Sometimes I Just HATE the Internet

[Graham Smith]

Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to try and find actual information about something on the internet when 999 out of 1000 returns are from people trying to get you to buy that product from them?

I spent a hour today trying to find out what the real significant differences are between Bauch & Lomb PureVision Multifocal Contact lenses and Bauch & Lomb SofLens Multifocal Contact lenses.

B&L won't tell you the difference - they want you to go to your doctor and spend $100 to find out.

I found one person on one forum who compared her experience with the two but mainly complained about wanting to find a lens she could sleep in - gawd knows why.

I found a lot of mentions of one or the other on various fora where people mainly go to bitch about one thing or another. And one strange post from one guy who says likes the SofLens because he's been wearing the same pair continuously for 2 years and just squirts some of the washing solution in his eyes once a day. Winner of the "stupid idiot who's going to need an eye transplant sooner than later" award but doesn't help.

The other 50+ pages of returns on Google, Alta Vista, Yahoo, and a few others I'd never tried before were all from people selling contact lenses.

Now, I've been using search engines of one kind or another since back in the DARPANET (look it up) days and I can tell you that there is one thing that has only gotten worse with time and that is information retrieval. The internet is so flooded with crap any more that it has become nearly impossible to find reliable sources of information, particularly about products.

At least we have the Benoverse for our little segment of the world.

[FranDoc]

NOT turning this into a discussion (Flex, please don't close the thread prematurely) ...

Try defending umpteen years of training and (as of this month) 20 years of medical practice experience against "I read/it says on the internet ...".

AAARRRRGGGHHHH!

(now returning you to your usual, fairly sane and coherent doc; expletives related to the subject withheld)

[High Lord Gomer]

Do these help?

http://www.bausch-now.com/soflens/soflens-...6-overview.html

..and...

http://www.bausch-now.com/purevision/purev...4-overview.html

[Graham Smith]

Do these help?

First place I looked. It's not so much about these lenses as it is that the internet is degenerating into one great big Sunday Paper Advertising Insert.

I don't know how many people know much about internet search engines or their origins and I have no intention of launching into a lengthy dissertation. I'll just say that, for those who've been at this as long as I have, the quality of internet searches has gone steadily downhill.

There are tons of books and software programs that detail how to quickly and easily "front load" and "optimize" your web site for search engines. There are even services that will tune your web pages and even pay the internet search companies to boost your internet "ranking". Where do you think all the money that drives Google comes from, not use poor folk trying to use it, it's funded by the advertisers.

If you want a great example of the dumbing down of internet search engines, do a little reading about what happened to Alta Vista after Yahoo bought them out. And about what happened to an old search engine function called "near". There was a time not that long ago when I could find what I was looking for within about 2 minutes using advanced searches. Today, those same searches just produce tons of unwanted junk because some of the techniques don't exist any more plus the people who create the web sites know how to diddle with the system so that advanced searches become nearly irrelevant.

Like most rants, this one has gone on long enough and is probably much more specific to me and my experience than others. But it does sometimes help to vent.

[larry cazes]

I agree. Rarely do I do an internet search for work related information. The quality of information is all about credibility and accountability. Never has been much of either on the bulk of the internet content out there. The quality has not gotten any worse but the quantity has increased dramatically.