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You may think you have many and varied reasons why some of the things I say boil your blood. You're wrong though, there's only really the one reason. Guilt.

In this world you either take the position that it is okay to do what you know is evil for $reasons or you do not. You do, I do not. You rationalize it away with as many layers of camouflage as necessary to obscure this from your conscious mind but your unconscious mind is not fooled. It knows you've chosen evil and it is not placated by your excuses. This is where the rage comes from inside you when I unashamedly speak the truth.

Only when you reject all rationalizations and excuses will you ever have the chance to be at peace with yourselves. A good fishing spot wouldn't hurt either, mind you.

You may now commence the guilt-fueled rejections of the truth I have just spoken.

The potential for scamming is reasonably high with any online market. I've liked Ebay for years now, because it usually enables me to beat competitors prices with a nice margin.

Recently, my OBD2 scanner has gone AWOL. The thing is pretty old, and pretty basic, it just gets the codes, and leaves you to figure out what they mean. So, it's AWOL. I asked my brainy son about a good replacement. Among his recommendations was the Autel MaxiLink ML629. It's not a super brainy device, but it does a little more than just read the codes. ABS brake alarms, airbag alarms, and transmission codes, as well as some kind of database to let you know what the codes mean.

I priced the thing as high as $160, Amazon had it for $129, and Ebay gave me about five hits for $109, with several other priced higher.

I didn't buy immediately. I just sat on the information for a few days. Went back to Ebay yesterday, and found that the particular sale that I "watched" had ended. So, do a search for the same item, and I'm faced with a wall of $114 sales.

Now, that price is obviously not "bad", but it seems suspicious that less than a week ago, there were five hits for $109, but now, the lowest "buy it now" price is $114.

Is Ebay running some kind of algorithm (like Amazon is purported to do) that establishes what I might be willing to pay, then gives me that price? It just seems odd, and oddities tend to catch my attention.

Possibly, they are trying to pressure me to buy now, rather than wait a few more days? "Oh, geez, it's gone up 5 dollar in four days, what will it be in five or ten more days?"

All of that, plus, I have an email in my inbox. "Your Ebay rock star report". WTF? Common dumbass television advertising tactics? Maybe that email is punishment for blocking advertising and trackers.

Is anyone else having weird and/or creepy experiences with Ebay? Are they beginning to go downhill?

An additional bit of weirdness:

In a different browser, using a different proxy, I did another search for the same item. There is a similar wall of offers for $114, but I'm also seeing others priced as high as $210, $199, $151, and $147. I'm definitely NOT seeing precisely the same results when using different browsers, or, more accurately, when I'm more anonymous.

I feel like I'm being gamed. Maybe not as badly as Amazon does, but the feeling is still there.

HOME / INSPIRING

NASA Is Training This 17-Year-Old Girl to Become One of the First Humans on Mars

Better than dying on the Space Shuttle, I suppose.

Begin the test by looking at this picture. When you're finished looking, read the spoiler below.

Today on this 214th anniversary of the historic duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton I have but one thing to say.

Ham shot first.

BEHOLD:

Search Google for Emmanuel Olusoji Ishola.

My intended move-out has been delayed somewhat by all the hookers and blow I've been availing myself of as a result of having received my check for my completion of the Fresco Logic FL2000 USB-VGA Adapter macOS function driver.

While my driver shipped to Fresco's OEM customers about a month ago, I don't think it's available to end-users yet. Once it is, I shall ensure that you sorry lot are the very _first_ to know.

ThorCon Molten Salt Reactor can be safer safe and scalable to 100 GW within a decade

Nvidia GTX 1180 to Use New High-Speed Connector: What You Need to Know

Quadrupling Wealth with a ten billion person Global City

Japan's Video Game Bars Are In Danger

14m2s video: TWITCH VICTIMS

Polygon article: Streamer Amouranth is latest example of ‘Twitch thot’ harassment problem¹

In summary (since you may not be arsed to watch a 14 minute video), (some... many?) girl streamers wear skimpy clothing and cultivate a fanbase on Twitch and other streaming platforms. People, mostly young men (or boys with the parents' credit card), shell out lots of money² to get attention from these streamers, despite getting far less for their money than what a camgirl would show off. The streamers are often accused of violating Twitch's terms of service by "accidentally" shaking their ass, showing major cleavage, actual nudity, and other on-camera mishaps (you can look for compilations of these on YouTube if you want). However, Twitch tends to overlook these infractions (which are lucrative for Twitch since scantily-clad girl gamers drive traffic and Twitch gets a cut of the stream's ads or revenue), while punishing males more regularly for their bits of nudity and terms of service violations, sometimes including things that are done/said on entirely different platforms.

In this case, the streamer repeatedly lied on camera to portray herself as single, fueling the fevered dreams of her fans. She also revealed that she lived in Houston, TX (making doxxing her an easy task), and filmed inside of a gym (identifying it, since it was getting phone calls) and lied about it to the gym's employees and manager until she decided to leave. None of this is justification for being harassed or really so bad at all (lying to grift some horny kids and acting like an asshole in a private establishment aren't exactly crimes), but after being called out on her deception by fans and apparently harassed/"doxxed", she found a ready-made ally in the form of a lazy gaming media outlet.

^{1. Polygon appears to have made itself resistant to archive.is, but not archive.org.}

^{2. Apparently, lots more money than I expected. One of Amouranth's fans donated about $10-13k. Yikes.}

Why you should care: You don't have to, but it's another fascinating look at how millennials make a buck online these days.

Similar drama:

Pewdiepie vs. Twitch streamer Alinity

TanaCon (one big unmentioned detail is that the venue was intended to hold about a thousand, not the ~5,000 that tickets were sold to, so the event was doomed from the start and there are layers of lies involved)

Come to think of it, I keep on forgetting that Twitch is a subsidiary of Amazon now.

Scarlett Johansson’s Casting as Transgender Man Draws a Backlash

Scarlett Johansson faced a storm of criticism this week after it was reported that she would play a transgender man in a movie, a year after she drew scrutiny for taking on a role that was originally Japanese.

The newly announced film, “Rub & Tug,” is based on the real-life story of Dante “Tex” Gill, who ran a string of massage parlors that were fronts for prostitution dens in the 1970s and ’80s.

The online backlash was led by transgender actors, who argued that such casting decisions take opportunities away from members of marginalized communities.

[...] The actress faced further anger online after the website Bustle published a statement from an unidentified representative for Ms. Johansson that said, “Tell them that they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto, and Felicity Huffman’s reps for comment.”

Scarlett Johansson faces firestorm amid news she will play a transgender man

Trans Actors Slam Scarlett Johansson Rub & Tug Casting

Scarlett Johansson's Defense of Her New Role as a Trans Man Is Only Fueling Critics

Scarlett Johansson

Guy,

Detaining and separating families at the border isn’t just horrific – for some tech companies, it’s profitable.

Microsoft is one of those companies. They sell Azure, a cloud computing service that does everything from file storage to facial recognition, to ICE and make millions – $19.4 million to be exact – off of ICE’s deportation machine.

Tell Microsoft to divest from ICE immediately and to quit profiting off of deportation-industrial complex.

When the news hit that families were being separated at the border, and children were being held alone in cages at secret ICE facilities, Microsoft was quick to walk back their role in equipping ICE with technology. But make no mistake, they touted that their Azure service was “mission critical” to ICE’s operations.1

Now Microsoft wants to distance themselves from ICE’s cruel detention policies, but that’s hard to do when they’re making millions off of Trump's inhumane immigration crisis.

If Microsoft is truly morally outraged2 by ICE’s actions, they’ll walk the walk and cancel their contract with the agency and stop profiting on deportations. Tell Microsoft to divest from ICE immediately.

Thanks for taking action,

Reuben and the team at Watchdog.net

My reply to Reuben:

You guys are deluded. Microsoft and Evil Corp are synonymous. Bill Gates worships the Almighty Dollar, and so does the corporation he founded. Like IBM before them, Microsoft would have collated data for Adolph Hitler and his Third Reich.

Besides which, I approve of detaining unwanted invaders at the border. If you insist, I suppose we can throw the kids into the same prison in which we detain the adults. Your call.