Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Amazon”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'All Bad Bosses at Amazon Are Now Named ‘Wayne’'
- kudos:Funny meme, depressing reality. link to “All Bad Bosses at Amazon Are Now Named ‘Wayne’”
do you want to be good or to be optimized?
- kudos:This Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic from yesterday spoke to me at a deep level: My first thoughts went to generative AI, an area in which I feel like a fetishization of optimization is crowding out really important questions of what is good. As I put it in a university survey earlier today, there are undeniable benefits to the use of AI tools, but there are important questions as to who benefits.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amazon Turkers Who Train AI Say They’re Locked Out of Their Work and Money'
- kudos:Helpful reminder that it’s low-paid, underappreciated workers who contribute to AI as much as high-paid programmers and household-name executives. link to “Amazon Turkers Who Train AI Say They’re Locked Out of Their Work and Money”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Blue Origin Builds $8 Billion Barrel For Jeff Bezos To Ride Over Niagara Falls'
- kudos:This made me laugh out loud while reheating my leftovers for lunch. link to “Blue Origin Builds $8 Billion Barrel For Jeff Bezos To Ride Over Niagara Falls”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amazon Let Its Drivers’ Urine Be Sold as an Energy Drink | WIRED'
- kudos:Don’t know how I missed this story yesterday, but what the heck? Like the article says, nothing particularly new revealed by these stunts, but it’s still a compelling critique of Amazon. link to “Amazon Let Its Drivers’ Urine Be Sold as an Energy Drink | WIRED”
whose voices does ClassDojo prioritize?
- kudos:This morning, I read an excellent piece by Lam Thuy Vo at The Markup expressing concern about how services like Amazon’s Ring cameras can distort police priorities and perpetuate bias. Here’s a good summary passage: As a reporter, I’ve always been interested in systems that disadvantage some people—when it comes to policing, they are often Black or Latino—while prioritizing the wishes of a smaller, much more powerful subset—often affluent White folks.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amazon’s ‘Neighborhood Watch’ Might Be Turning Police Officers Into ‘Reddit Moderators’ – The Markup'
- kudos:Public-private surveillance is the worst of both worlds. Ring is creepy. link to “Amazon’s ‘Neighborhood Watch’ Might Be Turning Police Officers Into ‘Reddit Moderators’ – The Markup”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Sellers say Amazon undercuts their prices, charges high fees : NPR'
- kudos:Amazon: also the worst. link to “Sellers say Amazon undercuts their prices, charges high fees : NPR”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amazon reportedly used a secret algorithm to jack up prices - The Verge'
- kudos:What a gross idea. link to “Amazon reportedly used a secret algorithm to jack up prices - The Verge”
- kudos:
After leaving our local indie bookstore, I realized how appropriate it was to spend some money there the same day the FTC goes after Amazon.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'FTC files a massive antitrust lawsuit against Amazon - The Verge'
- kudos:Amazon is too big, and while I’m not a policy expert, I welcome government efforts to keep it in check. link to “FTC files a massive antitrust lawsuit against Amazon - The Verge”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Author discovers AI-generated counterfeit books written in her name on Amazon | Ars Technica'
- kudos:I’m not thrilled about AI’s ability to do this, but let’s be clear: Amazon is as much to blame here, and I like them even less. link to ‘Author discovers AI-generated counterfeit books written in her name on Amazon | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Someone Has to Deliver Your Packages in This Scorching Heat | WIRED'
- kudos:So many of our conveniences depend on someone else doing work we wouldn’t want to do ourselves. link to ‘Someone Has to Deliver Your Packages in This Scorching Heat | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Why We Don’t Recommend Ring Cameras | WIRED'
- kudos:Hear hear. Ring is a creepy company, and we shouldn’t support them. link to ‘Why We Don’t Recommend Ring Cameras | WIRED’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for How to Resist Amazon and Why (Updated & Expanded), by Danny Caine
- kudos:Look, this is the kind of book that I bought knowing already that I’d agree with its thesis, so maybe you shouldn’t read my review of it. Nonetheless, I think Caine does an excellent job of bringing together many of the arguments against Amazon. This company is bad news, and while it’s hard to escape it entirely, I think the world would be a better place if more of us did less to support it.
'licensed, not sold, to you'
- kudos:As I’ve blogged about a couple of times recently, I’m currently reading R. Sikoryak’s Terms and Conditions, a graphic novel adaptation of the 2015 iTunes Terms and Conditions document, which no one ever reads. I was struck (if not surprised) by something stated explicitly in the document, which appears on p. 59 of Sikoryak’s volume: The software products made available through the Mac App Store and App Store (collectively, the “App Store Products”) are licensed, not sold, to you.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amazon Drivers Are Still Peeing in Bottles'
- kudos:Someone’s paying the price for the convenience of shopping on Amazon. link to ‘Amazon Drivers Are Still Peeing in Bottles’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '‘Ring Nation’ Is a Terrible Idea That’s Unstoppable Because Amazon Owns Everything'
- kudos:I missed the vertical integration aspect of this in earlier reporting I’ve read. It makes this story even worse. link to ‘‘Ring Nation’ Is a Terrible Idea That’s Unstoppable Because Amazon Owns Everything’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on ''Ring Nation' Is Amazon's Reality Show for Our Surveillance Dystopia'
- kudos:Such a bad idea. Normalizing Ring won’t make it any better—only worse. link to ‘‘Ring Nation’ Is Amazon’s Reality Show for Our Surveillance Dystopia’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Why none of my books are available on Audible | Cory Doctorow's craphound.com'
- kudos:Doctorow convinced me years ago that Audible was terrible, but here, he showed me just how bad they are. link to ‘Why none of my books are available on Audible | Cory Doctorow’s craphound.com’
schools' Acceptable Use Policies and R. Sikoryak's 'Terms and Conditions'
- kudos:Kiddo starts at a new school on Wednesday, and I’ve been putting off signing the Acceptable Use Policy and Chromebook Policy because I want to read them carefully. I don’t know how much I can do about anything that I’m really concerned with, but I’m a tech researcher when I’m not being kiddo’s dad, so I feel an obligation to be informed and raise a fuss when something is fussworthy.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amazon Buys Roomba Company, Will Now Map Inside of Your House'
- kudos:Some good points about how Amazon owning Roomba is scarier than just Roomba existing on its own—even if I didn’t realize that Roomba was creepily mapping houses. link to ‘Amazon Buys Roomba Company, Will Now Map Inside of Your House’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amazon Buying Roomba Maker iRobot for $1.7 Billion - WSJ'
- kudos:Amazon keeps getting bigger, and I don’t think that’s for the better. link to ‘Amazon Buying Roomba Maker iRobot for $1.7 Billion - WSJ’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amazon Admits Giving Police Ring Footage Without Consent'
- kudos:It’s concerning to see private surveillance prop up public surveillance like this. link to ‘Amazon Admits Giving Police Ring Footage Without Consent’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Sony Removes 100s Of Movies Bought Through PS Store | Techdirt'
- kudos:This is why I’m trying to buy more physical copies of things—or at least DRM-free stuff. I have lots of regrets about the size of my Kindle library, for example. link to ‘You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Sony Removes 100s Of Movies Bought Through PS Store | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Senator Declares Amazon Ring's Audio Surveillance Capabilities 'Threaten the Public' | Electronic Frontier Foundation'
- kudos:I’ve been plenty spooked by Ring’s video capabilities, but apparently I haven’t been worried enough about its audio surveillance. link to ‘Senator Declares Amazon Ring’s Audio Surveillance Capabilities ‘Threaten the Public’ | Electronic Frontier Foundation’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'KY lawmakers advance data center tax incentives to woo tech giants | Lexington Herald Leader'
- kudos:Amazon already has too big a footprint here. Don’t feel great about this. link to ‘KY lawmakers advance data center tax incentives to woo tech giants | Lexington Herald Leader’
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Grumpy about DRM today. So much content I’ve purchased but am forever beholden to Amazon to access.
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Amazon Paid for a High School Course. Here’s What They Teach.'
- kudos:So much ugh. Big Amazon presence here in KY, so wonder when we’ll start to see this. link to ‘Amazon Paid for a High School Course. Here’s What They Teach.’
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Amazon is retiring Alexa — no, not that one - The Verge'
- kudos:Why shut down Alexa rankings??? link to ‘Amazon is retiring Alexa — no, not that one - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'The Amazon Privacy Nightmare. “What you search for, what you buy… | by Micah Sifry | Nov, 2021 | OneZero'
- kudos:Very scary stuff here. link to ‘The Amazon Privacy Nightmare. “What you search for, what you buy… | by Micah Sifry | Nov, 2021 | OneZero’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Opinion | Don’t Let Amazon Eat the Film Industry - The New York Times'
- kudos:The more pies Amazon has its fingers in, the more concerning it becomes. link to ‘Opinion | Don’t Let Amazon Eat the Film Industry - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Amazon Astro Leaks Data All Over New Carpet'
- kudos:Well played, The Onion. Well played. link to ‘Amazon Astro Leaks Data All Over New Carpet’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Ivermectin misinformation has poisoned Amazon’s platform, with few fixes planned - The Verge'
- kudos:Happy to say that my local indie bookstore does not have this problem. link to ‘Ivermectin misinformation has poisoned Amazon’s platform, with few fixes planned - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Surveillance Startup Brings Police Tech to Neighborhoods - Bloomberg'
- kudos:Nope nope nope nope. If plate readers are going to become more common, I’ve got to start biking more places. Not that that will protect against Ring. 🤮🤮🤮 link to ‘Surveillance Startup Brings Police Tech to Neighborhoods - Bloomberg’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'As demand for bikes surged, Amazon got in the way - The Verge'
- kudos:Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve spent a lot of money at my local bookstore and bikeshop, and it kills me that Amazon is threatening both. Granted, I haven’t been able to completely cut the Amazon cord (and I have friends who have only survived the past 18 months because of the company), but there has to be a better way. link to ‘As demand for bikes surged, Amazon got in the way - The Verge’