scott von berg (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scottobear) wrote2000-11-14 10:26 am
scottobear) wrote2000-11-14 10:26 am
Hmm...
sayra pointed out that one of the factoids from a book of trivia I posted earlier is untrue... apparently, it's not rude to tip in Iceland....Curse you, Max for your fibs!
Which brings to mind a question. How does a "book of trivia/factoids" check it's sources? I rather dislike having misinformation in my skull if I can help it. I sometimes wonder that about all our knowledge, and how much is patently untrue, while being accepted as fact... Did we really land a man on the moon? Is the world really round? Some of these things can be investigated, while others have to be taken in good faith. It's not like I can go to the moon, and look for flags. I'm confident that there is math and travel that will allow us to see that the world is a ballish thing though. But why publish something that is apparently patently untrue? Filler, and the odds no Icelander (is that the right term?) will find out about it? I enjoy tipping folks for a job well done, and would've deprived someone of a gratuity if I took the book at face value (as I pretty much had...) while visiting Iceland.
so much for my Icelandic trivia... I wonder if my other limited knowledge of there is also incorrect....Is it true that the phone books are listed by first name? Are many of the women there as cute as Björk? Is it really nice there, while Greenland is cold and rocky, misnamed so sailor-types could have a happy private place to live?
Anyhow, thanks for the correction, Sayra...
Which brings to mind a question. How does a "book of trivia/factoids" check it's sources? I rather dislike having misinformation in my skull if I can help it. I sometimes wonder that about all our knowledge, and how much is patently untrue, while being accepted as fact... Did we really land a man on the moon? Is the world really round? Some of these things can be investigated, while others have to be taken in good faith. It's not like I can go to the moon, and look for flags. I'm confident that there is math and travel that will allow us to see that the world is a ballish thing though. But why publish something that is apparently patently untrue? Filler, and the odds no Icelander (is that the right term?) will find out about it? I enjoy tipping folks for a job well done, and would've deprived someone of a gratuity if I took the book at face value (as I pretty much had...) while visiting Iceland.
so much for my Icelandic trivia... I wonder if my other limited knowledge of there is also incorrect....Is it true that the phone books are listed by first name? Are many of the women there as cute as Björk? Is it really nice there, while Greenland is cold and rocky, misnamed so sailor-types could have a happy private place to live?
Anyhow, thanks for the correction, Sayra...
round?
I can't tell you much about Bjork except that Post is her best album and Dancer in the Dark was a very intense movie, and yes, I think she's cute, too.
I can't tell you anything at all about Iceland, except for what I've read about it in Far Afield, Susanna Kaysen (because she did write something besides Girl, Interrupted.) The stuff from that book made for some good conversation between me and an associate of mine who went to Easter Island for vacation this year.
The same friend who went to Easter Island says the book he trusts the most to tell him the truth, even moreso than The Bible, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita and The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is a book called I Love You, Sun I Love You, Moon, which I have yet to read. He says it's even more insightful than Shel's The Giving Tree.
Re: round?
hmm... I'll investigate ilove you, sun ilove you moon.
thanks for the tip!