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Goes to show, horses for courses.. I loved Horace and Pete dearly, mostly for what they were trying to do, and I watched it as if it were live theater or an old

Goes to show, horses for courses.. I loved Horace and Pete dearly, mostly for what they were trying to do, and I watched it as if it were live theater or an old 60s british sitcom, where budgetary concerns meant they had to focus on intent. But back to your point: YMMV. A strong part of me thinks a realistic recommendation engine will never work: the human brain doesn't know if it likes something until it encounters it, given environmental, emotional and cultural cues at the time.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> the human brain doesn't know if it likes something until it encounters it, given environmental, emotional and cultural cues at the time. That's what I keep repeating to people who say that "oh, we're just making what our customers want!". No, customers don't want shit by themselves; it's mostly the options available and marketing effort around them that create shopping patterns.
- croon 10y ago
  Exactly. No one liked the Game of Thrones TV show before it existed, because, well, no one had tried it yet. The same is true about a lot of new shows, especially streaming funded. And conversely, just because the audience likes a previous thing, does not mean they will like a soulless copy of that fed to them for the 6th time, even if available options and marketing kind of worked the first 5 times. I really hate that school of product development. Thanks for reminding me ;)
- VLM 10y ago
  A somewhat impolite yet factually correct (and funny, therefore memorable) way I've heard the same idea expressed is given some factoid that the average male brain thinks about sex every fifteen seconds (or minutes or whatever bogus factoid), any product that isn't hard core pr0n is not what at least half the customers actually want. Obviously this has much more psychological impact when stated in a high school drama theater class than when stated at an actual pr0n shoot where I guess people are more open minded to the reality of it. "The audience really wants to feel Cleopatra's anguish when she's talking to Antony" well, um, no? I mean we all know we're supposed to feel you'd like to think that, and its clear how you want to direct the part, but WRT the audience...
croon 10y ago
I'm not sure it's an unsolvable problem, given enough data. Sure, a lot of people would recommend me Venture Bros (including my wife) since I enjoy both Archer and Bob's Burgers. But I have tried multiple times to get into it without success. Maybe it's just that those two data points aren't enough to pin down what it is I like about those shows that Venture Bros don't give me (at least in the first few episodes). But you are right, I've scrobbled 100s of thousands of songs to last.fm, and those recommendations hit at best 50% of the time. I'm hoping machine learning could help here, as I'd always like a good recommendation, seeing as I seem to be picky.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> the human brain doesn't know if it likes something until it encounters it, given environmental, emotional and cultural cues at the time. That's what I keep repeating to people who say that "oh, we're just making what our customers want!". No, customers don't want shit by themselves; it's mostly the options available and marketing effort around them that create shopping patterns.

croon 10y ago
Exactly. No one liked the Game of Thrones TV show before it existed, because, well, no one had tried it yet. The same is true about a lot of new shows, especially streaming funded. And conversely, just because the audience likes a previous thing, does not mean they will like a soulless copy of that fed to them for the 6th time, even if available options and marketing kind of worked the first 5 times. I really hate that school of product development. Thanks for reminding me ;)
VLM 10y ago
A somewhat impolite yet factually correct (and funny, therefore memorable) way I've heard the same idea expressed is given some factoid that the average male brain thinks about sex every fifteen seconds (or minutes or whatever bogus factoid), any product that isn't hard core pr0n is not what at least half the customers actually want. Obviously this has much more psychological impact when stated in a high school drama theater class than when stated at an actual pr0n shoot where I guess people are more open minded to the reality of it. "The audience really wants to feel Cleopatra's anguish when she's talking to Antony" well, um, no? I mean we all know we're supposed to feel you'd like to think that, and its clear how you want to direct the part, but WRT the audience...

croon 10y ago

I'm not sure it's an unsolvable problem, given enough data. Sure, a lot of people would recommend me Venture Bros (including my wife) since I enjoy both Archer and Bob's Burgers. But I have tried multiple times to get into it without success. Maybe it's just that those two data points aren't enough to pin down what it is I like about those shows that Venture Bros don't give me (at least in the first few episodes). But you are right, I've scrobbled 100s of thousands of songs to last.fm, and those recommendations hit at best 50% of the time. I'm hoping machine learning could help here, as I'd always like a good recommendation, seeing as I seem to be picky.