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.

My weekend out East

I feel like I have been working for the last 2 weeks solid. After I made my trip to San Francisco, I had a few busy days at home, then I headed northeast for another set of meetings in Harrisburg, PA. I don't have any good pictures to post from Harrisburg... there wasn't really anything to take pictures of. I did get a shot of how poorly my toilet paper triangles were folded.

I don't really frequent hotels, but I have been traveling more in the past year and I've noticed this new fad. I guess it adds that little bit extra to make you feel like you are in a super classy joint when the toilet paper is folded. I just imagine the over-achiever that first came up with the idea. When he told his manager about it the entire staff was forced to start touching the toilet paper to make it all fancy. Nobody wants to go room to room folding the single ply sandpaper they are passing off as bathroom tissue. I'd be careful about touching the buttons on the remote. Who knows what the staff did with that thing as a silent protest. And don't even think about using that tiny coffee maker in the room.

Every time I enter a hotel room I have a minor panic attack. I've pretty much stopped watching the tv. If I do turn it on I walk up and hit the power button with my sleeve pulled over my hands. I am not above packing rubber gloves, and I may do it next time. I can't figure out how I am going to get a can of Lysol on the airplane to spray the seat before I sit down. In one of the airplane seats I had this trip I swear every fiber of polyester on that sucker was saturated with fart.

My trip went well aside from the "stink seat" and the hotel triangles. The worst part was that is was over the weekend. I got home on Sunday then had to go back into work Monday morning. I had an extremely busy week. I work in a very small group. There are basically 3 of us. This past week 2 of them were gone most of the time, so I was holding down the fort on my own. It definitely made the time go by quickly.

When I entered the working world I did quite a bit of programming. I've gotten away from it the last couple years, but this week I got to dig in and work on a couple new web tools. Being able to create something new that helps people is always rewarding. I'm thankful my job gives me the opportunity to do tons of different stuff. I get a good mix.

Well, that is all I've got for right now. I wanted to post something before I totally fell off the blogging wagon. Hopefully I'll have a little more free time to write this week, but that is tough to come by with a 1 year old running around the house.

My week out west

This was a crazy week for me. I got up bright and early Monday morning and flew to San Francisco for work. We got to hang out in San Fran a little bit on Monday, but most of the trip was spent traveling and going to meetings. We drove to Stockton on Tuesday and I gave a presentation. Then we were back in the air on Wednesday. I was back to work by Thursday. It is amazing how much work you can have pile up when you are out for just 3 days.

I did get to visit the Buena Vista and have a world-famous and original irish coffee. I also made a trip to In-N-Out while we were there. I'm sad to say that it wasn't as good as I had remembered it. One of the highlights of my trip happened at another burger joint in the Dallas airport on my way back. We had a few minutes to grab lunch so we went to Fudruckers right by our gate. There was a asian woman taking orders and calling out names when they were ready. When I ordered she asked for my name. I only said it once and didn't bother spelling it out because it didn't really matter. I paid with cash so she couldn't have got it off of a credit card.

This is the first time ever that anybody has spelled my name correctly without me telling them. Most of the time I spell it out and they still put a "k" on the end or throw in some extra vowels. It is almost creepy to think that she spelled it that way by default. I've definitely never come across it before. Maybe I have the asian spelling of Deric.

Dryer repair 101

This weekend I had big plans. I have been building up laundry for a while and I was going to buckle down and knock it all out. However, our drying wasn't up for it.  Our Frigidaire Affinity started making a light thumping noise that graduated to a full-on knocking as the morning went on.  It was operational, but I was afraid if we kept on using it, we would destroy it. I manually turned the dryer slowly and there was a definite point on each turn where it seemed to catch. I thought the belt might have been going pad, or something was loose in there and hitting against it.
I know nothing about large appliances. They have always intimidated me. In the past I wouldn't even think about fixing the dryer myself for fear of ruining it completely. I'm trying to get over that so I decided to start unscrewing things. I had to reference the Internet a couple times to make sure I was on the right track, but it wasn't long before I had everything disconnected and the font panel off. I took pictures along the way in case I needed to check how it all went back together.

The first thing I noticed is that the foam seal around the vent opening was completely destroyed. I thought the knocking was probably caused by this piece being so worn down allowing the drum to bump against something. The other thing I noticed was that the dryer was a total mess. There was lint everywhere. There were big clumps of it some places and everything was covered with a fine lint dust. A fire hazard for sure. There was a nickel in there, and a bunch of tiny beads that must have come off some fancy article of clothing not owned by me. As we cleaned it out my wife noticed a metal clasp from a shirt wedged near the top of the drum. I think that every time it rotated a small seem in the outside of the drum caught on that clasp and made the loud noise. We got it out and finished cleaning it. I was feeling pretty good about myself.
I headed to Home Depot to get a new piece of foam. This was seriously the most generic piece of foam. I thought for sure they would have it anywhere. Well, they didn't have it at Home Depot. They didn't have it at Lowe's. I called Sears and it had to be special ordered. I called around everywhere but every appliance parts store was closed. I looked up online and found the exact part I needed. I was a $15 piece of foam away from having a working dryer. I considered fashioning my own seal out of similar materials, but then I thought better of it.

I called the sears appliance parts department and ordered an oem foam circle alone with the proper adhesive to stick it back on there. We won't get it until Friday. I decided to go ahead and put everything back together without the new part, just to make sure I could do it.  It was fairly simple.  I was almost ready to call a repair man, but I am glad I resisted it. I'm looking forward to getting the new part in there and verifying everything works properly. If it does, this will be a win for me. 

Over-emphasis on teamwork

I tend to be a naturally introverted person. I wouldn't say I am anti-social, but I definitely don't have any problem being on my own. In fact, I enjoy it. In school the focus was always put on group work. In college especially we were always thrown into teams to prepare us for the "real world". We had to be able to effectively work in groups. Even so, I always did my homework by myself and I always studied on my own. Tram projects were enough group work for me.

Now I've been in the corporate working world for several years. I definitely see the value in working with other people; getting input and asking for a second opinions. From my experience my college curriculum over-emphasized how vital group work would be out here in the business. There isn't a daily emphasis on the team like I expected. However, there are still corporate norms that hinder individual productivity. I think I do my best work in isolation. Total privacy; an environment I can concentrate in without distraction. That is hard to come by when you sit in a cubicle and there are 3 other people within 6 feet of you.

We are going to miss almost everything

My last post considered the fact that the Internet allows tons of content to be thrown at our faces contantly. Along those same lines, just consider the massive amount of content that is already out there, and how much more is created every single day. Consider the fact that 35 hours of content is uploaded to youtube every minute. Obviously nobody cares to watch every video on youtube, but it is a great example of the futility of trying to "keep up" with anything these days.

An article on NPR.com from April entitled The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going To Miss Almost Everything explores this idea.

It is the recognition that well-read is not a destination; there is nowhere to get to, and if you assume there is somewhere to get to, you'd have to live a thousand years to even think about getting there, and by the time you got there, there would be a thousand years to catch up on."

Some of us try to make ourselves believe we are well-read, or contain extensive knowledge about the world around us. It is a delusion. It might be true that we have a slightly more well-rounded view than our average peer. But it would be impossible to consume, let alone retain, even a tiny fraction of the liturature and art the world has created just since your birth.  You can try to keep up with genres of information you are interested in, but even then you are fighting a losing battle. That doesn't mean we should stop, it just means we should stop pretending that any of us know anything. 

I'm sure you all have friends that say things like "You need to watch The Wire.", "You need to read the Dark Tower series.", or "You need to go through Kubrick's filmography." Even keeping up with these personally recomended lists is a daunting task. I'd love to read all the literary classics, but it might have to wait until I retire. There just isn't enough time to be smart. I have a difficult enough time keeping up with the pop culture that society is jamming down our throats every day. 

Reading the Internet

Over the last few years I've had this growing sense that I can never totally focus on anything. I can't describe it very well. To a certain extent I experience this at work. I'll try to get something done and the phone will ring or the email icon will pop up. However, most of the time I am able to force myself to buckle down and concentrate. Work is one thing, but I'm talking more about my personal time.

There is nothing forcing me to concentrate on a single task during my free time so I cannot do it. I can't just sit and read a book anymore. I spend my time trying to keep up with my twitter feed, or skimming internet headlines from the day. I can't even seem to sit down and watch a 2 hour movie without my iPhone in hand. It is as if the way by brain consumes and processes information has changed. I've felt this way for a while, but haven't been able to put my finger on it.  Then I read this great article by Nicholas Carr called Is Google Making Us Stupid. It does pretty decent job at making sense of the feeling I had.