What I Learnt Today

It can be difficult to compare the cost of buying books from different websites – but it is worthwhile. The same book can cost more than twice as much at different stores.

Is Amazon better than the ABC Store, allowing for delivery and currency cost? How about Fishpond, or the Co-Op, or the Book Depository – UK or US? By the time you do a currency conversion and allow for the cost of postage, it can be complicated.

Booko.com.au does one thing well. It does your comparison shopping for books and DVDs from 48 different online stores in Australia, the US and the UK.

You do the actual purchasing from the original store website. The site designer, Dan Milne, built the system to scratch a personal itchl. Some sites (such as Amazon) have an affiliate process, so he may make a small amount if you choose to buy the book using his link, This does not affect the price of the book, unlike some aggregated flight services where there is a premium booking fee to be paid. (I’m looking at you, Webjet).

There are verysignificant savings to be had.

I’m interested in Bill Bryson’s ‘At Home – A Short History of Private Life’ – $40 difference between the cheapest (AbeBooks) and most expensive (ABC Books).

One of my favourite books is ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Donald Norman. Save $37 or 68%

The new book ‘What to Do About Everything – A Manual for Domestic Life’ by Barbara Toner‘ sounds of interest to What I Learnt Today. ($39.89 – $52.95)

I think booko.com.au is worth a check.

 

 

 

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When I was a lad, we were told “Go look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls”
Now, in turn, I can look up ‘Funk and Wagnalls’ in Wikipedia, which turns 10 this week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk_%26_Wagnalls

Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopaedia. It contains 17 million articles (over 3.5 million in English), which have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and has become the largest and most popular general reference work on theInternet, having 365 million readers. (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia )

A BBC documentary to commemorate the occasion asks the question ‘Can Wikipedia be trusted?’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2011/01/110111_wikipedia_at_1…

Given the fact that anyone can edit an entry, **can** it be trusted? In practice, we all trust it all the time.
However, this 2009 version of the Alstonville entry possibly contained some slight inaccuracies about the naming of the town’s ‘Sporting Facilities and Parks’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alstonville,_New_South_Wales&oldid=295753724

Oliver’s claim of sporting immortality was short lived. The page was revised by some spoilsport within 43 minutes.

And this, the very first entry about Caroline Chisholm, was posted in 2004 by an enthusiastic Alexandra, aged 11. It was the only information about ‘the convict’s friend’ in Wikipedia for three months. Now, there have been more than 500 revisions, which have perhaps made it a little more sophisticated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Caroline_Chisholm&oldid=2555621

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