Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Does Google Reader read GMail?

Up until recently, all my "Top Recommendations" in Google Reader were related to IT, software development, math, and finance. This makes perfect sense, because that covers all the topics in my subscriptions. However, today I noticed the Google Reader suggested an RSS feed for a blog about local (kind-of) restaurants, clubs, bars, etc. This means that:

  1. Google Reader has a decent idea about where I live
  2. Somehow Google Reader figured out that I enjoy dining out

The best I can figure is that Google Reader is basing my recommendations on the contents of my email. While I don't have any feeds about such things, I do exchange emails with my wife and friends about making dinner reservations, where to go out to eat, etc. The other possibility is that it figured it out using my search history, except that the contents of my search history look pretty much the same as my subscriptions (I know, I'm a nerd). This is because usually I'm not logged into Google when I am searching. Consequently, I think it is reading my GMail.

Anyone else have any ideas?

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Monday, March 03, 2008

Floating Points Stike CNN!

Looks like developers at cnn.com need a lesson in floating point numbers:

Either that or the Democratic primary is truly too close to call...

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