amazon

Post-it Note Affirmations and the Amazon Dash

This article is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

The amazon dash is a pinnacle of modern web design. It’s one of the most intrusive, complex, and resource-dependent devices we’ve introduced into our homes, yet it appears as a simple oval with a single button for a single use. The use is absurdly narrow: the button will have a picture of Tide detergent, and when you press the button, Tide detergent is sent to your door.

Zach Mandeville

Barely a week goes by between the times that I discover some horrifically over-engineered “solution” on the Internet. Amazon’s Dash buttons are terrible: disposable (plastic) single-purpose computers that could so easily have been made into something “more” – more-versatile, more-open, more-configurable, more-flexible. Indeed: people have been doing exactly that kind of thing! But the vanilla Dash button remains little more than selling you convenience (and not much convenience, if we’re honest) in exchange for more and more of your feeling of digital freedom. Yet another example of what replaced the Web we lost…

By hiding the technical processes, and simplifying the onboarding and engagement of their services, Amazon can continually reinforce your depression for a profit— and you can get name-brand laundry detergent faster.

Zach Mandeville

Also, can I just take a moment to point out how awesome Zach’s website is. Not only is it the perfect example of how fun and weird the Internet can be and having a mixture of fascinating and curious content, it’s also available via dat:// for those of you who’ve got some love for the datbaseiverse.

Prime and Punishment

This article is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

by Josh Dzieza

For sellers, Amazon is a quasi-state. They rely on its infrastructure — its warehouses, shipping network, financial systems, and portal to millions of customers — and pay taxes in the form of fees. They also live in terror of its rules, which often change and are harshly enforced.

…

…the only way back from suspension is to “confess and repent,” she says, even if you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. “Amazon doesn’t like to see finger-pointing.”

Josh Dzieza (The Verge)

Suppose you have a competitor on Amazon Marketplace. Based on this article, the following strategies are pretty much fair game and are likely to result in immediate suspension of your competitor’s account:

Posting fake reviews favouring your competitor’s products, then reporting your competitor for manipulating reviews.
Making a copyright claim against your competitor’s username, even though you’d never used it before.
Buying your competitor’s product, setting fire to it, photographing it, and claiming that it did that by itself and is thus unsafe for sale.

Amazon don’t like controversy, so they always side against the seller. A great illustration as to why it’s dangerous when we let companies (like Amazon) have the power of judiciaries without the responsibilities of democracies.

Wattafu?

Sian wrote:

Amazon book recommendations have just recommended me the book ‘A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting’. Their reasoning for this is that I have ‘Amelie’ on my WishList. There is a prize for anyone who can explain to me the logic behind this.

It’s at http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1890159026/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-9579525-7588416, for those of you who want to read the reviews etc.

Interestingly, I’ve also had this book recommended to me. Not by Amazon, I don’t think, but instead by this page on sexuality.org. Look about half-way down where there’s a section on fisting, and I quote:

Some women enjoy vaginal fisting (having all or most of their lover’s hand in their vagina). This is DEFINITELY a case where you should proceed only with your partner’s active and ongoing encouragement and within her comfort level. If you two would like to give vaginal fisting a try, then I’d recommend first reading Deborah Addington’s book A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting. However, the basic technique is as follows: with your hand palm up (and your lover on her back or on all fours) bring your fingers and thumb together to form something that looks like a duck bill. With massaging, and possibly gentle twisting motions, slowly tease your hand into her vagina. If your anatomies allows it, once you get past the third knuckles your fingers will start to gently and naturally curve back to form a fist. The whole procedure takes time and plenty of trust, but the women and men who can take a whole hand vaginally or anally often claim that it leads them to transcendent, ecstatic altered states (read TRUST/The Hand Book by Bert Herrman for a discussion of anal fisting, if that is your area of interest).

Even if safer sex issues are not a concern, many women find that it is more physically comfortable to be fisted when their partner is wearing (possibly powder-free) latex gloves.

Also some good tips on G-Spot hunting on that page. Sexuality.org is a damn good site.