Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 03, 2021

You’ve been microchipped, Goat.

We thought George Orwell was being paranoid, now he looks like Nostradamus!

Always good planning a trip to Italy: Sicily in this season is wonderful. Wine, good weather and archeologic sites. Piazza Armerina’ “Villa del Casale” is very nice.

But every town or village of my country is beatiful.

Since when does the CIA do business with travel bureaus?

to Rat: Where do you want me to start.. A to Z, Number Order, Time and Date, or Court Records?

That is why I occasionally search for things I would never buy; anvils, banjos, surfboards, haggis. It is kind of funny when ads for those things start showing up.

Paranoia is a healthy survival strategy.

If I was Goat, I’d hit rat with that plate.

If one is under constant surveillance one is a prisoner.

It’s not just those so-called “smartphones” that can spy on you. (Ask me why I won’t own one…) Those horrid “smart speakers” are notorious for listening in on everything one is saying. Same with “smart TVs.” In fact, ALL IoT devices, “smart”-anything, are likely to spy on you. Likewise, all of the newer cars send all manner of data about you and what you’re doing & even saying to some mothership unknown to you, or me, which then does who knows what with that data. It’s called “telematics.” Cute. Ask me why I drive a well maintained 18-year-old car that doesn’t do that.

With a bit of work and know-how, my computer can at least be configured to minimize or even eliminate nearly all spying. I haven’t seen a targeted ad in years if ever.

A few weeks ago I asked someone to pass me a Q-Tip, the next day I got an online ad, that I’ve never seen before, for a reusable ear swab. Creepy.

Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant are always listening.

Isn’t that right Clippy.

Say nice things and speak carefully to your phone otherwise you may be very, very sorry.

I believe Alexa does that!

Just one of those things that get your goat, eh Goat?

Mr Goat isn’t paranoid, they really ARE out to get him.

I’m planning a trip to Virginia early next year. Maybe Elon Musk can sponsor my trip on the down low…ELON! MUSK!! (worth a shot)

No wonder I keeps seeing ads for picanic baskets.

This happens to me!

Alexa, do you work for the CIA? I can’t answer that Dave….

This strip scared me, as only last night I was talking about planning a trip to Italy. Who do you really work for, Pastis???

Fifteen years ago my daughter told me ‘people’ were listening to our cell phone conversations and I didn’t believe her.

Mark Zuckerberg watches your every move. He controls broadband.

The same technology that allows you to order via your web assistant. “Converting private conversations to sellable data for over 20 years.” No, citizen, you do not need to know the name of the company.

Yup.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a grocery store looking through the door of the cold case at coffee creamers, which I don’t even use. Didn’t touch a thing. At checkout, one of the coupons that spat out was, you got it, for coffee creamer. May be coincidence…or may be scary.

I picked up a magazine in a book store but put it back deciding not to buy it. The next day I has an ad for that same magazine. Now you can say that the tech companies are spying on me or that my picking up the magazine and consider buying it was not the first time I have expressed interest in what the magazine was about.

I work at a grocery store and one time we got a new product in and on my next break there was an AD for it on Facebook.

See AMERICA first

Maybe I should get an iPhone 6. Something that does the job without all the secret microphones.

We, here at your cell phone company, value our customers privacy. We, in no way, know where you are, where you’ve been ,or what you’re doing. By the way, your gas tank is low, your dog is hungry and you left your basement window open…

Aah yes Goat the naïve lil follower of government. I’ll side with Rat and his alleged paranoid because I’ve had this happen to me numerous times.

Peese lets me be in da next streep

PEESE HAVE MES IN DA NEXT STREEP

On my phone I use Opera as my web browser and on your computer use some kind of Advertising Blocker that you get as an extension for free on Chrome or Firefox to avoid seeing ads. Or use Opera I guess on your computer. I am always open to suggestions!!!

Guess Rat cut down on Facebook.

Seriously has happened to my husband and I! We were on a walk talking about uber drivers and thinking about a side hustle. Within hours hubby started getting targeted adds about uber drivers wanted! Our phones were in our pockets even! craziness!

My daughter told me that there’s a way to find out and read all the conversations that Alexa has recorded. A friend of hers was shocked to find out how much they knew about her.

Why do Q-nuts worry about being tracked by a vaccine? They’re already being bugged 24/7 through their phones!

Happens all the time to Us, We talked about buying a Screen Door to help with X ventilation …Boom Facebook Ads for Screen Doors in a hour. Spooky Sheet

For some unknown reason, I’m being inundated with bra commercials online. I’m female, but I’m certainly not doing any searching, etc. If the algorithms were that smart, they’d figure out that not only am I not looking for underwear, I am not amused by obese women dancing around in their underwear. I have my mirrors to see that sight.

Unlike the oath new medical doctors make, corporations would never sign a statement which says “first do no harm.”

I literally just had this happen. My wife and I were talking about planning a trip over xmas, and the next day I got email ads from AirBnB for that time and location. With NO searches.

You hit that one out of the park.

I disabled the “Hay Google” part of my pixel phone. I don’t need it listening to me. I noticed the battery lasts longer now

It’s not paranoia when people really ARE out to get you!

The dream police, they live inside of my head!

The dream police, they come to me in my bed!

The dream police, they’re coming to arrest me! Oh no!

There are two parts to this, sometimes the ads are targeted to you and are directly related to things you have done online. Other times, the ads aren’t targeted and you are noticing them more as a result of what is occurring in your life. I saw an ad for a particular brand of wine the same day I did a taste test of that wine at the store. That could have been some ultra surveillance that cross referenced which store I was at and what wine samples they had that day, or it could have been a random ad that I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t tried that wine that same day.

Sort of like after you buy a new car, you start to see that car everywhere around town.

What can the internet do that a rural “party line phone” couldn’t do??

Started getting ads for a company we’d bought wine from after I picked up the long-emptied box to repurpose it.

Don’t forget there are three letter acronyms (government agencies) that are collecting all of your electronic data and storing it in a recently completed underground data storage facility in Utah!

How is Correleone this time of year?

I’m a big fan of “DuckDuckGo”

Rat speaks like he knows he’s being watched.

I’d like to travel somewhere foreign but there are two problems: 1) the pandemic and 2) my passport is about to expire in a few months.

Rat, you are driving Goat around the bend! —Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

Not only that but they can influence American politics and are definitely biased!

One last time: I want a Gretsch Country Gentleman!

This happens to my wife all the time.It totally freaks her out. Happened to me while we were driving home from a wedding reception recently. We were talking about a male guest who kept gesturing females to dance with him like John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever, when suddenly my phone blurts out the definition of gesturing using your hand.

There was nothing said like, “Hey Google…” to prompt such a response from the phone. I powered the phone off for the rest of the trip home.

I prefer America