My engineer friend George is taking a break to work on himself.

...

"I was sitting in the park on a sunny day, enjoying the weather and I see a few guys walking around approaching people with phones like they're taking a survey," he told me.

....

George explained: "Eventually one of them works his way over to me and says something to the effect of 'Hi, I work for Google and we're collecting data to improve the next generation of facial recognition phone unlocking.'" 

Google collecting data? This is how they're doing it now? Perhaps it's an attempt at the personal touch, for a change.

George told me the Googlologists handed him a phone in a very large case. It was hard, he said, to see whether inside was a new Pixel prototype or something older.

"I basically had to use selfie mode and move my face around to get different angles of my face," he said.

"George," I worried. "They're taking your face and making it theirs. Did they at least pay you for it?"

"He offered me a $5 gift card to Amazon or Starbucks in exchange for 5 minutes of me interacting with the phone," he admitted.

"You sold your face for $5?" I asked.

"Yeah, well I wanted to see what they'd ask me to do."

Engineers, they just can't help themselves, can they? They have to see what happens.

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