November, 27, 2002 archives

the wall street journal covers people who fight with their tivos and other recommendation engines over their preferences (which has apparently come up in a couple of sitcoms).

the real problem is that there isn't a single place that data used to feed into the recommendation engine is accessible, and no way of figuring out why a particular suggestion was recorded. you can view the upcoming suggestions, and rebalance things by rating those shows, but there's no easy way to figure out that the one random episode of some show you recorded is what is making your tivo start to record the korean news every night.

the strangest suggestion my tivo has ever recorded was a 15-minute educational film about columbus day on pbs. it is usually busy feeding me the simpsons, friends, and seinfeld reruns. i need to upgrade my tivo so it has more room to record suggestions—i feel like i'm losing out on serendipitous suggestions due to the tivo's obsession with frequently rerun sitcoms.

(wsj link via jd lasica.)

andy dehnart of reality blurred writes for salon what may be the definitive piece on why trading spaces is good television, but not reality. i'm surprised they haven't done a behind-the-scenes show yet.

bill mann of the motley fool still thinks the nasdaq index is headed to 500 because the valuations are still based on unsound fundamentals. the numbers on the amount of cash being generated by home refinancing is pretty scary. meanwhile, the stock market shoots up because of upbeat economic news.

my new server arrived (ordered late friday, arrived monday evening—i effectively got same-day shipping for the price of regular ground, since mwave is in the city of industry). now i just need more hours in the day to get the machine configured and placed into colo.

glenn fleishman's piece on eroding personal time is a good monition on why making it easier to work everywhere is a very double-edged sword. (semi-related: is nirvana to be found within lifestyle businesses?)