I've spent the morning waiting on a package delivery. I'm not sure if I'll have to sign for it or not, but I want to be here in case I do. It's a bit of consumer electronics that I wouldn't want sitting around on the doorstep even if I didn't need to sign for it. I expect the package to arrive anytime between now and 8PM, or possibly sometime late next week, as is the way of Amazon.com.

If I had more sense, I'd make better use of this waiting around for Amazon.com time by tidying up the apartment and doing some prep for my upcoming move. Unfortunately, my supply of sense is somewhat limited. So, instead, I've spent the morning and better part of the afternoon catching up on my Pocket reading queue and drinking myself sick on hot tea.

After chugging down two pots of tea in maybe an hour and a half, I found myself overstimulated with a strong urge to vomit. I then imagined that maybe a scotch or two would take the edge off the caffeine. It did not. I am now slightly tipsy and in need of a boozy nap, but also over-caffeinated and unlikely to ever sleep again. Allow me to gripe about Amazon.com a little more while the various poisons I've ingested far too quickly run their course.

I've been ever more frustrated with Amazon.com as a 3rd-party marketplace service lately. Whenever I order something not sold directly by Amazon.com themselves, I almost inevitably get 2 or 3 followup emails along the lines of, "We really, really hope you are happy with your purchase. Oh, and by the way, we are a small, privately run, mom-and-pop business, who can't compete with the big outlets, so, if you could leave a positive review, it would really, really help us out a whole lot. Pretty please?—with ice cream on top!"

Admittedly, this was an endearing bit of marketing at first. Small business, DIY underdogs, yadda yadda, badda bing, badda yadda; pull at my little punk rocker heart strings some more, why don't you? However, over the last couple of years, this practice has grown out of control, and, dare I say it, has reached a critical mass of annoyance. It's getting so I can't buy anything from Amazon.com without some small-business owner contacting me repeatedly about providing a positive review.

For my part, all I wanted was a steel Bento box for packed lunches and to maybe save a few dollars on off-brand condoms. I had (and have) no intention of becoming the official spokesman for Vinnie's Online Adult Toys, Silicone Curiosities, and Japanese Food Storage Emporium. Long story short, I plan on using Amazon.com a lot less in the immediate future. They're perverts.

I, personally, recommend you read these recent articles...

• A lot of What You Know About North Korea is Racist Nonsense - North Korea...is bordered on the north by China and the south by South Korea. South Korea hosts 28,500 U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, many of them literally amassed at the border with the North. On their east is [Japan]...a nation which brutally occupied Korea for decades...The North Koreans are surrounded on all sides by countries that have invaded or occupied them in living memory, and the world’s most powerful military is still technically at war with them and poised to invade at moment’s notice. (Medium)
• How Cloudflare Helps Serve Up Hate on the Web - The widespread use of Cloudflare’s services by racist groups is not an accident. Cloudflare has said it is not in the business of censoring websites and will not deny its services to even the most offensive purveyors of hate...Cloudflare also has an added appeal...It turns over to the hate sites the personal information of people who criticize their content. For instance, when a reader figures out that Cloudflare is the internet company serving [a hate group site], they sometimes write to the company to protest. Cloudflare, per its policy, then relays the name and email address of the person complaining to the hate site, often to the surprise and regret of those complaining. (ProPublica)
• Report: Facebook helped advertisers target teens who feel “worthless” [Updated] - [T]he selling point of this 2017 document is that Facebook's algorithms can determine, and allow advertisers to pinpoint, "moments when young people need a confidence boost." If that phrase isn't clear enough, Facebook's document offers a litany of teen emotional states that the company claims it can estimate based on how teens use the service, including "worthless," "insecure," "defeated," "anxious," "silly," "useless," "stupid," "overwhelmed," "stressed," and "a failure." (Ars Technica)
• Comments on Research and Ad Targeting - On May 1, 2017, The Australian posted a story regarding research done by Facebook and subsequently shared with an advertiser. The premise of the article is misleading. Facebook does not offer tools to target people based on their emotional state. (Facebook Newsroom)