buying them up. That means that I have a better collection on this subject than does our library system.

I've been approached by local authors and screenwriters who ask for help in fact-checking their work. This has led me to collect examples of most of the common weapons throughout history.

The local museum is showing interest in my collection, by the way.

I think that I'm doing my part in educating those that are interested in the truth about weapons in general and firearms in particular.
 
Read? Heck, I even read labels on stuff. Grocery store, hardware store. Books? Seems like no matter how many I give away, there are always a couple of thousand around.

My uncle once commented that if I could make a lightning bug hold still, I'd back up to it and read. But then I learned to read before WW II began...

The biggest shock to me wrt the Internet was discovering that there are people who actually have the disposable income for a computer and an ISP account yet have no more intellectual competency than a mouse in heat.

Scary.

However, there must be a fair number of folks out there who read, or Amazon.com wouldn't still be around. And the number of used book stores keeps getting bigger all the time. There IS hope.
 
All of my books won't fit in the house. So, most of them are in my workshop. I seldom get rid of any of them, most are keepers. But today at a yardsale I let 2 go. One had to do with identification of waterfoul, the other was an NRA book on instructing young shooters.

I think I can live without them.

And yes, I began a sentence with "but". :neener:
 
57 foreign car tech back ground.. Read????? You ever try and read Engrish, and thats no typo!

I grew up around hunters, and those hunters had guns. Guns got me to flinters and history, which got me to living history and woodland skills.

So far no book has fire by bow drill down because some fool read a book written by another fool, and even the Smithsonian Musem in DC has it wrong!

The way they have the tinder on top of the fire board is a joke.

Yes Sir I read, but maybe not well, but then I read it again until I get the idea. I can read a rule right down to 0.001, and create parts to match.

Or I can create by eye dependin' on what it is.

One thing I do know is no bottom side of any car cared a less LOL about if I could read. One of my most favorite authors is Allen Ekert, which makes great readin' fer getting even the old way.. Might be a tad old fashioned, but I'll bet that stuff really hurts bad....

I write the way I talk which is yanquiuez, you all call yankee, but I got about 1,000 different ways to spell that word, since it is butchered French mixed with many Natives accents..

My Hero is/was William Clark who said a educated man could spell most any word 15 ways.. I do my best. :D
 
We used to be dependent upon published books for information about firearms. Today, the internet has become the ready reference that many people resort to. Add the fact that this is an online forum and you have a specific segment of the population that is particularly unlikely to go to read a variety of books on the topic.

That being the case, I'd rather newbs come here and ask their questions and be freed of the poor information that TV and movies, their other primary experience with firearms, has left them with.
 
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