Interesting stuff. It drives home two points that I've come to recognize in the new "digital age":

• Once it's out there, it's out there forever - It's not like I personally have a whole lot to hide, but I realized long ago that if you want to be opinionated, radical, political, or in any way advertise any unorthodox or politically-incorrect ideas, hobbies or ruminations, it's better off being done under an alias. You can still express yourself as much as you'd like, but if you change your mind (which everyone does), those remnants can be ejected and cleanly abandoned. So when someone googles my name, yea they get information on me, but only what I want the public to know - even though there may be terabytes of remnants of my activity all over the net. To me, this just seems like a smart thing to do - not because there's anything illegal or shameful, but because of the finality of digital information, and how, when people peruse this data, always assume it's representative of the here and now.

• The brain is a muscle, and technology has enabled people to "think less" and do more, and as a result, their brain is experiencing atrophy of sorts. If you've ever lost your cell phone and suddenly realized you didn't know anybody's phone number, you know what I mean. It used to be that we'd have massive lists of memorized phone numbers in our heads. Now that's not necessary. I'm not sure what's being done with those neurons now. But they're probably put to better use. The same thing goes with GPS. The more you rely on automated navigation, the less capable you end up being without the aid of technology. I've done my best to balance the two so that I only use GPS when I need to, and otherwise use good old analog methods.