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by warrenm 1515 days ago
>In the pre-Internet era, when you were curious about tech X, you'd walk to a store, skim through a bunch of books, pick the one you liked the most, and take it home

Nothing prevents you from still walking to a store, skimming the titles, and picking one (more-or-less at random, it sounds, from your description)

Or going to your local library

Or checking what book(s) are required/suggested reading for a course on the topic at a local college/university

It can be just as hard to pick a "good book"[0] as a "good web page"[1] .. but I find it easier to determine relative quality of a book faster than a website - and a good book will have multiple citations (other books, papers, websites, etc)

A less-expensive option than the book route (unless you're visiting your local library, of course), is to browse through the magazine racks at a good newsstand or bookstore

And don't forget the power of borrowing books on your Kindle[2] or similar :)

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[0] https://antipaucity.com/2012/12/10/finding-your-niche/#.YmqQ...

[1] https://antipaucity.com/2006/10/23/authority-issues-online/#...

[2] https://theexceptioncatcher.com/blog/2012/11/varying-your-re...