a shocking recommendation

As we all know, Amazon.com is meticulously optimized by hordes of marketing-statistician-whiz-kids grown in vats in Seattle and raised to focus single-mindedly on figuring out how to program their interface so as to use the information from your past visits to provide the absolute most optimal ads on the front page for what you might be convinced to buy from them next.

The other day, I placed an order from Amazon for a GPS device that I can wear on my wrist when I run, partly so I can't get lost when I stray off my standard loop and partly so I might have some better grasp either on how far or how fast I'm running. This is what was generated for me as the main advertisement the next time I visited Amazon:



Yes, Amazon seems to believe that so long as I've taken up running far enough that I need a GPS system, my next gadget fetish will be something for when all this running puts me into cardiac arrest. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Amazon.

Thank God my family did not have one of these in the house when I was growing up. Being a youngest sibling, I can guarantee you that if we did, I would be dead. The last words that I would have heard would have been my sister shouting "Clear!" to whichever friends of hers were holding me down.