A Progressive on the Prairie

I’m one of those simpletons who rates books, DVDs and the like at Amazon and then gets recommendations from the site. I think the system has gone wacky lately.

When I last checked for book recommendations, they included Pathophysiology of Disease, Essentials of General Surgery, Practical Orthopedics and Pathology: Board Review Series, the latter a review book for the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam. Why were these books recommended for me? Because I previously rated Kurt Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country. I can’t decide if the connection is fascinating or frightening.

I also was recommended a map of and a guidebook to the Dominican Republic — because I rated Vehicle, a 1970 release by the band The Ides of March. Okay, a can grasp the connection between a vehicle and travel but considering the Dominican Republic is on a Caribbean island, I don’t think I’ll be driving there soon.

Another music release, Leo Kottke’s 6- and 12-String Guitar, brought a recommendation for The Six Sigma Handbook, “a comprehensive, 700-page guide to the quality tools and statistics that are the foundation for Six Sigma.” Being naturally curious, I investigated and learned that “Six Sigma is a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects, defined as unacceptable deviation from the mean or target; and to systematically work towards managing variation to eliminate those defects.” If I understood what that meant, maybe I’d have a clue how it’s related to Leo Kottke’s guitar playing.

I think I’ll just go back to the “to be read” pile on the bookshelf by the bed.

Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

July 15th, 2006 | Category: Blog/Internet |  Print This Post | Subscribe to comments | Both comments and pings are currently closed