Random note on searches
For the first time I've noticed that a non-Google search engine beats Google for a search in English. (In other languages local searchers often work better, which makes sense. Their programmers can tailor algorithms for their own language, and they have native knowledge about where and how data is stored.)

Specifically, Dogpile works much better than Google for info about old Leeds and Northrup equipment.

Haven't tried it yet for other names in that era, but won't be surprised if it's also better. Dogpile seems to be looking in places that Google doesn't touch.

I wonder if Google's intense internal battles about Die-Versity are starting to degrade its ability to look everywhere. When sources of info become TrumpWitchAnathema, Google avoids them.

Newspapers declined in the '80s after they fell into the same trap. They stopped giving useful info about local crime because useful info is "biased". They refused to accept useful classified ads because useful ads are "biased". Other media took over the ads, and people relied on their own "biased" senses to judge local crime. Local crime and local ads were the unique talent of newspapers, compared with radio or TV. Newspapers intentionally destroyed their unique talent and replaced it with PUNCHING LOCAL PEOPLE IN THE FACE, which is generally not a good way to gain customers.

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Even morer randomerer subthought.... We have hardwired brain sections for sending and receiving spoken speech, and we also have hardwired brain sections for writing and reading. The details of the latter are not explored or understood yet, but we're definitely designed to communicate by some kind of visual method. Drawing, visible abstract symbols, gestures.

Spoken language has proved remarkably and creatively resistant to monopolies. Churches and governments have been trying to eliminate "biased" or taboo speech forever. Normal people always find ways around it. Poetry, song, new words, new ways of saying things, gestures.

Our resistance to monopolies in the written area is much weaker and less practiced. We basically revert to speech when censors halt useful news and useful ads. Speech is inferior for these purposes, doesn't spread as far and doesn't leave archives. We don't have alternate methods within the written realm in the same way that speakers use neologisms and implications and jargon. A few expert writers like Swift know how to do it, but most of us don't. Maybe we should be trying to cultivate these expert skills.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 12:13 AM