My Google story

My friend Jack sent me this Super Bowl ad (which is as close as I got to the game :-). The ad showcases Google but reminded me of how dependent we've become on the search engine. Which then took me back to a funny experience I had a few years ago...

I was at my old office in Beaverton, and a co-worker asked me if I had a certain computer cable. I knew I did but wasn't sure where I had stored it. So I sat down at my computer and started to type the name of the cable into Google. Then I remembered that I was looking for a physical item in the real world! I had gotten so used to using Google to find things that I had over-generalized its use.

(Video link)

This post, in turn, has reminded me of an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal that I read not long after moving there. Unfortunately their online archives only appear to go back to January 2008, so I can't link to it. The article focused on how the casinos had seen a shift in their revenues, with most money now coming from slot machines rather than table games. And the change was no accident: the people who make the machines had worked hard to make them an increasingly immersive experience, one that people can't easily walk away from. The money quote in the article came from one avid slot player who told the reporter that she really didn't like to win anymore because it interfered with the flow of her game!