Recently I has occasion to look up "Cytherea," an alternative version of the name Venus.
Alas, the sages at Google (none of whom are older than about 19 or possibly 22, created an algorithm that brings up a porn star named Cytherea and only the porn star named Cytherea. Laced in with references to her name are terms like porn and sex and "f**k." I realize that youth is the commodity of choice in Silicon Valley or other similar venues, but as a modest criticism, this policy is stupid and the youngsters whom are hired are ignorant nincompoops. This reminds me of an incident at Microsoft maybe 15 years ago when Encarta was the rage. If you looked up Madonna, you got all kinds of stuff about a singer /actress of that name and exactly nothing about the real Madonna Moral of the story: Algorithms are only as good as the programmers who create them and if these worthies are cultural illiterates, who are basically ignorant of history including religious history and the history of ideas, you will get a "product" that consists of popular culture crap and just about only popular culture crap. Not all popular culture is crap, of course, but some certainly is, and that sector of reality seems to be what the people in much of Silicon Valley value so highly. My humble opinion. BTW, I did not click on an images for "Cytherea," not out of prudery or a sense of self righteousness, but because it has been my experience from the year when I fist got a computer that visiting such sites is electronic suicide, guaranteed to muck up your computer with all kinds of garbage. Much as I may like pictures of nekkid wimmen it isn't a good idea to actually open any of the sites where they display their bare bodkins. Anyway, regardless, I really had an interest in looking up the history of the alternative name of Venus. I realize that the snot-nose punks who work at Google simply cannot conceive of any such thing, but for for the record..;....... BR . -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to radicalcentrism+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
