Algorithms can be a little bit off

Anyone who spends any time on the internet has learned to live with the algorithms that spy on us.

Go looking for something on Amazon or eBay or wherever, and the next thing you know you’ll find website ads trying to sell you whatever it was you were looking for in the first place.

It’s more than a little creepy.

(Full disclosure: The inventor of the internet pop-up ad is a former friend of our two eldest daughters. I say “former” because they are still good friends with the guy’s ex-wife.)

But while it’s creepy when functioning properly, those same algorithms can somehow get things wildly wrong.

For instance, let’s take a look at my junk mail folder.

One of the best things about a Mac is that it is smart when it comes to sorting the junk mail into its own folder. (Sometimes it screws up and non-junk goes there, but for the most part it is efficient.)

If the Mac is working well, however, some of these e-mail marketing efforts aren’t working well at all.

Here’s a sampling of some misdirected email on my computer at the moment:

•A pitch to sell me a personal safety device so I can seek help when walking home in the dark. My neighborhood could hardly be safer, and without a dog I’m rarely outside at night.

•A pitch for some miracle solution to keep me from losing my sight. Though I need to set up an appointment with Dr. David Fullenkamp, my sight isn’t deteriorating. At least not dramatically. I just need an adjustment to my prescription.

•Something that tells me how to get rid of that ringing in my ears. My ears are not ringing. Are yours? If so, I’ll forward the email.

•Repeated pitches for a super duper high tech flashlight. My kids can tell you that I love flashlights, but I don’t need another one. This sales pitch begins, “Dear Survivalist.” I have no idea where they got that notion.

•Invitations to join a class action suit against Roundup. While I’m not really a Roundup fan, my contact with the stuff has been limited. Maybe my zip code was enough to provoke the invitation.

•Notification of a sale on barcodes. When was the last time a retired newspaper guy in Indiana needed to buy a barcode?

•Reviews of the top new electric vehicles for 2021. That’s intriguing, but I’m not in the market.

•Enticements to buy stuff from the Pawtuckett PawSox baseball fan store. We went to one game with daughter Emily’s family, and that was enough to snare us. By the way, the team is moving to western Massachusetts soon.

•Plenty of offers to sell miracle cures for thinning hair, painful joints and stuff you don’t want to know about. (Who would buy dental implants over the internet?)

•Endless ads for Medicare supplement insurance. No thanks, I’m good with what I already have.

And that’s on top of a steady stream of not-newsworthy news releases from lawmakers and pleas for donations from candidates running for office.

While the junk mail from folks in Congress won’t stop any time soon, the election at least guaranteed that candidates would stop asking me for money.