Periodically I get emails from Amazon.com recommending things I might want to purchase, based on my previous purchase history.<\/p>\n
The recommendations are always logical on a very low level, but completely nonsensical at a higher semantic level. The basic problem is that Amazon has no clue why<\/i> I purchased something, which means they have no context for assessing what that purchase might predict about my future buying habits.<\/p>\n
For example, today I received several recommendations, including one for a 75mm diameter curved watch glass. As it happens, I purchased a 50mm diameter watch glass through Amazon some months ago, because I needed a curved piece of glass for a scientific experiment. I didn’t actually need it for a watch.<\/p>\n
It occurs to me now that even if I had<\/i> needed it for a watch, it would have been for a specific 50mm diameter watch, not a hypothetical 75mm watch that I do not own.<\/p>\n
Now my curved glass experiment is long finished, yet I continue to receive watch glass suggestions from Amazon, like pleas from a child who asks for a pony one more time, hoping to wear down a distracted grownup through sheer repetition.<\/p>\n
I am left wondering — does this whole email recommendation thing ever actually work?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Periodically I get emails from Amazon.com recommending things I might want to purchase, based on my previous purchase history. The recommendations are always logical on a very low level, but completely nonsensical at a higher semantic level. The basic problem is that Amazon has no clue why I purchased something, which means they have no … Continue reading “Recommendations”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12898,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897\/revisions\/12898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}