Category Archives: Amazon

SAST 22

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No, you didn’t overlook a weekend post. There wasn’t one.

I’m not going to apologize, just lay the blame squarely where it belongs: with the critters.

If they refuse to do anything sufficiently photogenic when I have a camera handy, there really isn’t much I can do, now is there?

Of course, it doesn’t help that the recent cold weather has reduced their activity to “lie around on the bed, getting up only to eat and use the box”. Cute, but when the only difference from one day to the next is in who has staked out which chunk of blanket, the photos do get more than a bit repetitious.

Admittedly, we get minor variations.

For instance, there was an earthquake recently. Small, but centered only a few miles from our house. All cats vanished from the bed. But when you’re awakened at 3:30am by multiple paws thundering across your abdomen, photography is not the first thing that springs to mind. Or maybe it would be for you. It wasn’t for me.

A couple of days later, the smoke detector in the bedroom started making its “battery low” beep: one chirp every 40 seconds. Yuki couldn’t stand the sound and began yowling as though his tail was being pulled out by the roots*. Did I mention that this was at 6:00 am? It was. Again, photography not the first thing on my mind.

* He’s very proud of his luxurious plume. I dare say the psychological pain of having it yanked out would exceed the far-from-negligible physical pain.

Anyway, I’m still keeping my phone handy, but until the weather warms up and critters start moving around and doing things during hours I’m awake, there may be the occasional missed post.

Moving on.

File this under “WQTS”. It’s not significant enough to warrant a post of its own, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

Not too long ago, I had cause to install the Amazon Music program on my computer. It went through the usual steps*: download the installer, run it, twiddle my fingers for a minute or so, and then try to remember my Amazon password so I could sign into the program.

* Bother. I just noticed I could have installed it via the winget command I mentioned last week. Alas for missed opportunities.

All was well until after I closed the program and then realized I’d forgotten one of the things I’d intended to do. So I checked the All Programs menu, and was befuddled to see Amazon Music listed not once, but twice.

Normally, when a program wants to add itself to that menu, it creates a program shortcut in a specific folder. Done. Or, if the program needs multiple entries (for example, one for the program itself and one for a link to the company’s support website), it’ll create a folder inside that special Windows folder and put its links in that private folder.

Amazon, in an impressive display of bureaucratic bungling, does both: it creates a program shortcut named “Amazon Music” and a folder, also called “Amazon Music”, which–you guessed it–contains a program shortcut named “Amazon Music” (and also a link to the uninstall program, should you be so meanspirited as to want to get rid of “Amazon Music” in all its infinite incarnations. Which Windows, in its great wisdom mishandles, shows as two program icons, instead of one program and one folder.

“Well,” I said to myself, “that’s silly. And redundant.” So I deleted the standalone icon, thinking Windows would then properly display the folder.

Not only did that not work–Windows continued to show a program instead of a folder–but when I launched the program it recreated the icon I had deleted!

So Windows mishandles the situation where there’s a folder with the same name as a program. And Amazon overrides its users’ specific instructions. WQTS?

Moving on again.

Amongst all the nocturnal feline disturbances and the normal daytime alarums and excursions, I also found time to get my head examined. The conclusion: I still have a head.

More seriously, I’ve been somewhat concerned about my hearing, given the daily assault on my eardrums that is the retail environment.

It was, in its way, almost entertaining. I got the “raise your hand when you hear a tone” test, the “repeat the words this recording is saying” test, and the “repeat the sentence this other recording is saying with decreasing volume relative to background party noises” test. All while sitting in a soundproof room with earphones in. Okay, so maybe “entertaining” isn’t quite the right word. It was interesting and enlightening.

As I implied above, the results were generally good. I’ve got some marginal hearing loss in one ear, especially in the range of pitches typical of speech–which certainly explains the trouble I have hearing people at work when the background noise gets particularly excessive–but on the whole, I’ve still got two functional ears.

I’ll take my victories where I can. I will say, however, that the brochure on how to listen better is pretty darn useless.

Not the Whole Reason

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So, not the only reason Amazon is conquering the world, but a big part of it is that they make it easy to order.

A couple of counter-examples.

I recently placed an order with Retailer A (name concealed because it’s irrelevant). There were four items in my order, three of Item 1 and one Item 2. Here’s what I had to do after I added the items to my cart:

  1. Click the cart.
  2. Click to confirm the items were correct. All items were set to in-store pickup.
  3. Click again to switch Item 2 from in-store pickup to shipping.
  4. One of the Item 1 had changed from In-Store to “How do want to get this item?” It took three clicks to set it back to In-Store. And doing that changed Item 2 from shipping back to in-store, one more click to reset it.
  5. Click to confirm the order.
  6. The confirmation page reloaded with a message informing me that some of the delivery dates had changed. Click yet again to confirm the order with the changed dates.
  7. Click to confirm my payment information.
  8. Click again because one of the Item 1 had changed delivery dates back to the original date.
  9. Which, naturally meant I had to reconfirm my payment information.
  10. One final (amazingly!) click to confirm my address for the item being shipped.

Later the same day, I placed an order from Retailer B. Because I’ve shopped with this retailer before, I know I need to buy $35 worth of merchandise to get free shipping. No problem: I need a bunch of the same small item, so I’ll get enough of them to total $35. I go to the product page. There’s no ability to put more than one in the cart, so I add one.

  1. Click the cart.
  2. Change the order quantity to ten.
  3. Realized the price had dropped since I last bought this thing, and ten of them was still a bit under $35.
  4. Tried to change to a dozen. Discovered the system wouldn’t let me order more than ten. This was not documented anywhere.
  5. Returned to the product page and tried to add it to the cart again. Only at that point did I get a pop-up informing me I already had the maximum number of the item per order in my cart.
  6. Gave up, ordered one of something I didn’t need but can use because it was still cheaper to get that with free shipping than to pay for shipping.
  7. One click to confirm my address.
  8. Another click to confirm my payment information.

To be clear, these are not little Mom and Pop outfits; they’re both chains with national footprints and extensive experience in online sales.

Now, let’s contrast the experience with shopping on Amazon.

If there’s an item limit, Amazon tells you so on the product page right below the price.

The delivery date never changes during checkout. If there’s a change–to an earlier or later date–they tell you after the order has been placed and give you an opportunity to change or cancel the order.

Different items can have different shipping options and changing one never affects the others.

So even if you leave the one-click order process out of the discussion, it always goes like this:

  1. Click the cart.
  2. Click to confirm the address.
  3. Click to confirm the payment info.
  4. Click to confirm the shipping info.

Why would anybody shop anywhere but Amazon? In my case, the only reason I used Retailers A and B was because they had merchandise I wanted that Amazon didn’t. If I’d been able to get it from Amazon, I’d probably have given up at Step 5 in both cases. Given the way Amazon aggressively expands, “we have something they don’t” is never more than a temporary advantage.

And, really, who needs the hassle?

Nobody is going to compete with Amazon on price. You need to bring something to the party that Amazon doesn’t.

Something that customers want.

Nobody wants to be annoyed.

Time Out

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Google I/O has been canceled for this year, for health reasons. Well, the in-person version has been canceled, anyway. Google plans to have some form of streaming conference instead. Interesting notion. Shouldn’t be a problem for presentations–I’ve always thought the keynote address worked better as a live stream than a butts-in-seats show–but people are going to miss the opportunity to get their hands actual devices.

And now Apple is under pressure to do the same for WWDC. Last I heard–Tuesday mid-morning–it was still on, but with Santa Clara County banning large gatherings, Apple may not be able to go ahead even if they want to.

Does anyone else find it amusing that we’re being asked to tune in via computers and smartphones to find out how the big names are going to make our computers and smartphones obsolete?

Given the current difficulties in getting hardware from Asia, I’d like to see Apple and Google (and even Microsoft* and Amazon) take a step back. Don’t release new hardware this year**. Concentrate on improving what’s already out there.

* Much as I’m intrigued by the Surface Duo and Surface Neo, and despite my difficulties with delayed gratification, I have to admit that my life won’t be measurably worse if I don’t get to play with them this year.

** It’s too late to make the same plea to Samsung. The S20 is out.

Hold off the Pixel 4a devices. And we don’t really need huge bunches of new Chromebooks. Ditto for Apple. Using part shortages as an excuse to jack up the price of an iPhone 12 would be tacky. And, while I’d love to see a new MacMini–preferably at a lower price point–I haven’t been holding my breath for it.

Give us Android 11 if you must. Ditto for iOS and iPadOS 14, as well as MacOS Catalina+1. And the next iteration of Windows 10.

Take some of the people off the hardware side, let it sit for a while, and put those people to work on usability. Hook them up (online, naturally) with people who have not been using your products every day for the last five years. Find out where the pain points are in getting started with [insert your OS here]. Do a deep dive into your update process (I’m looking at you, Microsoft). Amazon, take a good look at your pricing model and honestly answer (if only to yourself) whether it’s sustainable: is it bringing in enough to pay writers, actors, and other content producers enough that they can continue to write, act, and lay salable eggs?

Then bring out new hardware next year.

It’ll never happen, of course. The industry is too tied into “new hardware every year is the only way to keep people interested” and “as long as we make a profit while I’m alive, who cares what happens when I’m not?”

But dreaming about it keeps my mind occupied while I build a disease-proof plastic bubble around the house.

Another Brilliant Notion

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Before I get to today’s main topic, a little bit of housekeeping, loosely following Tuesday’s post.

I will be attending the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival again this year. There’s still time to make your own plans to attend. What better way is there to spend a weekend than listening to great music performed well? In addition to the music, there will be dancing; symposia on ragtime, it’s precursors, and successors; and tours of Sedalia.

And yes, there will be copies of TRTT for sale. I’m not currently planning on a formal signing–though I’m certainly open to the possibility–but I’ll be happy to sign your copy*. I recognize most of you have been resistant to the idea of distributing copies to friends and relatives, so how about an alternative plan? Get ’em for people you don’t know–the possibilities are endless:

  • Send one to Donald Trump. He won’t read it, but maybe dealing with thousands of copies will distract him from tweeting for a few minutes.
  • Slip one to the opposing pitcher before the next ballgame you go to. Who knows, it might distract him enough to give your team a chance.
  • Give them to Scott Pruitt. He needs something cheerful in his life right now. And if he gets enough copies, he can use them to build himself a privacy booth at least as good as the one he made with the sofa cushions when he was a kid.

I’ll be happy to sign any “Strangers and Enemies” copies too. And I’ll add a personal message of your choice!

* I’m still unsure how to sign ebooks. Suggestions welcome!

Admittedly, the weather in Missouri in June is a bit on the hot and muggy side, but for those of you east of the Rockies, it’ll be a nice change from the snow you’re still getting. And better June than September, right?

So I hope to see a few of you at the Liberty Center and around Sedalia between May 30 and June 2.

Commercial over, moving on.

By now many of you have probably heard that the amazingly ill-thought-out Amazon Key program is expanding. If you don’t want Amazon unlocking your house and putting your packages inside–and who would?–they’re now going to offer an alternative: they’ll unlock your car and put your package in the trunk.

Which is, at least by comparison with the original offering, not a bad idea.

Despite San Francisco’s well-publicized problem with smash-and-grab auto robberies, your chances of having your car broken into are probably no higher than of having your house robbed. Assuming, of course, that nobody is following Amazon delivery peons around their routes and texting car delivery locations to a confederate.

Anyway, the service will be offered in conjunction with GM and Volvo initially, and then expand to other makes later. Trunk delivery will also require a recent model with online connectivity, i.e. OnStar.

Which brings us to my major complaint about this iteration of Amazon Key: it’s a reminder that we don’t really own our cars anymore. Ownership should mean control, but a modern, connected car sacrifices control. The manufacturer–and potentially dealers, repair shops, police, and others–can unlock your car, disable features, and display advertisements at will.

Yes, I’m talking capability rather than practice, but policies can change. Once the hardware is in place to, for example, show ads on your navigation screen, you’re never more than one manufacturer-controlled software update from not being able to turn the ads off.

Or one bug–or hack–away from the car failing to recognize the remote relock signal.

That’s true whether you use Amazon Key or not, of course.

Feeling Lucky?

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It’s raining here. I say this, not to evoke sympathy–after all, I’m inside, warm and dry–but to set the stage.

Rain is coming down, and Casey is under-caffeinated. A messy combination that usually leaves me staring out of the window at the rain instead of doing what I should, i.e. writing a blog post.

There’s a soggy crow on the nearest street light, an even soggier deer halfway up the hill across the road, and what looks like the paper wrapper from a fast food burger disappearing around the corner.

This is all fascinating when I need to make another mug of tea.

Suddenly, my idyll is interrupted. An unmarked white van pulls up across the street. No more than three seconds pass before the driver, who’s wearing a dark-colored hoodie with the hood up, leaps out and takes a single step toward the house.

He hurls something over the front fence, frisbee-style. Before the object touches down, the driver is back in his van and halfway down the street, chasing the hamburger wrapper.

Folks, earlier this week four people were shot less than a block away from here. The police believe they were targeted, but say they have no suspects and no motive.

So I did what any sensible person would do: I got the hell away from the window.

I waited a couple of minutes, and when nothing had gone boom, I figured it wasn’t a bomb and went to investigate.

Turned out to be small padded envelope decorated with the Amazon logo. Considerately, it had been wrapped in a large plastic bag to protect it from the rain. I’m fairly sure it isn’t explosive.

I’m not about to open it. Not because I think I might be wrong about its explosive properties, but because it’s addressed to Maggie. But it’s sitting on the dining room table. Who knows what it might do half an hour from now?

I hadn’t realized I was this nervous.

But, sleepy paranoia aside, the situation is ridiculous, and not in a humorous way. In today’s restive–I might even say “hair-triggered”–environment, how many people would have taken a shot at the driver? “I was scared! It could have been a bomb!”

How long will it be before someone does disguise an explosive device in an Amazon box?

Gig economy drivers are even less visible than salaried, uniformed drivers in trucks bearing corporate logos.

It’s a hell of a murder method. You don’t need to shell out for anything but a box: no uniform, no rented truck. And, unlike a mail bomb, you’ve got complete control over when it gets delivered.

Like Herding Cats is going out to the beta readers nowish. Maybe I should take advantage of my time away from it to write something cheerful. (Which is not to say LHC is a depressing book, but it’s not all rainbows and unicorns either.)

But I can’t believe this hasn’t happened yet.

Feeling lucky?

Not Just No

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Not just no, but hell no. I’d use an even stronger word, but I try to keep this blog within shouting distance of being safe for work.

As anyone who reads this blog regularly has probably guessed, I’m talking about the just-announced Amazon Key service.

For those of you who haven’t heard about Amazon Key, it’s the Big A’s take on an idea Walmart introduced recently: a way for delivery people to put your packages inside the house, so they can’t be stolen.

Walmart’s version, by the way, is a little creepier: they’re offering the service for groceries, and it includes putting them in your fridge. For now, Amazon Key seems to be limited to setting your packages inside the door and leaving it at that. I say “for now” because it’s apparently their way of getting a foot in the door (sorry) and will be expanded later to offer services such as dog walking and housekeeping.

The way the service will work is relatively straightforward: you (well, not you, because I hope everyone reading this blog is smart enough to give Amazon Key a pass) buy a particular Wi-Fi camera and smart lock. Once they’re installed, if you don’t answer the door, your friendly package delivery peon can contact somebody at Amazon HQ, who will remotely unlock the door. You get an alert on your phone and can use your phone and the camera to watch the peon put your packages inside. Presumably the door will lock again when it’s closed.

Amazon claims they’ll be vetting the delivery people. That’s nice. They also claim to vet the current delivery people. You know, the ones who park in the middle of the street and hurl packages over the fence. (A side note: since I wrote that post, I’ve seen several female Amazon delivery peons. Most of them were accompanied by males who were, unlike the women, not wearing any Amazon logo-bearing clothing. Does Amazon also vet those security ride-along people?)

Amazon also says they’ll be carrying insurance to cover you against delivery issues, property damage, or theft. That’s nice. They also explicitly warn against using the Amazon Key service if you have pets who might come to the door. So, clearly they don’t think the insurance will cover lost pets–nor do they want to deal with lawsuits from their gig economy, vetted delivery peons seeking to make the Big A responsible for their dog bites and/or allergic reactions.

But leave that aside.

Remember last year, when a researcher found that “twelve of sixteen locks he bought at random had either no security or absolutely horrible security“? I’ve seen nothing to make me think matters have improved in the last fourteen months. Granted, Amazon is better than many companies about issuing software updates to products they sell under their own name. But it’s not entirely clear to me whether the lock will be Amazon-branded, let alone Amazon-built.

Then there’s that camera. Look back another year, when reports were going around about baby monitors. At that time, nine out of nine popular baby monitors were found to have serious security flaws. Don’t think camera manufacturers have improved their security in the past two years: cameras have been prominent contributors to the waves of zombified Internet of Things attacks we’ve seen in the past year, beginning with last October’s Mirai malware-controlled mess.

But leave that aside, too.

Suppose everything works perfectly according to Amazon’s plan. Amazon is already a huge target for hackers. Do you think giving them the ability to remotely unlock doors will make them less of a target? Do you believe their security is that much better than, say, Target? Experian? Hell, a quick Google search should remind you that the National Security Agency can’t keep their own data secure.

As far as I’m concerned, a massive security breach at Amazon exposing the personal information of millions of customers is only a matter of time.

I’ll pass on Amazon Key, thanks. I hope you will too.

Good Job

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Bad commercials take a lot of flack here–all, IMNSHO, completely justified. But let me take a step to the other side for a change and direct your attention to a commercial that actually works.

You’ve probably seen it–if you’ve been watching the MLB playoffs, I know you’ve seen it.

It’s the Amazon Prime commercial with the dog and the lion costume. If you’ve managed to miss it for the last year, you can see it here:

Actually, that’s the Japanese version, but don’t sweat it; the US version is the same except for the language of the Amazon App seen briefly.

Whoever came up with the concept for this absolutely nailed it. It’s got a cute dog, a cute baby, and a sappy song. How could it miss?

Actually, it could easily have missed. But the ad doesn’t insult any of the actors–nobody’s egregiously stupid–or the audience. And it doesn’t try to do too much. If it had tried to push both the main point (same day delivery) and stress the incredible variety of things Amazon sells, it would have turned into a hyperjettic, crowded mess. Instead, it makes the point almost casually: “A lion costume for a dog? If they’ve got that, they must have the weird thing I want, right?”

The contrast is all the greater when you see the ad on TV, surrounded by ads for the Amazon Echo. Including the man who’s too stupid to put the lid on the blender and the woman who interrupts her busy day to gaze longingly at her motorcycle. Even the ad with the cat misfires: if your cat was staring into your fish tank, would your first reaction be to buy cat food? Well, maybe it would, but mine would be to put the cat on the floor, probably in a different room, before it tried to climb into the tank.

Interestingly, the ad started as a long-form piece, one minute and fifteen seconds, which you can see here. And the extra forty-five seconds absolutely ruin it. It loses focus and buries the message under a pair of not-at-all funny jokes. Cutting down to a thirty second spot saved it. More proof, as if we need it, that writing good fiction often requires you to cut the bits you love–William Faulkner called it killing your darlings.

Kudos to the Amazon Prime ad writer for that one perfect moment buried in all the dreck.

Logistics

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Amazon, we gotta talk.

No, not about your recent policy change regarding third-party book resellers. That is a problem, and we’ll have to hash it out over drinks one of these days.

But you’ve got a bigger problem on your hands right now, and it affects your entire site, not just your stranglehold on the publishing industry.

I’m talking about your delivery service, Amazon Logistics.

For the benefit of the people listening in to our little chat here, Amazon Logistics is Amazon’s effort to save money on shipping by cutting UPS, DHL, and the US Postal Service out of the loop. And let’s be clear here: Amazon doesn’t own fleets of airplanes and trucks, nor do they hire thousands of delivery personnel. The delivery magic is performed by commercial carriers under contract to Amazon, with much of the “last mile” delivery–actually bringing the packages to your door–done by contractors.

Yeah, Amazon’s delivery service is part of the same “gig economy” that’s working so well for Uber drivers and other non-employee workers.

As Amazon puts it, they’re looking for people who want to “deliver packages for Amazon using your car and smartphone.”

And that’s where Amazon’s problem lies.

See, the way it works is that they cram those cars full of packages. The smartphone app provides routing instructions, and at each stop, the driver has to find the package, scan it with Amazon’s app, and then bring it to the door.

This isn’t hearsay, by the way. It’s personal observation. My office overlooks my front door, so I see all the delivery people who come by, not just to our house, but to a half-dozen of our neighbors’ houses as well.

UPS, FedEx, and the other delivery services who use actual employees as drivers have the bugs worked out of their systems. When we get a package carried by these folks, it goes like this:

  1. A truck displaying the company logo comes up the street on the side where parking is legal.
  2. The truck parks at the curb,
  3. the driver gets into the back, finds the package,
  4. brings it to the door–often ringing the bell–
  5. then returns to his truck and drives off down the street.

Here’s how it goes for one of Amazon’s gig economy workers:

  1. A car comes up the street on the side posted with “No Parking” signs.
  2. The driver stops in the middle of the street (halfway around a blind curve, by the way), turns on his emergency blinkers, and opens the driver’s door.
  3. He then opens the back door and leans into the car, to search through the pile of boxes that reaches from the floor to window level.
  4. Assuming he finds the package–and he doesn’t always–he stands in the middle of the street while he scans the barcode, then crosses to the sidewalk, leaving both car doors open,
  5. throws the package over the gate (yes, I’m speaking literally: a heave, a toss, a hurl–pick your favorite word meaning a semi-guided flight through the air),
  6. before returning to his car, closing the doors, and sitting (still in the middle of the blind curve) while checking the smartphone for directions to the next location.

See the difference?

I won’t even get into the issue of anonymous cars cruising slowly through residential neighborhoods, though I wonder how many Amazon drivers get reported to the police as suspicious individuals.

I’m not even really complaining about the cavalier treatment of the packages, though I’ll admit to being irked. I’m concerned about the safety of the delivery guys* and anyone else driving through the neighborhood.

* Lest anyone accuse me of sexism, let me note at this point that I have never seen a female Amazon delivery person. I’m sure they exist, and I’d bet they engage in the same unsafe behaviors as the male delivery people.

So, yeah, Amazon? You really ought to look into how your scheduling and routing practices encourage unsafe behavior by drivers trying to squeeze as many deliveries into a day as possible. Do it before someone gets killed. If nothing else, do it because lawsuits are expensive. But do it.

Listen Up!

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I love the Internet’s response to new forms of advertising.

Specifically, I’m talking about Burger King’s recent attempt to hijack TV viewers’ cell phones and Google Home devices.

In case you missed it, BK ran–and is still running–an ad that deliberately uses the “OK Google” activation phrase to trigger any gadget in earshot to start reading the Wikipedia page about their Whopper burger.

The response? The page in question was almost immediately edited to describe the burger as “cancer-causing” and to list cyanide in its ingredients.

Allegedly, a senior BK executive tried to change the page to something more complimentary, only to have his edits removed.

So, yeah, I think that’s the perfect response. Google, who apparently were not warned about the ad in advance, modified their software’s response to ignore the ad. While I’m sure many people appreciate that, it does raise a few questions.

Let’s not forget that most of Google’s billions of dollars come from advertising. Suppose BK had come to Google and said, “Hey, we want to tie a TV ad to your devices. Here’s a stack of money.” Does anyone think Google’s response would have been “Buzz off”? I’m guessing it would have been more along the lines of “How big is the stack?”

And then there’s the privacy aspect. This contretemps should serve as a reminder that “OK Google” does not use any kind of voice recognition to limit requests to the device’s owner. Nor can the phrase be changed. I’ve complained about that before: not only does it lead to multiple devices trying to respond to a single request, but it also makes it simple for outright malicious actions.

Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft are equally guilty here–Alexa, Siri, and Cortana have fixed, unchangeable triggers too.

And now, perhaps, we’re seeing why none of the manufacturers want to let users personalize their devices’ voice interaction. If we could change the trigger phrase, or limit the device to taking instructions from specific people, then the manufacturers wouldn’t be able to sell broadcast advertising like this.

If the only way you can prevent random strangers from using your phone is to turn off the voice feature, then you don’t own your phone.

Microsoft is making it harder and harder to turn Cortana off. Microsoft is also putting more and more ads in Windows. Do you sense a connection?

How long will it be before you can’t turn Siri and Google off?

And editing Wikipedia pages will only get us so far in defending ourselves.

Google was able to turn off the response to BK’s ad-spam. But they could just as easily have changed the response to read from an internally-hosted page or one housed on BK’s own servers. Either way, Internet users wouldn’t be able to touch it, at least not without opening themselves up to legal liability for hacking.

The most annoying part of this whole debacle is that now I’m craving a hamburger. I won’t be getting one at Burger King, though.

Sorry

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My apologies for the later-than-usual post today. It was, I fear, unavoidable. But I’m sorry for the lapse and will endeavor to do better in the future.

As I implied last month, The RagTime Traveler is complete. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on in the way of writing. We’re deeply into the research and planning for our next collaboration. It’s much too soon to drop any hints about the plot or setting, but I will say that, like TRTT, this book is going to deal with matters we’ve both wanted to write about. In TRTT we wrote a time travel tale. In [Title Redacted for Security Purposes], we’re going to–. Ahem. For right now, I’ll leave it at “we’re going to scratch several itches.”

So I spent a chunk of the morning weeding the results of some plot brainstorming and researching a character we didn’t know we had.

16-1Then I got, well, distracted. See, yesterday afternoon, I got one of these. As we all know, the acquisition of a new gadget is a top priority. You have to make sure it works, right? Not to mention fix the inevitable problems you create for yourself by using it wrong.

Most of the problems have been solved. Assuming I can clean up the last few oopsies, I’ll be posting soon about what the gadget is and what I’m doing with it.

Enough excuses. Let’s move on to the actual post for the day.

According to Quartz, Amazon has found a new way to use technology to destroy civilization.

It seems that there’s a growing movement among parents who believe that Amazon’s Alexa is ruining their efforts to teach their children proper manners.

The problem, they say, is that Alexa doesn’t react like a human when you speak to it. It doesn’t insist that kids say “please” and “thank you” and it doesn’t get annoyed at the hundredth repetition of “Why?”

Alice Truong, the author of Quartz’ piece, points out that there’s a solid technical reason why Alexa doesn’t want polite phrases: “…extraneous words can often trip up the speaker’s artificial intelligence” and “In general, kids can be hard to understand—more so when it’s artificial intelligence that’s deciphering their speech.”

But Ms. Truong doesn’t mention the most important reason: Alexa isn’t human. Alexa is a tool designed to perform a specific function–answer questions–and like (almost) every tool, it’s designed to do it in the most efficient way possible. Imagine how annoying it would be if you had to click a “thank you” button every time your web browser displayed a new page.

Rather than worrying that Alexa is teaching your kids bad manners, how about teaching your kids that different circumstances require different behaviors? For example, running around the dinner table, screaming might be acceptable at home, but it’s almost never appropriate in a restaurant.

Similarly, thanking your waiter is almost always appropriate, but thanking a hunk of plastic is never mandatory and rarely necessary.

And, of course, apologizing to your readers is sometimes appropriate.