Thoughtful comment, plus routine annoyances...

---"Waiting for Eden" is a special book.  This short and sparely written book is far more powerful than its size.  Sentences can be so perfectly written as to stop a reader in their tracks.  The author, Elliot Ackerman, is multi-tour veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  The narrator is "just on the other side, seeing all there is, and waiting".  Eden was his fellow soldier and friend who survives a Humvee detonation, and the narrator watches his friend's wretched ruined life in a hospital while his wife tries to comfort him.  Not an appealing book to read?  That was my first thought.  Glad I ignored that first thought.

---Facebook's ad pop-ups have become incredibly annoying.  Am I wrong in thinking that the number has been expanding rapidly.  There are so many that are unrelated to me at all.  Targeting?  Logging onto FB at my desktop once or twice a day, opening up leads to a succession of annoyances that make thinking about doing what was intended almost impossible at the start.  Facebook sells these ads.  If my observation has any relevance, the companies that pay for them may be disappointed.

---Speaking of pop-ups, have others experienced on other sites ones that advertise something that has just been purchased?  Is that trying to sell you more or eliminate cognitive dissonance?  I have no need for more Jockey boxer briefs nor do I question my usual purchase.  Ever since an online order a few weeks ago, my free online access to my hometown newspaper has pop up ads seeking my attention for their products.  This is becoming Orwellian.

---My iPhone now has a revamped, or updated, spell check system that starts guessing words faster than I enter them.  On completely routine sentences it is successful at times but more often it just slows me down and, yes, the word "annoying" is again appropriate.  This is relatively new.