Place for Everything

What Hacker News says

1. quadhomeAug 2025
   Humans only retrieve information in a library in that way due to the past limitations on retrieval and processing. The invention of technologies like tables of contents or even the Dewey Decimal Classification are strongly constrained by fundamental technologies like ... the alphabet! And remember, not all languages are alphabetic. And embeddings aren't alphabetic and don't share the same constraints.

   I recommend Judith Flanders' "A Place for Everything" as a both a history and survey of the constraints in sorting and organising information in an alphabetic language. It's also a fun read!

   tl;dr why would we want an LLM do something as inefficiently as a human?

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2. devnull255Apr 2022
   You can read about many of these historical methods of organization in Judith Flanders' A Place for Everything: The Curious history of Alphabetical Order - https://www.amazon.com/Place-Everything-Curious-History-Alph..., and The Library of Alexander: Center of Learning in the Ancient World by Roy MacLeod - https://www.amazon.com/Library-Alexandria-Learning-Ancient-R...
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3. gxqozDec 2021
   A recent 99% Invisible episode on alphabetical order was pretty fascinating. It's based on Judith Flanders's new book about alphabetical order, A Place for Everything. Among things I hadn't considered is how in Chinese "alphabetical order" is based on the number of strokes in the character.

   https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/alphabetical-order/

   Two other goods ones from the always enjoyable Decoder Ring:

   Truly Tasteless Jokes - How "free speech" moved from being a largely left-wing phenomenon to a right-wing phenomenon through an '80s joke book: https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2021/12/decoder-ring...

   The Tootsie Shot - About filming in New York and an iconic shot you've seen from countless films - https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2021/06/tootsie-shot

   Finally, both seasons of TMC's The Plot Thickens that aired this year were good listens. Season 2 is on the failed film adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities. Season 3 is on Lucille Ball. https://theplotthickens.tcm.com/

   And heck, one more film podcast. The Mubi Podcast's episode on the Chinese film "Dream Factory" and how it basically built up that country's film industry was a great story I had never heard before: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mubi-podcast/id1569229...

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