September 3, 2009

Things I spend too much time thinking about

I am overly fascinated by how websites come up with recommendations/suggestions. Today, as I do many days, I was looking at my Amazon recommendations. I've added 2 books that I heard about on The Daily Show. 2. I figured out that Amazon keeps recommending books that have authors interviewed by Jon Stewart. It's like my 6 degrees of separation. I take the title and "recommended because you. . . " and try to figure out how the algorithm connected the 2. Clearly, I have too much time on my hands, post-surgery. This is most fun with movies. Oh, these have the same director or one actor. Most fascinating is people who like this also like this. It's disturbingly accurate. Possibly magic. When facebook does this, it moves to creepy. Mostly because I really do know those people or at least know who they are.


Peace.