I received a number of birthday greetings from friends and family – mostly via email. I was pleased by that. However, one birthday greeting I received came from an unexpected quarter, and it struck me as creepy.
When I got to work and opened my chrome browser, the google-doodle was a birthday cake. "That's odd," I thought – I wondered why the google-doodle was a birthday cake. I hovered over the doodle, and lo and behold, it said "Happy Birthday, Jared!"
This was a personalized google-doodle – which means the goog used information in my profile, linked to the fact that at least at work I'm pretty lackadaisical about my privacy settings (it's work, after all, and I use google a lot to store my documents online and pre-write for my blog, etc.
Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would appreciate this. It's just a robot (essentially), saying "happy birthday" because it has that info in its database. I guess it serves as a useful reminder that the goog knows everything, now.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Hey Jared,
Yes, definitely creepy. Your birthday appeared on my calendar today. So still tickling 50 from below, I see. Congratulations and enjoy the day.
I am now retired. Paradise Corp underwent another reorg and I had been transitioning out for several months and finally shipped the laptop et al back.
And I am home in Colorado enjoying Autumn but not a first snow last Friday. Another winter in Hawaii is in my plans with a permanent move in 2016 if all goes as planned.
Take good care,
Elizabeth