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When Personalization Runs Amuck
pamar writes "According to this article from the Wall Street Journal, your TiVo could definitely get the wrong impression about your interests, or even your sexual preferences.
And what you need to do to get "a clean slate"? Most of the users who have been "targeted" by TiVo usually try to "correct" the profiling by showing an abnormal interest in something wildly different." Yep, it's a dupe.
No really, so? My TiVo goes a little against my normal interests from time to time in what it records for me in it's "suggestions" section. Doesn't bother me a bit. Doesn't take up any space really since those are the first programs that are deleted when space is needed for what I've told it to record.
All you have to do is go into the system setup menu and select "Reset Thumb Data".
It will forget everything it ever might have thought about you...
Mind you, expecting journalists to read the instruction manual before making wild statements is of course too much to ask...
the suggestions is part of the reason I bought the TiVo. And it's not like it goes out and overwrites what you told it to record. Whatever you tell it to do will always happen before what the TiVo thinks. What's nice is that if you have extra space and the TiVo isn't recording something then it might go out and look for re-runs or something similar.. It's not like you'll come home and everything you told it to record will be gone and in it's place will be a bunch of stuff you don't want.
It's Thanksgiving. Let's cut these guys a break. Sure, there have been two dupes today with one of them still on the front page.
As amazing as it seems there is a reason for this. Eating turkey can affect your cognitive skills. Not only does it make you sleepy, but it can make you miss things that you read.
There's been a couple duplicates today, we must really be starved for news.
I think I'll submit a story...
"This just in, Chinese scientists, working feverishly for the past decade, have discovered a unique combination of chemicals that when combined with heat produce an explosion able to propel sharp metal objects down a tube at a high velocity. This 'Gun Powder,' as it's being dubbed, is set to revolutionize the battlefield. In other news, Springfling, the world's leading bow and arrow manufacturer, apparently worried about their stock prices, have dubbed the new invention blasphemous, unreliable and claim that it's unlikely to have any effect on the way empires carry out their wars."
-hero.
I wish I could convince my Tivo that I don't speak Spanish! About 1/3 of its "automatic" recordings are in Spanish. I have even tried taking the Spanish channels off of the 'Channels You Receive' list and it still seems to record from them.
Got problems with the shows TiVo records as suggestions? Well, try these methods to fix it:
Edit your "Channels You Receive" to remove channels you aren't interested in at all.
Look at the "TiVo Suggestions" for upcoming shows and rate them using the thumbs up/dowm method. Give three thumbs-down to major mistakes.
Take a moment to rate shows it has recorded before deleting them.
Rate your season passes. TiVo will automatically give anything you record 1 thumb-up. If you've got a season pass for something in a genre, or with actors, you'd typically dislike, rate the season pass with multiple thumbs-down (it'll still be recorded.) Do this as well for the one-off items you record (especially if your recording for guests.)
If all else fails, punch the reset button. Somewhere in setup you can tell TiVo to start over in building it's profile.