News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by reaperducer on Sunday April 14, 2019 @10:40AM (#19659654)
Crazy to see this posted today. Last night my wife and I were on a reservation in Arizona and watching the birds. She googled this very topic. Then when I looked at HN today, here it is!

I showed it to her and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Is Facebook listening to me?”

Then I had to explain that HN is human-powered and the chances of Big G and Facebook and HN sharing data is pretty close to zero.

Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by TeMPOraL on Sunday April 14, 2019 @11:49AM (#19660079)
Large numbers at work :). Congratulations, out of great many people reading HN today, you won in the lottery of "obscure thing I thought about recently is suddenly on the frontpage"!
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by OneWordSoln on Sunday April 14, 2019 @02:45PM (#19660942)
Sorry, I think we (my kids and myself) got it as we were literally wondering just last week how to tell crows and ravens apart. (We are always scanning for wildlife of all kinds.)
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by mathgaron on Sunday April 14, 2019 @10:54AM (#19659744)
Great example of Baader–Meinhof effect. When you recently hear something and you remark it everywhere. I can assure you that I also read this post and did not talk about crows/raven recently!
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by souterrain on Sunday April 14, 2019 @02:12PM (#19660794)
For what it’s worth, Audubon members got this in the Inbox today. Also serendipitous to me, since I just passed Poe’s grave site and thought it odd he would write of ravens even if they are rare in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by OneWordSoln on Sunday April 14, 2019 @02:44PM (#19660932)
Yup, last week my kids and I, who are always on the lookout for wildlife of all kinds, were wondering how to tell crows from ravens. So, yeah, very, very nice timing for us, too.
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by osrec on Sunday April 14, 2019 @01:33PM (#19660586)
Similar spooky things happen to me with online adverts. I happened to mention to a friend that I want to adopt a dog. Lo and behold, for the next 5 days, all I see is dog adoption/dog food adverts. It's happened twice to me, and both times, the ads have been so out of the ordinary from my usual ads, that I actually took time to notice them!

I'm fairly certain Google is listening in to conversations for ad targeting. I think your case is serendipity!

Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by nxc18 on Sunday April 14, 2019 @01:57PM (#19660713)
I hear this kind of thing all the time. "Your case is serendipity, but they were listening to me!"

Do you know why you thought about adopting a dog randomly? Are you confusing cause and effect? Perhaps you were really being shown dog ads for six (or sixty) days and only noticed it for five.

I say this not to dismiss the fear of recording, but to raise that recording is kind of a lazy rationalization that tech companies probably favor over the other, more realistic explanation.

The idea that the ads have changed your behavior without you realizing is far more creepy. They don't have to listen to what you say because they influenced you to say it.

Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by osrec on Sunday April 14, 2019 @02:09PM (#19660778)
Yes, I do know why I thought about adopting a dog. It's because I love dogs, and have wanted one since I was a kid, and a really cool dog happened to walk past my window at the time while I was at talking to my friend.

I never Google dog photos or anything dog related really. I have no real reason to. Also, all the ads are see are usually either finance related or tech related. The huge influx of dog adoption adverts was most certainly an anomaly. I dismissed it the first time, but the second time, it was harder to put it down to chance.

I could be wrong, and maybe they aren't listening in, however at this point, I can't say with certainty that they're not. My suspicion is officially raised!

Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by stormbrew on Sunday April 14, 2019 @04:29PM (#19661516)
So you adopted a dog. How did you go about buying all the things you need when you suddenly have a dog? Stores? Online? Amazon? Did you use a credit card? Did you research dog food? Post on Facebook or Twitter about how you were getting a dog?
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by osrec on Sunday April 14, 2019 @04:37PM (#19661552)
I didn't actually adopt a dog. I merely spoke about the idea of doing so to a friend.
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by stormbrew on Sunday April 14, 2019 @11:23PM (#19662955)
Oops, my bad on the misread.
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by ga2arch on Sunday April 14, 2019 @05:30PM (#19661819)
I visited the tower of london yesterday and bought a raven mug, talk about coincidences
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by masonic on Monday April 15, 2019 @03:18AM (#19663685)
I was expecting you to write that you were then served ads for coffins.
Re:How to tell a raven from a crow (2012) by onetimemanytime on Sunday April 14, 2019 @11:02AM (#19659785)
>>Crazy to see this posted today.

Game of Thrones ;) ? We need to tell them apart for we might get mixed messages.