Google has my interests reasonably accurate. Computers, news, politics, science and football were the main ones. It also listed “Reference – General Reference – Time and Calendars” which is accurate since I’ve been reading plenty about the leap second controversy (what? you aren’t riveted on that one?).

Google has no idea I’m interested in music, but frankly I don’t read that much about it online (and I’m not listening via Google Music). And they don’t realize I’m a huge Yankee fan, but it’s not baseball season.

So overall, pretty good.

But damn, under the “Your demographics” part, while they do correctly guess that I’m male, they have me as 65+.

Ouch.

Big fat ouch.

I’m not reading about FORTRAN, I’m reading contemporary computer stuff. (side note. Geek humor courtesy of Linus here. Hilarious.). OK, I guess old people are more interested in politics. But 65+? Really?

Interestingly, while there is an Edit link on the Google Preferences page, you can’t tell them what your age is. All you can do is remove the assumption. So I did.

I wonder how long before Google thinks I’m old again…

I recall my first week there, in one of the practice rooms in the music school, reading the graffiti on the wall:

Welcome to Indiana. Please set your watches back 50 years.

Hilarious, and mostly true.

So it is with some shock today that I read this.

But another great quote, this time from Slate.com:

Online piracy is like fouling in basketball. You want to penalize it to prevent it from getting out of control, but any effort to actually eliminate it would be a cure much worse than the disease.

In the big picture, the proposed legislation will be ineffective at preventing sleazebags and broke undergrads from watching movies without paying for them, but it will significantly damage the usefulness of the Internet and provide extremely dangerous openings for censorship and for incumbent oligopolists to resist useful disruption. History teaches us that these openings will be exploited to the maximum extent possible, and in the case of this legislation the maximum extent is frightening.

I really don’t have anything to add to that…

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We stayed here, which was awesome. We had some great strategy sessions. We did some fishing. For the record the Origami team is much better at RMIS than fishing, but a good time was had by all.

Most importantly, we set the stage for a fantastic year. 2011 was a great year for Origami Risk. 2012 will be an exceptional one.