HoodedHawk

Now if only more Internet companies were like the search engine, “DuckDuckGo“:

Their Privacy Policy is simple:

We don’t collect or share personal information.
That’s our privacy policy in a nutshell.

Nice. Simple.

I do like the completeness of Google, however as the majority of Google’s revenue ( close to $16 Billion in Q2 2014!) is generated via ads, they collect and compile a TON of information on your search/browsing/email habits in order to sell very targeted adspace to their customers.

Maybe I don’t want to be a packaged product. Or maybe I don’t care. Or maybe I like the eerily spot-on ads that show up in my browser. In any case I like choice so there are times I will choose to DuckDuckGo. Plus, the name is cool.

Finally? DuckDuckGo likes me more than Google. A search for “Hooded Hawk” on DuckDuckGo results in my site being the first hit! On Google, hoodedhawk.com is on the third page of results. With all that Google tracks from me, they should at least know my own website! Phhhhht.

Whoa. J.K. Rowling is obviously a very popular author due to her Harry Potter series. But I just today learned of her ingenious way to thwart “signature pirates”. It seems that she has been inundated with requests for her signature since the early days of the Harry Potter series. So much so, that she no longer signs books except for charities and the like. Well, that means that unscrupulous people have sold copies of her books with forged signatures (to greatly increase their worth on the market).

To counteract this piracy, since 2007 she affixes a little hologram to the opposite page of any book she signs. I’ve never heard of this before. Neat, sorta. But it’s also sad – I rely on the word of a dealer when I buy a book that was signed. I’m still optimistic that all the signed books I have are authentic (though more than half were signed in my presence)…

The book below is an example and you can get it for a mere ~$350.00 on ABEBooks.com. That’s a steal, as a 1st edition copy of her first book, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (published 1997) runs for more than $15,000.00 (with the hologram if signed after 2007).

From Pope Francis’ Lenten Message:

Indeed, Jesus “worked with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He truly became one of us, like us in all things except sin.”

I proclaim to you good news of great joy: today a Savior is born for us, Christ the Lord.
-John 10:27

Nativity at St. Louis Church; after Midnight Mass

Christmas Card 2013

It was an overcast/rainy Easter Sunday, so we took pictures indoors, after we got back from Easter Brunch (very nice – Brio’s in Rockville, MD).