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"Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it [science fiction] is par excellence the literature of the open mind."
- John Brunner
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| Screening Software | ||
| Rules-based software trained to eliminate spam email. |
This idea is taken from a 1991 story, which seems very early for this idea. I couldn't find anything like it until at least 1998.
| We used to get megabytes of automated invective via email, but that, at least, turned out to be easily fixed; we installed the latest screening software, and fed it a few samples of the kind of transmission we preferred not to receive. |
| Technovelgy from The Moat,
by Greg Egan. Published by Aurealis in 1991 Additional resources -
|
The first recorded instance of a mass-mailing (which was done by mistake) occurred in 1978 when a DEC marketer wanted to trumpet a new feature.
I used company email systems as early as 1986; I don't remember anything like this, because there was no problem. As far as I know, the first use of "spam" to describe repetitive, unwanted email occurred in 1993.
However, Egan is proposing an automated way to remove unwanted email by simply pointing out emails that you don't like. This sounds like "statistical filtering," a technique that was proposed in 1998 and, judging by how well PCs do it, still needs work.
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'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
