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.

contradiction(s)

It appears that lot of ideas/ideals/values that I hold come into conflict more often than I wish they would. Example: I both value free speech and abhor exploitation of people. So when it comes to, say, pornography, what do I do? Less seriously: I believe that there is great value in a broad base of education, possibly to the point of the classical liberal arts education. But when I had to take those classes, it was rather annoying. Important, but annoying.
Gosh, it's hard for those of us who aren't ideologues.


Peace.