Before I make a few on-topic words, first I have to commend you for having got the taste for bonding with 'god's messengers'. I advise you to indulge further. You will be in good company, read about Tesla the man and his relationship with feathered friends. Go fully avian, try and work these bird brains out for yourself as you are doing, it is all extremely rewarding.

In a former workplace I used to feed the gulls and film them in slow motion. I had them taking homemade wholewheat bread (that I baked for them...) out of my hand with them flying quite hard into the wind. The bread could have letters written on them so a video could have a 'get well soon' or 'happy birthday' type of personal message spelled out for someone. Getting that one take with 'nobody' dropping the squares of bread was an art, particularly since slo-mo requires being massively quick.

I had names for about twenty of the gulls, could individually recognise fifty of them as 'regulars' and, depending on the gulls busy schedule, could have a hundred of them to entertain.

Unlike my other workmates I had them follow me as I walked to and from the office, not just at lunchtime, my presence would always be noted. It would take them a few hundred yards to realise I had 'the wrong bag' and to calm down. I had plenty of assistants - workmates that sometimes needed to chill out - but they never had the full 200 yards of 'Mexican wave' from the feathered ones.

The 'Mexican wave' from the gulls was actually quite cool. Fancy clothes and fancy cars might impress some but having a flock of birds follow you in some ribbon in the sky has magic to it that money can't buy. Well it can if you are into your home baking and don't mind spending $0.50 on flour every day.

Anyway, that is way off topic, however, as it happens I really would like facial recognition for gulls, to use the tech of surveillance for some conservation work. As well as the faces the missing feathers, broken feet and other characteristics could be part of the A.I. with each gull resolving to a made up name by way of a one-way 'hash'. Therefore if one of 'my' gulls was spotted two miles away (e.g. Percy) then he/she should resolve to the same name in someone else's picture. They should be able to find out where this particular gull normally hangs out and also have the same given name of 'Percy'. If 'Percy' then crops up regularly in their photos then they will have a name to the face, he won't be just a random gull, more of a recognisable neighbour.

The app is not something I have chosen to dedicate my life to, however, it is an interesting thought experiment in the age of surveillance. This is because we only see the oppressive side as victim, obviously with 'nothing to hide'. To understand things that stress you out it is helpful to imagine what the view is like from the other end of the telescopic panopticon. This makes it a bit easier to survive in the more normal 'Winston Smith' 1984 mode.

In 1984 there are a few details that can be missed on the initial few read-throughs. He has health problems that aren't due to Big Brother but then they are. There is also the small matter of him actually doing very little with his life. The 'proles' are able to procreate, party and live a little. Meanwhile our protagonist who is 'party' is not partying. He never goes to dinner parties, never entertains kids in a wider family, doesn't go on holiday or get on with those normal things. Big Brother ain't stopping him but because Winston has a fight going on in his head he isn't able to emotionally engage with people doing normal happy life things. Obviously Orwell wasn't writing that detail in and Winston's health issues may have been autobiographical but these also happen to be finer points of surveillance society if you are not a 'prole', 'proles' being the 'nothing to hide' crew.