In preparation from my retirement - and I have no intention of retiring, but you never know when events are thrust upon you - I have been looking through the Terms and Conditions of some things I am expected to sign. Apple EULAs, no. What’s the point. But when my Brother printer-scanner asks me to approve the terms and conditions, my curiosity is elevated.

The printer is about ten years old, and I use it for scanning. The scanning software updated. The EULA looks about like this:

Baal and all his hosts of demons, hereafter referred to as the Company, shall, at its discretion, gather the following types of information about your printer: make, model, means of connection, ink levels, DNA of user, paper type, hours of operation, bank routing numbers of user, decibel level of warning beeps, percentage of jobs concluded, complete genealogical forensic comparison of DNA to Interpol databanks, and time of use.

I exaggerate slightly. It wanted to know everything about the machine and how it performed.

Well, we all can answer that. You’re a printer. You’re a miserable piece of technology that doesn’t seem to have made a single improvement in 15 years. You have a tray that’s supposed to catch the printed pages but you spit them to the floor. You drink ink and pretend you’re parched like a man crawling across the desert when there’s still a quarter-tank full of cyan. You can’t print black and white if you’re out of yellow, which is like someone unable to speak English unless he can think of the words in Croatian.

Now the fun part. If I open the printer software, it may send me to a website and assign a unique ID.

This will be set down in the annals of Google Analytics:

Well no you won't be doing that.

Don't worry, though, because they're not going to do anything at all with anything. It's all you you can upload images to The Cloud, aka your own Google account, via the sofware! You want that, right? The Cloud! The CLLLLLOWWWWD

You can, of course, opt out of Google Analytics. They make it very easy with a one-click tool, and it's not at all phrased to make you think twice:

This is like asking someone to stop looking in your bedroom window, and he says “fine, but be warned, you’re granting me permission to paw through the wife’s undie drawer.”

I assume they want to know how the printer’s operating. Here's the project manager reporting to the top brass:

"Well, we have the data, and it seems that the printers are reporting a variety of failures. The accelerometers seem to indicate they are prone to levitating, traveling a short distance, and making sudden, abrupt contact with a level surface."

“What does that mean?”

“People are throwing them out of the window. Our recommendation is either A) improve the quality, or B) equipped each printer with a tank of epoxy glue, so it automatically adheres itself to the surface of the desk.”

“B sounds good. Anything else?”

“Yes, the boys down in the print-head alignment department have come up with a new test sheet; it’s fuzzier than the rest, and require an electron microscope to detect whether the lines are all correct. And we’re almost done formulating the new ink; it’s made of saffron, ambergris, and the spittle of an endangered Peruvian lark, so we’ll have to raise the price again.”

Yes, yes, I know: buy a laser printer, they’re great. But I don’t print that much, and I have a deal with the company whereby they send ink only when the printer needs it. For a monthly subscription charge, of course; can’t have enough of those. I justified it by cancelling a streaming service and printing off reviews of all the shows I wouldn’t have watched anyway.

There’s something very 2024 about bad tech that wants to read your private files. No one wants it. No one asked for it. No good accrues to the consumer. It’s like my watch asking me if I fell down when I clap a friend on the back, and offers to dial 911 if I don’t say I’m okay. There’s no option to say “I am suffused with the warm glow of bonhomie. Sod off.” It’s like my car disabling my accelerator pedal because someone cut in front of me - do you think I’m going to lift my right foot and shoot him the middle toe? I got this.

It’s 1923.

This . . . is a story. And what a regrettable headline:

		Uh . . . poor guy, I guess, but really?
		The war made this guy a murderer, the story suggests.
		The story.

Eventually we get around to the victim:

The scene:

Recreated by newspaper artists:

“She’ll be back in three years, and the Bible is wrong.” This is some full-strength stuff:

The family:

Their store.

		The witnesses:

One more thing: The house is in my neighborhood. I pass it every day. I always think about this. Almost a hundred years gone, and I think about it.

That'll do! Is there cellophane?