your algorithm thinks i'm fat

If you're a Loblaw’s fan you've probably been participating in the new points program aimed at getting Loblaw’s and affiliates a massive amount of information about how you shop and eat.  And if you marry that with a PC MasterCard about how you do just about everything consumable. 

However that's not quite how they positioned it. Something about targeted offers, bonus points and meal and recipe suggestions all FOR YOU. The pay off though, points for free food make it worthwhile. Let's face it everything you do is being tracked anyway so why not get a perk or two.

I'm loyal to Loblaw’s for a lot of reasons - which we've discussed here before.  Among which is proximity to my home and a wide selection of mostly ready to eat things that I can eat without feeling like everything I ingest is takeout.  PC Blue has been a godsend in that at least one thing isn't totally horrible. (Read that fine print. That list is an 'or' list as in whole grain or low fat or low salt)

I know expecting a computer model to interpret complex human decision making processes is, in a word, inane. But I think your algorithm just told me I'm fat.

For the longest time I got recipes(!) - first poor assumption - for things I don't eat or do eat but never at home.  I like barbecued chicken but I don't own a barbecue and for some reason someone always leaves me a bottle of barbecue sauce which since I rarely use eventually gets tossed.

I got that recipe 4 times.

The soup recipe came in a heat wave in July.  I think I can safely say no one wanted soup.

The single steak I bought over the summer when a friend and I rented a cottage and I paid for groceries has resulted in many offers for beef and pork despite having never again purchasing any other red meat.  So the chicken bacon salad suggestion ain't gonna do it either. 

Finally, one day, perhaps after I bought all the ingredients for Turkey Bean chili did I get a winner.

So what can I surmise?  Well at a first blush. Loblaw’s your system needs some tuning.  And some work. Why can't I easily opt out of offers every week so the system can more quickly 'learn' my habits?  That is when I can even get to the site which 75% of the time is off line minutes after you send your weekly e-blast.

And finally why does someone with no cat keep getting offers for cat food?

on a more serious note

I had a little panic attack at Yorkdale mall today.  In the throes of being overheated and tired of trying to find my way out of my least favourite mall, I talked to someone who was empathetic to my plight, and offered a joke about the parking lot being even worse than the mall.  For a moment I was completely confused – all I could think was why would I have to deal with the parking lot.  And then I remembered.  I was in the suburbs and as a non-car owner; I was the odd woman out.

A few springs ago I became aware that a lot of people where trying to hit me with their cars.  At first I thought I was being a bit paranoid, until my other pedestrian friends noted the same thing.  

There was no real rhyme or reason to the attempts.  The spring seemed to be the worst, but not exclusively. Right hand turns seemed to be an issue, but crossing in a crosswalk, or at a light didn't seem to stop the issue.  Rolling stops, and playing chicken with me was also a situation I didn’t want to be involved with. Think about it, you’re in a 2 ton vehicle, and I’m wearing my coat.  People - drivers, were trying to hit me with their cars.

At the start of 2014, I found evidence the supported my suspicions.  And an editorial that I agree with; where is the demand, the absolute urgency, for some sort of revelatory response to the fact that in 2013 pedestrian fatalities outnumbered murders in Toronto.  There were 63 traffic related fatalities in 2013, a year where the murder rate hit the mid 50’s, most of these incidents in the last 6 months of the year.  This is people being killed by cars when walking, on their bikes or motorcycles and includes victims of car accidents.  But by and large the most are pedestrians, hit at wide, signaled, suburban cross walks, by cars.  And more than half of them seniors. 

What does this mean?  Well first off that I was right.

Secondly it means that all of us, pedestrians, drivers, people who figure out how to time lights and how to make traffic flow need to take a good long look at how we move everyone in this city.  That all modes of transport; and feet are a mode; are given consideration in planning but also in our day to day.  As city dwellers continue to eschew driving in record numbers, choosing instead to live and work in cores and only rent or car share when needed, we need to encourage drivers to pay more attention as they may soon be outnumbered.

This is a not something we can legislate away.  This is a course of action that must occur at a grassroots level.  We all have to pay more attention to what we do.  But if I can, as a pedestrian, instill this one thing in drivers and before I go off on a tangent to say that I personally feel all vehicular misdemeanors should be tackled by forcing drivers to use the TTC for 90 days and learn how easy they really have it – if you’re in your car – you’re going to get there faster.  So give us pedestrians a break.

If you’re really keen on the deets… http://torontoist.com/2014/01/torontos-bad-year-for-traffic-fatalities/