Jul 2001, 7 entries

I know a secret I know a secret.

This is the first mention I’ve seen of the new Name-in-a-tab experiment. It was in the Wall Street Journal, which is by subscription only, so I’ve cut and pasted it here:

Amazon CEO: Testing New Personalized `Tab’ Feature
By Don Clark, July 24, 2001

CARLSBAD, Calif. —Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) is testing a personalized recommendation service that may present a new “tab” feature on the company’s Web site.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive officer, demonstrated the feature at Internet Summit, a conference here organized by the Industry Standard magazine. Where consumers can now select tabs that represent such departments as books, electronics and music, Bezos demonstrated an on-screen tab labeled “Jeff’s store” that allowed him to jump to a page of recommended products.

Bezos said the recommendations are derived from a user’s “clicks” through the Amazon site, including the user’s recent purchase activity and items that users say they own.

“This is all done in real-time clickstream personalization,” Bezos said. (This report and related background will be available at the Journal’s Web site, WSJ.com.)

The company is currently testing this with what Amazon calls A-B testing, in which some consumers experience a new feature and others don’t. By examining how consumers react to the feature, Amazon will decide whether to formally introduce it. Bezos didn’t discuss any timetable for rolling out the new tab.

Bezos spoke a day after his company announced quarterly earnings, and guided down analyst expectations for the next two quarters. “We took those expectations way down” Bezos said.

Bezos also discussed his company’s deal with AOL Time Warner Inc., which is investing $100 million in Amazon and has also decided to use Amazon services for functions that include conducting electronic-commerce searches.

“They are paying what for us is a substantial sum of money” for those services, Bezos said. “It’s really a big design win for our platform services group.”

From this article:

Some who caught the momentary spectacle imagined it the
size of an airplane or a house. One man in southeastern
Pennsylvania said he assumed it was as big as a Jeep Grand
Cherokee, a popular sport utility vehicle.

In addition to the airplane, house, and Jeep Grand Cherokee, the meteor was also metaphorized as a basketball, a small car, and a trumpet. We are a beautiful people.

If you go to amazon.com right now, there’s a 50-50 chance that you’ll see your name in a tab (right next to the Welcome tab) (assuming you’re logged in). This was my project from the last month or so, and I personally think it’s pretty cool. Just like the girl on Blind Date last night, I think people like seeing and hearing their name, especially in places that they don’t think they’ll be noticed (like on images).

I watched the last 45 minutes or so of the Webbies last night and boy was that boring.

In other news, Claire is back, and she’s insisting it’s winter. Someone should let her know that she’s got it all backwards and inside out and upside down.

I’m reading a great book about writing. Normally writing books are just baloney telling you to use all the senses and write what’s most important to you and tell you to take on all the personal writing habits of the author, since they’ve definitely managed to become about as well known in the literary community as a bug under a rock—I’m not bitter, but I’ve found a good book: Stein on Writing. He’s an editor, and although he sorta talks about his own books a little too much, he’s very to the point and is able to tell you what editors think, which is a lot less wishy washy than telling us what writers think.

Yesterday at the end of yoga I was just sitting there in savasana, the corpse pose, lying on my back looking at the ceiling. I was right underneath a white fan. It had four white lamps pointing in four directions, and the four white blades spinning in counter-clockwise position. In the center was a little brass bolt, and it was directly above me. Together, as I was concentrating on my breathing and looking at the bolt, I had a small daydream where the fan was this jellyfish-like creature, a messenger from Heaven or outer space, talking to me with its fan blades. It was so beautiful. I would normally try to prevent daydreams during savasana, but this was too lovely to pass up. I looked at it for maybe 3 or 4 minutes.

Then I closed my eyes. I tried to remember exactly where in space the brass bolt was above me. About 12 feet, directly above me. It was my point of focus to prevent me from drifting off into meaningless thoughts. Corpse pose is difficult because there is nothing to keep your mind anchored. During the rest of yoga you can use the exersion of the poses to keep yourself focused, but in the death of corpse pose I use the bolt.

It struck me how bad my memory is. Less than a minute after closing my eyes, I could no longer remember exactly where the bolt was, nor exactly what it looked like. It kept swinging forward and back in my mind, on a loose hinge, trying to find its resting spot 12 feet above my eyes. I lost track of exactly how large 1 foot could be. It could be a mile, or an inch. The bolt could just as easily be within arms length, or the distance to the sun. When my eyes are closed, and there is nothing to measure thought against, all of a sudden space becomes elastic, not even real. The bolt was brass, I knew, but I did not know if it had a screw attached to it or if it was just a little button. The fan itself could hardly stay one piece in my mind, the pieces kept unwinding themselves and falling apart. The relativity of things could drive me mad, I think, if I left my eyes closed long enough. Maybe this is what forces us to fall asleep. It’s like fainting, a giving up as everything that had seemed real during the day unwinds and falls apart in space and thought. I don’t know, though, sleeping doesn’t normally feel like that.

Today all day at work there was a Hot Air Balloon outside my window. Not until I started leaving did it start to lift off the ground. Do you think I like baseball? You’re right, I don’t.

Yesterday on the way to work there was this old man walking behind a wheelchair, just pushing it along, at a very slow pace. My speedy peds took me right by him and eventually I made it to a red light. I turn around and see this old man speeding down the hill, now sitting in the wheelchair, straight toward me. I thought he would go right into the street and hit the bus that was coming. I wouldn’t have tried to stop him, I realized, unfortunately. But he stopped in time, and then he stood out of it and walked it super slow across the crosswalk. Midway across, he turns to me and says, “Want one of these?” and hands me the “ABCs of Salvation,” a little 4-page book on how to accept Christ, believe in him, and Something-with-a-C his philosophy. I think I will make little books like these for Nervousness. Maybe.

I’ve been feeling burned out. Both Brian, from 1000journals.com and Derek de Powazek have enlisted my help with websites, and I feel soo soo guilty, but I just don’t think I have it in me. I want to take a break before I really need to take a break, ya know what I mean? What should I do about this? Do I need to keep going, and have nightmares of responsibility while I sleep, or fall back into the daily routine of death, forever in regret of my failure and inability to persevere? I should write back to them, in the least. I’m very sorry, both of you.

Work has been work-like lately too. I’ve got tons of stuff to commit this week for a cool test we’re running next week, and I prefer having work at work than not having work at work, because at least with work at work I feel like I’m actually working. You know what I mean?

I’m not going to go on and on today, because I really should return a few emails that have been sitting in my inbox for weeks. Sorry all.

Friday, when they tell me that cloning has side effects. They say that they’re afraid that people who are against cloning will use this as ammunition for their side. Why not? Just because cloning is still an infant science? Or rather, a mutant science? The mutants are dead! Long live the mutants!

Did you know the Chinese killed 1,780 people in the last three months by shooting them in the back of the head? More than the entire rest of the world has in the last 3 years? Why? To stop crime. Why stop crime? So that the rest of the world thinks you’re safe enough to host the 2002 Summer Olympics. I like this sentence, “Most executions take place after sentencing rallies in front of massive crowds in sports stadiums and public squares.” Even though I don’t know my history, I’m pretty sure something is repeating.

I get all my news from Next Draft.

I get all my shews from Payless.

I get all my dues from the Zon.

So I’ve been spending the last week making things. I’m participating in Judith’s 20 things project, and just sent out my contribution via Priority Mail this morning. Also, we’ve finished 20 booklets for our Product #1, and are now working on the CD portion.

On my way to work everyday (and my way back) I see a dead squirrel on the sidewalk. I wonder if it’s my duty to push him over to the grass, but so far (maybe 5 days in a row), he has remained right in the center. Maybe 100s of people walk by him everyday, seeing his slowly decaying body, his rotting gums exposing ever growing teeth, his sinking eyes. But we all want someone else to push him aside. Where are the sidewalk maintenance people.

I’m taking Aikido lessons. Lesson #2 tonight.

I’ve had too much sugar. I’m still planning a book, planning on calling it The Most Beautiful One. The most beautiful one learns to lie about waiting in a locked house. I like sentences that make no. Sense so that the words them. Selves are fish.

Deelish.

K, Jim, and I were looking at our elementary schools online, and although my first elementary school has a lame website (Glenmeade), my second elementary school (3rd to 6th grade) (Stonecreek) seems to have a list of its current staff. The surprising thing is that many of the same teachers still work there. Want to write to my third grade teacher Mrs. Metz? I thought she quit after she taught our crazy class. I guess she came back. And then forth grade: Mrs. Reeves. My fifth grade teacher, my favorite of all, Mrs. Sperber, even has her own little website. That was the year that I tried to win the book-report contest (and even cheated by pretending to read the Hobbit when I never finished it) but was beat out by none other than Captain Lebyatkin). Also, I remember that she loved my handwriting, and sent me to the handwriting contest even though up until then I had always gotten C’s in handwriting. And I was a hit as a painter of flowers. Finally, sixth grade with Mrs. Smith. Strange to believe that they’re all still there. What have they done without us?