Facebook

I mentioned my limited Facebook skills in my last post. This one to draw attention to birthday greeting customs there.

I can't be sure, but I suspect the deal is that there is some feature in Facebook which, when enabled, sends suitable messages to all your Facebook friends on their birthdays. An updated version of getting your secretary (not that I ever had one) to send one's partner cards, flowers et cetera on suitable occasions. You get some credit for remembering in general terms that people like to be thought of in this way - but none at all for the particulars.

I associate to the old story about Russian spooks who thought that it would save a lot of bother if they got their computers to read all those boring emails which US spooks send to each other. They could then stay down the pub for much longer, rather than reading all this dreadful stuff themselves. But not thinking that all the emails in question were actually generated by computers too. With the US spooks doing much the same thing in reverse. So instead of intelligence, we have a lot of spooks down the pub and a lot of computers talking to each other. These days, of course, one ought to work the Chinese into the story. And all those hackers out in Somethingistan.