[…] the Spouse scavenged and sold scrap metal for a fistful of lire, ate horse meat without censure and lugged straw baskets home from the neighborhood osteria, where chianti flowed from spigots.

Surveillance capitalism is a human creation. It lives in history, not in technological inevitability.

The Margrave of Bruges was their head.

Here’s where all Wiseacres, Fuss-budgets and cryophobes (cryophobia, morbid fear of cold) get off. The remainder of this talk is for the young ones, who, because they know no more about it than I do, do not bother their heads about avoiding exposure except as a matter of their own personal comfort.