Sunday
If you have even the slightest interest in nature or biology, you will love The Encyclopedia of Life. It is an attempt to put all the world's taxonomy data in one easily searched location. Presumably they will one day attach the full genome of each critter as well!
Oh how I wish I had this available when I was a kid. I knew just about everything that walked, crawled, slithered, swam or flew in Western Pennsylvania and was working away at the rest of the world when I was 14 or so!
Damn, I had forgotten this existed.
Thank you Dale.
Posted by CountingCats at August 31, 2009 12:05 PM
When I was 15, if I wanted to know something, I had access to the contents of a couple of relatively poor libraries (containing books that dealt with subjects superficially and which were often out of date), and a few schoolteachers, many of who had an attitude of "You don't need to know that. It won't be in the test". Given just how voracious was my desire to learn stuff when I was that age, this was intensely frustrating, although perhaps I didn't realise how frustrating at the . Fifteen year olds today can pursue their curiousity pretty much to the limits of human knowledge if they wish. For those who are that way inclined this must be extraordinary, although I suspect that they mostly think that this is just the way it is, and don't realise how different it was for those who came before them.
Posted by Michael Jennings at August 31, 2009 12:22 PM
"autodidact"
Thank you ! Very good link. Hadn't "been there" before
Posted by CJF at September 3, 2009 02:19 AM
