Or will they tear out the pages of the book to light a fire?

[reddragdiva]

I have been book-pr0ning it up big time. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has been slagging off Wikipedia in its usual fashion, just because their business has been in the red for fifteen years and we're ridiculously more popular, demolishing all competitors for actual readership — see EBI's response (PDF) to the study in Nature, and Nature's rebuttal (PDF). But, though the company is acting like cornered mink on PCP, their book remains the finest encyclopedia in the English language, one of the most significant non-fiction works of Anglophone culture and the mark of quality the English Wikipedians aspire to.

So I had a look through their website. HOLY SHIT, THE COMPLETE BRITANNICA ON DVD IS US$25! And I so want one of these and one of these. And I just compiled an order for £130 from the US store, though I haven't sent it yet. Oh my goodness. (And if you really want the huge printed thing, even if it's only got half the content of the DVD, that's two-thirds price too.)

I've also advised the Wikipedians of this, because we wouldn't be doing this if we weren't fans. And I want to picture EBI's faces when people buy their DVD saying they heard about it from Wikipedia.

Update: Some of the discounts only apply in the US and Canada. Watch carefully.

Comments

[dan-lane.livejournal.com]

1. Read my mail (sent to your gmail address).

2. Are you looking for a contract atm? a friend is desperately seeking Perl/PHP/Oracle contractors and they needed them yesterday and ISTR you knowing oracle (could be mistaken!)

[reddragdiva]

Answered email. I am not a DBA or SQL programmer, I've been sysadmin to the DBA lots and lots ...

[dan-lane.livejournal.com]

1. Thanks. I'll follow it up in a few days if I don't hear anything back.

2. Fair enough, I think this is more of a development role than a sysadmin one (otherwise I'd have considered it myself).