{"id":30008,"date":"2017-03-20T11:46:34","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T18:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/?p=30008"},"modified":"2017-03-20T12:13:55","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T19:13:55","slug":"life-in-the-microwave-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/20\/life-in-the-microwave-lane\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in the microwave lane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The dog is just because.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

After a scattered and exhausting weekend, I woke up today to a long email from a friend that reminded me of the connections between freedom, creativity, and spiritual strength. I breathed deeply, grateful for the message. I resolved to refocus.<\/p>\n

My resolve lasted until I went to give the critters their breakfast and discovered the microwave was dead<\/a>. I ended up focusing on DIY repair sites for a while.<\/p>\n

Along the way, I ran into this snarky article, “How to Turn Your Microwave Into a Camera.”<\/a> The title of the just-posted Advertising Age<\/em> piece is a joke, as well as another snotty media slap at a member of the Trump administration (because you know the Trumpists are ignorant, evil Billy-Bobs and Bobbettes who deserve to be called on every misstatement, while the Clintons and Obamas and their minions were brilliant, refined, educated leaders whoe never made a single error, had a scandal, or put a single foot wrong in their combined 16 year reigns).<\/p>\n

Anyhow. You can’t turn your microwave oven into a camera. You’ll just have to wait for next year’s model of “smart” microwave, I suppose.<\/p>\n

But I was struck by the writer’s all-too-familiar attitude: <\/p>\n

First and foremost, if you are a normal person who does not have a professional security team ensuring your privacy, and you are targeted, you cannot hide. There are countless legal and illegal ways to watch you (assuming you’re interesting enough to be watched), and you will not know you are being watched until someone makes use of the surveilled material. Get over it. As Ms. Conway suggests, “that is just a fact of modern life.” If you’re wondering what these mysterious “countless ways” might be, type “surveillance” into Google and read through some of the 186 million results. This may have been her point. If it was, she was just fear-mongering. Very few people are interesting enough to be watched.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Get over it.” Sigh.<\/p>\n

I tell myself this is Advertising Age<\/em>, the voice of all the well-paid voices of consumerism. Consider the source. These are the people who’ll write the TV spot to sell you next year’s camera-bearing microwave after telling you this year that you’re ridiculous for even considering such a notion. Still “get over it” seems pretty much the common attitude these days. Or rather, “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it, anyhow.” <\/p>\n

But anyone making the claim that “very few people are interesting enough to be watched” so seriously underestimates what’s being done to us — and what’s being done to the last tiny shreds of privacy and the alleged republic — that I wonder how, with their tiny brains, they can manage to string sentences together well enough to get paid. Yet the author of the piece haughtily castigates Kellyanne Conway for her<\/em> ignorance. Pot, meet kettle.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I am not going to DIY my microwave. So if you want to try experimenting with turning it into a camera, it’ll be sitting on my front lawn with a “free” sign on it. Grab it before meth heads haul it away for its scrap value. March being my designated Month of Frugality<\/a> (which has otherwise been doing quite well, thank you), I’m not rushing off after a new or new-used one, either. <\/p>\n

Somehow — somehow — I expect I’ll survive without one until the month is over. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The dog is just because. —– After a scattered and exhausting weekend, I woke up today to a long email from a friend that reminded me of the connections between freedom, creativity, and spiritual strength. I breathed deeply, grateful for the message. I resolved to refocus. My resolve lasted until I went to give the critters their breakfast and discovered the microwave was dead. I ended up focusing on DIY repair sites for a while. Along the way, I ran into this snarky article, “How to Turn Your Microwave Into a Camera.” The title of the just-posted Advertising Age piece…<\/p>\n

Continue readingLife in the microwave lane<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,14,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-insanity","category-dogs-and-cats","category-home-improvement","category-privacy-and-self-ownership","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30008"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30016,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30008\/revisions\/30016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}