Slashdot Mirror
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.
All repeats and no Firefly.
Remember, incompetent editors, you can be replaced by a program.
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...
...now my TV is doing the same. At least the TiVo can't leave and take half my stuff! Hah!
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
It appears when your thumb info is incorrect on your tivo, it'll search out the WRONG face donor, and you'll get one you never really wanted.
Slashdot Editor spokeswoman Ellen Feiss said "It was a really good face... My tivo devoured it. Then I got a transplant and it wasn't as good".
Stay tuned tomorrow for more adventures of Punxatawny Phil, as ground hog day continues on Slashdot.
Is there a setting in preferences to filter out duplicates?
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
For some reason, my SlashDot recording preferences are off. It keeps thinking I am really into TiVo articles.
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.
I'll read slashdot for you, and make sure there are no story repeats. I ask only for $65,000 a year.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
What if, in the future, companies start requesting the data collected by such "we can guess who and what you are" systems for demographic purposes?
"Well, according to this data, 25% of our customers are pregnant gay men, and 14% are neo-Nazis with an interest in cooking..."
But seriously. Something evil tells me that it's only a matter of time before this stuff is taken as the Word of Gord(TM)...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Are the editors out to lunch today? This is a duplicate from a day or two ago.
You're new here, aren't you?
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
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.
The worst thing about duplicate stories isn't the fact that we've read them before, it's having to read posts by users complaining about editors not checking for old stories, when they themselves didn't bother to check that hundreds of people before them have already yelled DUPE! Sheesh.
This is a duplicate from a day or two ago.
Deja vu is usually a glitch in The Matrix. It happens when they change something in the program. Be on your guard...
GMD
watch this
Slashdot thinks that I like TiVO news and keep posting dupes about TiVO news. :-)
Just kidding
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
I was once a happy and energetic person. I used to love to be involved in life. Whether it was work or play, all my activities were fun and interesting.
Then I saw my first duplicate Slashdot article.
The effect was immediate. Life just lost that shine. I'm wandering around now, dazed and confused, exclaiming "Why! Why does Slashdot have to post duplicates!". My sex drive has vanished, my work productivity has become non-existant, my exuberance has all but dried up. All I can be fed up doing these days, is slothing around the house muttering curses against the evilness of duplicated news stories.
Please consider people like us, Mr. Slashdot editor, the next time you submit a story.
DeeK
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.
Posted by Hemos on Thursday November 28, @02:25PM
from the glitch-in-the-matrix dept.
someone writes "According to this article from the Slashdot Journal, your Slashdot could definitely get the wrong impression about your interests, or even your need to read a story more than once. And what you need to do to get "a clean slate"? Most of the users who have been "targeted" by Slashdot usually try to "correct" the profiling by posting an abnormal number of flames and ironic remarks. Unfortunately, the only reaction from Slashdot is the remark: "Yep, it's a dupe".
This story will run again tomorrow, right after the one about the face transplants and before the new Linux kernel patch. Stay tuned
Tivo does this all the time. I'm on my third TiVo and I've stopped rating things (I even stopped the auto single thumb up rating for programs you record). On my second Tivo, somehow the system decided I liked Westerns, now mind you, I had never recorded or even watched one on Tivo.
All of a sudden every single thing the Tivo recorded was a western, and all from the Western channel. It didn't matter that every single one it recorded I rated three thumbs down. I got so frustrated I finally had to remove the entire channel (no real loss).
Tivo gets tunnel vision all the time, I had all cartoon, all comedy specials, and all westerns.