They know what you bought last summer

We are all creatures of habit. I find it fascinating how much us humans depend on our habits to get through life. We don't even realize, and in the past these mundane habits had little bearing on anything or anybody else. Technology has caught up, and in the last several years something very powerful has become a possibility. Aggregation. It turns out that when you combine a whole bunch of population data together you can start to see trends and draw relationships. Target knows way more about you than you realize, and so does every other retail establishment that you give your business to. This article from the New York Times (link) is kinda long, but it is totally worth reading.

The desire to collect information on customers is not new for Target or any other large retailer, of course. For decades, Target has collected vast amounts of data on every person who regularly walks into one of its stores. Whenever possible, Target assigns each shopper a unique code — known internally as the Guest ID number — that keeps tabs on everything they buy. “If you use a credit card or a coupon, or fill out a survey, or mail in a refund, or call the customer help line, or open an e-mail we’ve sent you or visit our Web site, we’ll record it and link it to your Guest ID,” Pole said. “We want to know everything we can.”

Back in college one of my favorite class projects dealt with data envelopment analysis. Essentially the aggregation of data to create predictive models. The crux of this type of model is that it requires a ton of statistics, and naturally lends itself to something like sports. Our project was on predicting the performance of golfers based on trends in several statistics.
In the past applying these models to "normal" life was nearly impossible. The data just wasn't there. But almost 10 years later everything has changed. Our data is being collected and aggregated everywhere we go. Most of us carry around smartphones that are collecting data on us everywhere we go. The crazy thing is, nobody is spying on us or prying this data from our hands. We are all handing it over with status updates, facebook likes, and foursquare check-ins. We use plastic to pay for things, which makes it simple for business to track exactly what we are buying, as well as when and where we are buying it. All the Targets across the world talk to one another. They know where you are. It is a little scary. I might start keeping a little more cash on hand.

March filler post

I skipped writing last week, which is sad because I had been on a pretty consistent streak, but I didn't really have anything to write about. I could have written about my new iPad, but I didn't know what to say other than "The screen is amazing." Which it is. I guess I could have written "It gets warmer", which was apparent from the very first time I used it. The back is definitely warmer than the previous iPad, but I am not concerned. It isn't a laptop so I am not going to burn my man bits. Worst case scenario I am so amazed by the screen I don't realize it is heating up and my finger tips get melted off. Then I can commit crimes undetected. So that is actually a feature. I do love my new iPad. Reading is much nicer on it, but it's still back-lit display. It isn't as easy on the eyes as e-ink or just plain old paper especially for long stints. Still, it is the best digital display I have ever seen and it makes other computer screens look like total crap.

The last couple weeks the tree pollen has been in full force and I've been feeling like junk. I've been so tired. It is crazy how constant headaches and not being able to breathe really put a damper on your day. My allergies were really bad through last weekend. I tried to ride my bike last Saturday. Well, I did ride my bike on Saturday, but only for about 30 minutes. It is the first time I have been in the saddle in months. It was nice to get out there, but the pollen killed me. I seriously need to spend more time on the bike this year. I am out of shape.

Early last week water started falling from the sky and it didn't really stop until Friday. It managed to knock all the pollen out of the air and for the last few days I've been feeling 100% better. It is amazing what a butt-load of rain can do.

I know this has been boring so far but if I want to call myself a blogger (do I want that?) I have to power through these posts. This is where it gets exciting. A couple weeks ago I was eating a piece of pizza too aggressively and my jaw popped. From that point on it was extremely painful to chew. I am just now getting to the point where I can eat solid food without having to remind myself to be gentle with it. It has been rough. There were a few times I had trouble consuming the over-abundance of food that has been so graciously provided for me, but I somehow managed to get by.

I'd been testing my limits last week by eating a bunch of Nature Valley crunchy granola bars. Things seemed to be back to normal by Friday. This weekend we celebrated my return to glutony with a date night. It was such a beautiful day outside we did the only logical thing... we paid to sit inside a dark room and stare at a screen for a couple of hours. We saw 21 Jump Street. You can read my thoughts by clicking (here). Afterward we went to one of my favorite restaurants of all time... Bonefish. We of course got Bang Bang Shrimp; one of the greatest culinary inventions of all time. I think it is shrimp fried in mayonnaise or something. It is amazing.

It is back to work bright and early tomorrow. Everybody have a great week!

Using Disqus with Blogger mobile templates

The previous post was linked off of the penaddict.com blog yesterday and  as a result I realized I had a problem with commenting on my blog when you visit it on a mobile device. I use Disqus instead of the default Blogger comment system. It integrates nicely into blogger, and is installed by just adding a widget. The code behind the widget hides the blogger comment form, and and the Disqus one. It has worked great until yesterday.

Blogger made the mobile templates available to users a few months ago when they rolled out a bunch of other features. At first I selected the "simple" design. I visited the site on my iPhone and the Disqus comment system worked fine. Recently I messed around with the mobile template and changed it to the "custom" one that better matches with the full version of the blog. I didn't even think to check, but this somehow broke Disqus on the mobile version.

I was digging around yesterday and found out how to fix it. The widget tag in blogger has an attribute for whether to display it on the mobile version or not. You simple add the the text "mobile='yes'" to the widget tag and you should be good to go. It worked for me anyway.

Go in and edit your HTML and check "Expand Widget Templates". Add the text and there you go.

Easy as that. Apparently when I changed to the custom mobile template it changed the mobile attribute somehow. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it is working fine now.

Disqus allows you to sync comments so when somebody leaves a comment via Disqus it automatically copies it into the Blogger comment system as well. This is nice in case you even want to stop using Disqus. You will still have all your comments. However, it doesn't seem to sync in the other direction. I had a couple people leave comments in the mobile version of the site and it seems like they are stuck there. I can't get them to copy to Disqus. Therefore, they are not displaying on my blog at all now. A minor inconvenience, but I'm glad I got it fixed.

I have a pen problem

My obsession with writing utensils goes way back, but lately it is getting worse. For the last several months I have followed the Pen Addict blog. I enjoy seeing what new pens are coming out and how they all stack up.  I have a huge stable of pens that is always growing. I'm switching it up all the time depending on the task.

Zebra F-701

I've always loved the extra fine point Pilot G2 pens, and still use them quite a bit at work for taking notes. However, a few months ago, my main pen became the Zebra F-701 extra fine ball-point pen with the knurled grip. It is a great pen that looks good and feels nice, but on certain types of paper the ink isn't smooth.  It makes me miss the gel ink. I was a little dissatisfied so I set out to find a new pen.

In the past month the author of penaddict.com started a podcast. I was flooded with all different possible options for my new best pen. I've tried out a bunch, which means I bought a bunch of pens. Good thing it is a fairly cheap hobby. I've found a couple awesome pens I hadn't tried before that I will definitely keep stocked in my arsenal.

The Uni-ball Jetstream has been around for quite a while, but I had never tried it. I bought a pack of Uni-ball pens years ago and hated them, so I have been hesitant to try them again. However, the Jetstream is really good. The ink is a hybrid between a gel and a traditional ball-point ink. It is really smooth, but doesn't bleed like gel pens do. The standard 1mm point is too bold for my liking. The 0.7mm is good, but I wish there were a 0.5mm. Still it is a solid pen.

There was one pen that really intrigued me, but you can't buy it in any stores. The Pilot Hi-Tec-C (or G-Tec-C) has to be ordered online. I decided to bite the bullet and get a pack of multi-color 0.4mm pens to try out. I got them a few days ago, and I think I have a new favorite pen. I've been using them a ton. It is a gel ink so it goes on really smooth, but it is such a thin line with a precise needle point. At first it felt scratchy, but once the ink started flowing better it got much smoother.

The pen writes so nice, but I also want my pens to look cool. The Hi-Tec-C definitely does not look cool. It is a basic stick pen with a clear plastic barrel. I was excited to see a kickstarter campaign that addressed my issue with the bland form factor. I put in my pledge and should have my black P1 Premier pen sometime in May.

For now the Pilot Hi-Tec-C is my main pen, and I expect it to stay that way until the next awesome pen comes along. I really like fine point pens. If you like a bold point, then this probably isn't the pen for you. I wish I could buy ink refills in a store, but it looks like I am going to have to order them anytime I run out. I'm glad Amazon has these pens available.