Re: A sign of things to come
The term 'algorithm' might be a bit too flattering -- based on my experience its more like a relatively crude keyword search. (Yes, I know that this is technically an algorithm but you know what I mean...)
I think there's a future for less glamorous methods of spreading information such as mail reflectors (and by extension, Usenet groups). The key to managing the flow is not allowing anyone to post and/or restricting the size of the post and requiring most posts to be in plain text or its equivalent. A lot of the pollution of the Internet comes from allowing people to send vast quantities of irrelevant filler material -- never post a text sentence when you can send the same text packaged in a megabyte or more of image -- and the problems that come from actively interpreting incoming data without the explicit permission of the user. I'm an old time user of the Internet and I've found that its been a downhill spiral for 20 years or more as 'enhance user experience' mob has cluttered my screen with irrelevant junk, overloaded my system's processors and memory and generally monopolized by working space all the while claiming that its 'new and improved'. Enough!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
