Besides finding out the time and the weather, that is

　　I bought the family a set of Echo Dots for Christmas and I have to say, I really enjoy having Alexa around. I love having whatever music or radio station I want in every room, and the kids are having fun setting up their own alarms and whatnot. But yesterday in a Takeout meeting, Alexa’s “Shopping List” feature came up, and I realized there are probably tons of uses for my Echo Dot outside of finding out the time and weather, which I do about 100 times a day. So per usual, I turn to you, genius Takeout commentariat: What’s your favorite feature on your Echo? What should I definitely be checking out? [Gwen Ihnat]

About that Facebook 10-Year Challenge meme…

　　In this piece for Wired, Kate O’Neill speculates about the true purpose of Facebook’s so-called 10-Year Challenge, a widespread meme in which people are uploading side-by-side photos of themselves now, and 10 years ago. (If you’re on Facebook, you’ve seen this. Guaranteed.) If a company was developing facial-recognition algorithms on age progression, O’Neill wonders, aren’t these user photos exactly the type of data you’d want? Yes, it’s a bit of a conspiracy theory, but an interesting one to ponder. Every day just pushes me one step closer to deleting Facebook once and for all. [Kate Bernot]