Questionable Content

My new favorite cartoon is Questionable Content. Thanks to almeda for mentioning it in this post. I suppose I identify with Martin, a shy man who has ended up living with Faye after she burned her apartment down while making toast. She obviously likes him, but will not, no way, no how, indicate whether or not she has any romantic interest in him. Those of us who have had a lengthy and close friendship with someone like that, or, you know, two or three such relationships, will understand. Fortunately, I never got punched as much as Martin gets hit by Faye. Surprisingly enough to me, I can also think of examples in my life of the, um, sexually assertive type, kind of like Dora, except, um, well, actually, a lot like that.

Customers who bought this also bought that

I think that Magnatune is a fantastic music publisher (motto: “We are not evil”), and I recommend them highly.

Like lots of online stores, theirs has an automatic “Customers who bought this also bought this, that, and the other” system. Over at Amazon, this seems to work reasonably well, or at least it tends to point out plausibly useful connections. You know, people who bought Tabletop Machining also bought Home Machinists Handbook, Machine shop Practice, and Machine Shop Training Course. That kind of thing. Maybe it’s because Amazon sells millions of items but Magnatune’s catalog is not so large, currently 186 artists and 359 albums, but Magnatune’s suggestion are not so useful. Their customers have pretty eclectic tastes, too. So you get things like “Customers who bought Seismic Anamoly also bought American Baroque.” I’m not sure what conclusion to draw from that, other than that American Baroque is very good and everyone bought something they recorded. They are good, and I have bought something from them, but as the names imply they are a classical ensemble and Seismic Anamoly is, um, loud. They have nothing at all in common.