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<nav id="TOC" role="doc-toc">
<h2 id="toc-title">Contents</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#why" id="toc-why" target="_self">Why?</a></li>
<li><a href="#how-to-use-a-web-browser" id="toc-how-to-use-a-web-browser" target="_self">How to use a web browser</a></li>
<li><a href="#how-to-use-a-search-engine" id="toc-how-to-use-a-search-engine" target="_self">How to use a search engine</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#basic-search-syntax" id="toc-basic-search-syntax" target="_self">Basic
search syntax</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="#how-to-read-and-find-scholarly-articles" id="toc-how-to-read-and-find-scholarly-articles" target="_self">How to read and find
scholarly articles</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#how-to-use-wikipedia" id="toc-how-to-use-wikipedia" target="_self">How to
use Wikipedia</a></li>
<li><a href="#how-to-find-articles-with-google-scholar" id="toc-how-to-find-articles-with-google-scholar" target="_self">How to find articles
with Google Scholar</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="#advanced-topics" id="toc-advanced-topics" target="_self">Advanced
Topics</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#how-to-use-tor-to-browse-anonymously" id="toc-how-to-use-tor-to-browse-anonymously" target="_self">How to use tor to browse
anonymously</a></li>
</ul></li>
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<h2 id="why">Why?</h2>
<p>Why <em>would</em> anyone want to use the Internet, really?</p>
<p>There is actually purpose to connecting all the computers in the
world with near-instant speed beyond just streaming television, phishing
scams, pornography, punditry, and Fortnight competitions.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, almost none of us use the Internet for it's intended
purpose: finding infomation.</p>
<p>Writing an angry tweet to a celebrity or posting a picture of your
cat seems to be second nature for most people, but converting a picture
from a PDF or looking up a study (or even a word!) you saw in an article
is something else entirely.</p>
<p>While that's in part the fault of our laziness, it's equally the
fault of what the Internet has become.</p>
<p>For one: there's just so much more <em>stuff</em> now; it's hard to
know exactly where to start and who to trust. And so much of that stuff
is now <em>garbage</em>, either in the way it's presented, with
disruptive ads that don't close correctly, or in the way it's written:
vague, misleading, or straight incorrect.</p>
<p>For two: no one really teaches you how to use this thing do they?
There are no courses on "How to use a search engine" or "How to find
good posts on a forum," and definitely not on "How to <em>write</em>
good posts on a forum." But these are exactly the kinds of skills you
really need if you want to navigate the modern world without getting
constantly distracted, misled, or totally lost.</p>
<p>There are of course, countless guides on "netiquette" geared towards
every possible internet subculture you can find. While many of them have
influenced this document and give many helpful tips on writing good
informative posts, none of them really go over what I think is most
important: what to do with the information you're reading.</p>
<p>This will probably be an evolving document as new services and
websites become available (or go down), but much of this material in the
beginning should be pretty generally applicable no matter what services
are available.</p>
<h2 id="how-to-use-a-web-browser">How to use a web browser</h2>
<p>This is your main vehicle to the information super highway (remember
when they used to call it that?)</p>
<p>Almost everyone knows how to use a web browser to click links and get
to where they need to go, but use only a fraction of the software's
power. Web browsers at this point are as complicated as operating
systems. Aside from basic HTML and javascript rendering, most web
browsers are expected to provide:</p>
<ul>
<li>A PDF reader</li>
<li>An image display</li>
<li>A history database with tunable settings</li>
<li>Support for hundreds of languages and emojis</li>
<li>A password manager</li>
<li>A video and audio player</li>
<li>A scripting language for extending functionality</li>
</ul>
<p>And that's only what I can think of...</p>
<h2 id="how-to-use-a-search-engine">How to use a search engine</h2>
<p>As for which search engine to use: you should use all of them, until
you get the results you need.</p>
<p>In my experience, none of the major search engines are particularly
good and I get inconsistent searches on all of them depending on what
I'm searching. There is a lot of preaching these days about privacy
concerns, but I don't really believe any service is more "private" than
another. These are all privacy nightmares, arguably by design. Your best
bet is just to search often and as many platforms as you can.</p>
<h3 id="basic-search-syntax">Basic search syntax</h3>
<p>Searching for specific pieces of information is rather simple.</p>
<p>"Who is the prime minister of England?"</p>
<p>"When did World War 2 start?"</p>
<p>"How many roads must a man walk down?"</p>
<p>"Funky Kong talks you through your divorce"</p>
<p>All of these queries entered as is will get you the result you're
looking for. But how about something we can't boil down to a single
question? Like how to do calculus? Or how to learn Python?</p>
<p>You could try those phrases as a start. But you're not likely to get
a specific answer out of this.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>What if we wanted to bring up a funny cat meme we saw on a forum
three weeks ago? Searching for "funny cat meme" is not going to get you
very far.</p>
<h2 id="how-to-read-and-find-scholarly-articles">How to read and find
scholarly articles</h2>
<h3 id="how-to-use-wikipedia">How to use Wikipedia</h3>
<p>A common complaint lodged at me whenever I recommend Wikipedia is
that it's not a source of truth since they found X mistake somewhere, or
made Y edit when they were a teenager that's still there. No one has
ever (or should ever) claim Wikipedia is a source of truth on it's own.
But you can use it to find more sources and maybe get a little
closer.</p>
<h3 id="how-to-find-articles-with-google-scholar">How to find articles
with Google Scholar</h3>
<h2 id="advanced-topics">Advanced Topics</h2>
<h3 id="how-to-use-tor-to-browse-anonymously">How to use tor to browse
anonymously</h3>
<p>Many in the advertising world will boast about using a VPN for
anonymity, or using a VPN in conjuction with Tor to "increase privacy."
This is simply a misunderstanding of terms. A VPN provides
<em>privacy</em> of the user's connection since it provides
encryption--only the VPN provider can "see" what is searched. The goal
of Tor is <em>anonymity</em> not privacy. Anonymity means "no one knows
who you are" not "no one knows what you're doing." Technically, traffic
is encrypted between nodes of the Tor service, so some level of privacy
is provided as well, but this is most effective when using hidden
services, not using Tor in general.</p>
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