(no subject)

[la_rainette]

*tilts head*

My Kobo account is a very confused place. I use it for myself, personally and professionally, so I order book for fun (Literature! Mystery novels! Stephen King! Books about the Brain! - no, really, and not in the zombie sense, either) and for work (Psychology! Early childhood!), but also for Froglet (Percy Jackson! Divergent! The Maze! ... stuff!). Kobo takes all this information in and tries to make sense of it. I can tell that it's spinning its tiny wheel in a desperate attempt to send me recommendations that fit with what it assumes I want and it occasionally gets it right, but only when it suggests books that I already own.

I once booked a trip online to go to Massy, a smallish and not very interesting subburb of Paris, because my niece (the one who used to be a nun, LONG STORY) was getting married there. The Internet has been trying to send me back there ever since. I don't want to go back to Massy! Get over it, Internet!

So I am looking at my posts today and wondering what the Internet will make of it. Today, I posted about love, compassion, determination in the face of adversity and farts.

Good luck with that.

Comments

[genarti]

I always get a certain kick out of playing confuse-the-algorithm. This is especially fun with Amazon, where I try not to buy too much (because Amazon) even though I have a kindle and thus am to some extent locked into it. But I do go looking there for presents for people (which I often buy elsewhere), the occasional availability of work-related books, the publication date or other details of a book I own but am discussing, etc. Thus I get an entertaining variety of "If you liked [X THING YOU HAVE NO INTEREST IN], you'll love [OTHER THING]" recommendations with what I prefer to read as manic cheer over bewilderment.

Travelocity's continual attempts to inform me of deals to places I went once, or briefly priced out going to once, or have already bought tickets to go to, is often deeply annoying, though. I find it's most enthusiastic -- and most egregious -- when I actually buy a flight to somewhere. Thereafter it lodges in its little electronic brain that this place is SOMEWHERE I WOULD LIKE TO GO, without ever realizing that it's a place I am already going and do not need duplicate tickets for, thank you, even if they're really on sale.

[la_rainette]

I KNOW RIGHT :D

Dude - I was going to make a snide comment about Kobo's inability to find me stuff (and I am not even TOUCHING the whole "awards" program on my phone app, such as the snooze award because "I read several times at bedtime", or the primetime award because I read several times during primetime TV and MY FUCKING TV MUST BE LONELY - seriously, Kobo? SERIOUSLY?) but -

OK, I am keeping my fingers crossed but Kobo just rec'ed me a book I MIGHT like (I checked other reviews first ;) ). So I am going to give it a try and see if it was worth it. It's called "Girl on a train" I think. I am going to order it when I get home. :)

[jae]

Last fall when I went to New York to visit the The Americans set, I also bought tickets to see the Glenn Close production of A Delicate Balance. The internet has been trying to sell me tickets to that show ever since. Hey, internet! I have already seen that show! And I live in fucking Edmonton!

-J

[la_rainette]

That is ridiculous. I understand places, vaguely, but shows? Really?

I am in the process of potentially buying myself a Real Espresso Machine and by now I've gotten SO MANY SUGGESTIONS from the Internet as to what to buy and where to buy it that it's starting to freak me out...

[maple-clef.livejournal.com]

I think the minute Google (and Kobo) and other algorithms start to actually correctly guess the vagaries of our lives, that'll be our warning that it's becoming self aware. At which point it'll probably get so despondent that its raison d'etre is cats, porn and funny gifsets that it will self destruct! Or something :)

[la-rainette.livejournal.com]

Oh god - as long as it doesn't send me a great big robot with a bad temper and a terrible Austrian accent, I think I'll be okay :D

(I read on FaceBook once that the hardest thing we'd have to explain if we ever met, say, humans of the 1950s or aliens of any kind is that we carry in our pockets small devices that give us access to all the knowledge in the world... and we use them mostly to look at funny cat pics. :D )