Browser Feed Sources on Crack

There was a bear rescue in Russia. I think. A mama bear and
two cubs were stranded in the water. The problem is I may never know how the
story turned out because I got too irritated to complete reading it. Like
everyone else, I typically flip through the feed of stories on my browser, but
I rarely click to read things from sources I’m not familiar with. Because I
know what could happen. But I’m a freaking sucker for stories about animals, so
I took the bait and clicked this one open.

They parceled the bear story out a few sentences at a time.
Each tiny installment was surrounded by dozens of ads literally placed all
around the words. To keep reading the story, I was forced to click to go to the
next page and search through the ads for the next lines. Rinse and repeat. And
again. And again.

I hung in there for a remarkable amount of time. The writer
ended each short installment of the story with an enticement to keep reading!
The installments came with pictures, but I got the sense that some of them were
fillers, not even related to the story, but just a picture of a boat in the
water, on the way to the rescue site!

Why do you do this! It’s a turnoff! This is ad placement
gone amuck. I hate sites that do this. For every ad running on these pages –
most all of which I actively ignore, they have paid money. They are all playing
the lottery hoping someone spies just that something-something that interests
them at a particular blink in time.

(Hmm. Kind of like this blog on twitter. Maybe I shouldn’t
complain? And God knows I love to play the lottery…)

I’ve got to know what happened to those bear cubs. I’ll
google it and be right back. Okay, a slightly less annoying article explained
that the rescue in Russia happened two years ago. A mother bear dropped the
cubs off her back as she swam off, having underestimated the conditions of the
lake. A ship saved the two bear cubs and dropped them off on the island where
the mother bear had successfully swum to. The end.

The big google machine in the sky and Russian hackers now
have further intel that they can reach me by showing animal rescues stories. But
for the life of me, I can’t figure out how they’ll use it against me. Are the
republicans or democrats closing national parks? Making endangered species okay
to hunt? If I see those claims out there placing blame on a specific party
should I believe them?

They know I’m weak. Right now, someone is out there is
plotting an algorithm for use against me and my ilk who share this particular Achilles.

And they were Russian bears, too. Coinkidink? Hmm. Why is
the world so complicated? All I wanted to do was see bears saved and now I’m
building a bunker. Argh!

The post Browser Feed Sources on Crack appeared first on Annabelle Lewis Books.