Because representation matters, I am looking forward to this spin-off of Black-ish.
From Mixed-ish published May 24, 2019 at 08:32PM.
Mixed-ish
Leave a reply
Monthly Archives: May 2019
Personalization modes
In shopping for Mother’s Day the algorithms now think I am female. Obviously, they took the items I looked at for this quest and incorporated them into my profile’s records and are basing new recommendations on them. They are fresher. And they have left over inventory they want to move. So, I get it.
This shopping for another persona has to be a relative common phenomenon since personalization became a buzzword, so I don’t get why this hasn’t been solved over a decade later. People shop for others’ birthdays all the time. And maybe my solution below doesn’t exist because people impulse buy for themselves and others based on getting things suggested later. And, one can go into the recommendations and delete off items to restore them to normalness.
This other persona influence to recommendation must have happen so much that I am surprised that such companies that use it have not created shopping modes.
- Allow users to say they are shopping for another person. Associate the personalization that that profile. Based on what is bought for that person, the suggestions can get better.
- With some sort of confirmation from the person being shopped for, they might make recommendations based on their wishlists. Although mine are sorely out of date.
- If the user is looking for things that seem… uh… out of character or in character for the subject of an upcoming holiday like mother’s day or father’s day, then prompt the user if they ought to change modes.
From Personalization modes published May 18, 2019 at 03:26PM.
Superiority of visual notifications
A sound is a terrible way to get my attention. I mostly live in some kind of background noise. So, there is a strong possibility that I will miss a notification through listening to music or podcasts.
Worse, even if I do hear it, I have no clue what weird thing is trying to get my attention. Some sounds I recognize due to hearing them frequently until the product changes it. At which point, I no longer have a clue what is trying to get my attention. The only way a phone call style works for me is that it is a sustained noise that last long enough for me to check the source and see that indeed it is still active and a phone call. (This kind of thing for everything coming out of a computer would be highly annoying.)
Toaster notifications, those little windows in the corner of the screen, or even phone icons at the top of the screen are far, far, far superior. True, I tend not to immediately notice them. So, it might be minutes (an hour) before I consume them. However, that is great for my ability to focus on work or others then circle back to handle a notification.
From Superiority of visual notifications published May 17, 2019 at 07:37AM.
Terminology
This guy won the Internet for a while.
“I love learning the words that their generation comes up with — both the unique ones as well as the ones where they take an existing word and give it a completely different meaning.”
One of my favorite web sites is Urban Dictionary because people apply new meanings to words and phrases faster than official dictionaries track.
I first became cognizant of this in my teens. My mother had acquired a document from her school principal describing the symbols and words used by children indoctrinated into Satanic cults. To me, they mostly seemed benign things I associated with my friends into heavy metal music. And, of course, Dungeons & Dragons which I played at the time. Teenagers seek ways of communicating where parents are clueless.
Later, my second employer subscribed to various IT industry magazines. As I often stayed after close on Friday afternoon, he would engage me about things he read. I ended up getting free subscriptions to be able to better converse. The more I read, the more I understood jargon in IT mainly coopted existing terms for new things.
I also learned about how these new terms were poorly defined and understood at first. Only as they became super popular and everyone talked about them did their meaning get solidified into something real.
Finally, there is something unsettling at how African Americans continually are the bleeding edge of culture in the US. The music, clothing, and even terminology is sometimes adopted up by the overall culture. At the same time it is reviled as dangerous and feared for how those expressing it are doomed to go to Hell.
From Terminology published May 04, 2019 at 10:20AM.
Explainer
Geeking out for me takes the form of the explainer. I take what someone knows about something and describe how it works and why I find it interesting. My reading takes me all over the place, but I particularly of late enjoy nonfiction on interesting topics.
People find my reading about things like quantum mechanics for entertainment surprising. And my willingness to geek out about it even more so.
Occasionally people remark that I ought to be a teacher. Probably.
Doctor Freelove has a nice ring to it. Unfortunately, a career in academia is more focused on research than teaching. And K-12 teachers get stuck doing too much administrivia and not enough teaching.
My times in front of a classroom were entertaining for me. As campus webmaster at Valdosta State, I would guest teach students how to start their websites for several faculty members. I also taught faculty members how to use WebCT and web design and random of IT topics. In college, one class had me working with 2nd graders and a couple times I taught the whole class about something unprepared off the top of my head. And my mother had me talk about my IT work for career day to several classes.
Opportunities to teach like this are something I miss being in a more administrative position.
From Explainer published May 03, 2019 at 09:07PM.
Ezra S F 