When Algorithms Go Bad

Posted on 7/13/2008 2:46:52 PM by Justin Etheredge

Something tells me that Amazon needs to work on making sure that their sample size is large enough when they do their predictive analysis...

I'm not sure how my interest in Domain Driven Design makes me a good candidate for a book about Special Needs Educations, but I would love to see how the algorithm came up with this suggestion!

Article Info: 8 comments • Share your thoughts; Filed under: Miscellaneous; Tagged: humor

Comments

Looking at the book www.amazon.com/.../ref=pd_bbs_sr_1 you see that since there are no tags yet, they are suggesting csharp, linq, heads first, etc so no wonder they are associating it with a cs book - looks like an error in classifying the book. It also suggests tagging it evolution, yoga and science - none of which fit the special ed book.
Maybe? evolution -> intelligent design -> domain driven design

Maggie Longshore

July 13. 2008 18:30

@Maggie Yeah, I just looked at the page and it looks to me like it is actually in the "Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > C#" by accident. It still seems to me like there would have to be some stronger evidence somewhere in there, than just being in a category that I purchase from.

But maybe you are onto something with the evolution reference!

Justin Etheredge

July 13. 2008 18:45

Perhaps what they really meant was, "Since you tried to get your organization to use domain-driven design a few months ago, we supposed that there are probably some special needs folks in your company by now."

Kevin

Kevin Hazzard, MVP

July 13. 2008 23:56

@Kevin Ha ha!

Justin Etheredge

July 14. 2008 02:04

I had an odd recommendation too:

www.jasonbock.net/.../Default.aspx

Jason Bock

July 14. 2008 12:43

@Jason I don't think that yours is much of a mystery. VB6 and astrology, both require huge amounts of faith.

Justin Etheredge

July 14. 2008 13:56

You should submit that image to the Daily WTF:

http://thedailywtf.com/

Randolpho

July 17. 2008 13:45

My initial thoughts were that Amazon must know that programmers have a high percentage of gifted children and that gifted children often have special needs that can not be met in an ordinary classroom.

Maggie Longshore

July 18. 2008 12:54