What if there was an online dating app with an algorithm so perfect that it could find your perfect match for life in one click? Would you use it? Recommend it to others? Would you think it was even a good thing at all? Sam Elling, computer genius, and main character of the book Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel, has created just such an algorithm. The internet dating company that he works for in Seattle loves it, and promptly fires him because they are losing subscription money when users find their true loves on the very first try.
Sam uses his own algorithm to find the love of his life, Meredith. When Meredith's best friend in the world, her grandmother Livvie, dies suddenly, Meredith is devastated. Sam uses his genius coding abilities to create a new algorithm, one that will simulate actual online communication with loved ones who have passed on. It works perfectly, allowing the user to email, text, message, and video call with a deceased loved one as long as a sufficient online footprint has been left. Meredith's years of communicating with her grandmother as Livvie spent every winter in Florida had created such a footprint.
Unemployed Sam's new algorithm worked so well with a virtual Livvie that Meredith and her cousin convince Sam to use the algorithm to create a new company called RePose to share this amazing online service with all who desire continued contact with their loved ones. What do you think of this science fiction concept floating just beyond our reach? Would you use it? Who would you like to keep in contact with?
Although I could quickly provide a list of those I've loved and lost, losing them all occurred way before a mutual online presence could be established. Sam's idea, however, did send me off on a series of pleasant daydreams on how that might look if it could be done.
Each week, over the past three, my podcast group and I have been discussing some amazing and diverse pleasure reads for teachers and offering fun freebies that accompany the book and speak to the topic of each book. Before you listen to our podcasts, be sure to read the books addressed, because there are spoilers! Laurie Frankel's book is a perfect summer read, written fairly simply and absolutely naturally, it's like listening and observing the whole thing happening with real and believable characters. Goodbye for Now is the fourth in a summer reading series of book discussions on the podcast We Teach So Hard. You can find episode #46 here.
Click on the picture below to grab your freebie!
Click below to see all the books and hear the podcasts on We Teach So Hard!
Enjoy the last sweet days of summer because you teach so hard too!
No comments