Monday, April 16, 2018

No baseball.

They postponed todays ball game because of snow / slush / rain until May 17.

Hopefully it won't snow then.


They held the Boston Marathon today and my cousin participated by running in it.

He not only ran it, he finished it.

Here are his times:

Not bad. Not bad at all.


There have been a lot of rumors floating around about Facebook, Google and Amazon using the microphone on your device (phone, computer, tablet) to listen for key words and then target ads to you.

I did some research and found a ton of websites alleging that companies are using your microphone and camera to track you. There is even a video out there that allegedly "proves" that Google listens to everything say and then targets the ads you see based on what you are talking about.

For the record, that video has been proven to be inaccurate and the majority of the websites are pretty much nothing but unproven conspiracy theories and wild-ass guesses.

But there is one thing that I found that struck me as interesting.

Back in 2012, Google was granted a patent to use the sensors in most devices to help them target advertisements.

What this means is that is your phone has a GPS, a thermometer, a light sensor, a compass, a pressure sensor, etc... then any Google app you are running (maps, gmail, calendar, etc...) may very well be using those sensors to decide what adsense (Google's advertising widget) will display to you.

For instance, a company that sells instant hot chocolate would tell Google they want their ads to be displayed to people who's phone senses the temperature is below 40° or a company that sells those little neck pillows to people that fly a lot would say they want their ads targeted to people who's phone is constantly showing changes in elevation.

This is kind of a interesting thing.

In my opinion, it's not frightening or an invasion of privacy but interesting non-the-less.


I think I'll search the interwebs for some funny videos.

While I do that, you should do these:

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