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Just sitting here reading a book, coming across words I don't understand and other concepts or people i'm not familiar with, and wishing I could just click on a word and have a definition of it pop up. Or to bring up the full wikipedia entry for other things I'm not familiar with right there in my book.
I guess that won't be happening for a while, but it sure would be helpful for me. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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You know, Niki made the same observation a couple of nights ago while she was reading Children of Men .
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I feel like my school education(from elementary on up) could have greatly benefited from the reference material that is right at our fingertips these days.
If something like Wikipedia existed, but with more interactive media content, it could be the greatest teaching/learning tool ever.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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It's a great idea, but that would mean reading books on the internet. I can't do that. I love reading books: holding them in my hand, feeling the literal weight of the words, smelling the pages. Although it's a great idea, I still don't think I could switch over to reading online. It strains my eyes, and all of the fun of reading a book is gone, IMO.
Posts: 1789 | Registered: Jul 2003
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hah, thanks, but I actually have all the related extensions I need for firefox. I was talking completely theoretically about how those kinds of extensions would be cool to have for an actual physical book, as opposed to a internet browser. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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it wasn't sarcasm! I really wish something like that existed, it would be the coolest thing ever! but I was talking about a real physical book. with a cover, and pages, and ink. and obviously a piece of software created for an internet browser that runs on a computer isn't going to help me much with that. What I wish existed was the technology to allow me to sit here in my recliner reading a physical book and allow me to touch a word on the page with my finger and cause a definition of that word to appear on the page. Or to touch a certain word or phrase and bring up a wikipedia type article explaining that concept or giving the history of a person. For instance, the answers extension you just posted is the very extension i refer to in my initial post of this thread. I use that in firefox all the time. It would help similarly while reading books.
Here's a thread where we've posting our favorite firefox extensions.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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