The Crowley Chronicles

I’m not a hundred percent sure that I’m using the word ‘layer’ correctly, but here’s how I remember it: the idea is that there is the nuts-and-bolts of a system, and then ‘over,’ them there is a ‘layer’ of ‘interface’ that beautifies everything.  I think it’s an older computing term, but, like I said, I don’t know.

I’m writing this ad-hoc and without a lot of consideration, because I just did a Google search on editing MV4 files.  (That’s the kind of video file that our new camera makes.)  And what I got was a lot of junk.

You know how, when you search for something strange, Google informs you that it ‘hid’ some of the search results because they were very similar to the results already shown?  (I got this when I googled myself, or one of my websites.)  I think we need something similar for websites that are set up just to waste your time.

You know the websites: they’re mostly ads and what content they have that isn’t an advertisement is a maze of links that may, eventually, take you to something worthwhile.  I’ve started using the Internet less (in the sense of Googling, I still Wikipedia and email) because of how much of what you find is junk.

So, here’s what I’m thinking.  Google could do this, or there could be an application that I download to help me do this: it keeps track of the kinds of websites I like.  (You know, I prefer Wikipedia articles, but I’ll rely on a forums if I’m in a thread that has an answer. . . that kind of thing.)  And, it’ll hide the rest of the Internet clutter from me. . . unless I don’t find what I want.  Then, when I don’t find what I’m looking for, it’d allow me to start searching what I think of as ‘the questionable’ Internet.

I mean, Google, on top of keeping track of how often certain terms appear in which positions in a document could easily keep track of how often people click on an item in search results. . . and then bounce right back to the search results.  Wouldn’t behavior like that be worth evaluating?

I feel like, in this post, there are coherent thoughts worth exploring.  So far, though, I have to say that. . . well, I haven’t presented them very well.