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A quote: “Our mobile phones have become the greatest spy on the planet.” ~~ John McAfee
I’ll start with a story …
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Nothing drives some people crazier than other people who ignore them.
And if they get on your neighborhood HOA?
What set him off? No idea. I love gardening, the house looks great and even my trash bins are neatly stored. But week after week I get some notice of violation – something that takes time out of my day to write up a response, with pictures, showing they were full of … of
I see him behind curtains, watching.
1 am, dressed in black, tie wraps, ankle knife and duct tape.
He has no idea what I did before I retired.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Cameron says: As someone who has had to deal with an HOA whose incompetence was close to the level of “malice,” I approve of this story. sigh Now to see if I can do better.
Cameron says: Mom and dad bought me the camera as an eighteenth birthday present. I loved photography and had even saved up some money for top of the line photo editing software. I got an idea to use the fast shutter feature on random things and upload them to a photography blog after making some cool edits. I shot nothing scandalous. I was really careful to not show anyone doing anything compromising. Those photos got deleted without a fuss. And then one day, my shots got some attention.
Which is why I’m in the Witness Protection Program at the age of nineteen.
Darleen Click says: Ooo! I like!
Dupin says: “Was it really him?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “It was your crush of the century.” Crush du jour is more like it, but in this case, a famous celebrity, so my favorite introvert wouldn’t just go up and say hi.
“And you took pictures?”
“Oh yeah. From behind the shrubs, just like you wanted, so I wouldn’t look creepy or anything.” Like that worked.
“Let’s see.”
“Here’s the first picture.”
Café, but wrong table. Flicking through them, none were him until….
“He’s staring at the camera.”
Yep, he was. Off-angle and barely in-frame, but I got him.
“I hope you’re happy.”
Looking back, I think the Sharp Resistance‘a biggest asset wasn’t the hackers of Silicon Valley, or even Leonid Gruzinsky and the Sparta Point fighters. Instead, it was the digital camera.
When I was growing up, taking pictures was an Event. You had to have your camera with you, and once you took the pictures, you had to get them developed. If you wanted to put them on a website (once those were around), you had to scan the prints.
But a digital camera means you have your pictures the minute you take them. Bad composition? Bad lighting? Delete and shoot again. And with a camera in everyone’s cellphone, it’s always available — and it’s a DVR too. Broadband Internet means you can stream straight to the cloud and make your video available to everyone.
Big Brother may be watching you, but now a million Little Brothers and Sisters are watching back. How the Flannigan Administration always hated it when some citizen reporter posted a clip exposing their lies, their abuses of power. The lapdog media could call Spartan‘s Own a gang of terrorists all they wanted, show deceitfully edited video that made them look like the villains in yet another false flag operation — but within an hour someone would have video refuting those claims.
Even after the Expulsions shifted the center of gravity of the Sharp Resistance to the Moon, citizen reporters with their cellphone cameras and even the occasional pro-grade digital camera continued to make matters difficult for the Administration. Every day the newsroom at Shepardsport Pirate Radio would post new photos and video on their website, refuting this or that official statement about what was going on back on Earth. Captain Waite, the settlement’s commandant, sometimes even used citizen reporter video in his messages.
In the end, they simply couldn’t stop the signal.
Navig8r says: Another bunch of hard acts to follow.
Navig8r says: “You have a creepy neighbor over there.”
“That’s just a plastic mockup. It’s a statement. There is a real camera though. While we more privacy minded were on vacation, the security committee decreed internet enabled doorbell cams and extra cameras with interlocking fields of view to cover the blind spots. If you look behind that bush over in my corner, you will see a pervy looking scarecrow with binoculars. Grinch with his telescope over across. One family has the Mad Magazine Spy vs Spy characters.
“Won’t the HOA jump all over that?”
“Not for a while. We’re the appearances committee.”
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