Drifting on a sea of indecision

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M.C. Escher | METAMORPHOSIS II (1940)

The “Etruscan werewolf” refers not to a shapeshifting beast but to a daemon-wolf—a liminal spirit between life and death in Etruscan belief. With a human body and wolf’s head, this being symbolized restless souls who had died violently or without proper burial.

Depictions appear on tomb paintings and artifacts like the Pontic Plate (c. 520 BC) from Vulci, showing a clawed wolf-man with gold bracelets among mythic creatures. To the Etruscans, the wolf embodied twilight and the passage to the underworld—a guardian of death and transition. Unlike modern legends, this figure reflected the spirit’s unrest, not transformation.

theflowerhat on ig

Road to Niseko tokyu grand hirafu and biei blue pond.

The last one (acquired sometime in 2012) finally died, so it was time for a replacement. The new model 105 is the cheapest one they make but by golly it's an upgrade in every conceivable way.

However.

The startup/unpacking procedure has changed. Where, before, you just charged the thing for 8 hours then turned it on... now you gotta configure it:

download the app

create an account & login

connect Roomba to the app/internet

use the app to configure Roomba

use the app to designate "forbidden" areas

use the app to schedule Roomba's start/stop times

Etcetera. Upon unboxing it I was >this< close to returning it, because nowhere was it stated on the web store that the app was REQUIRED to utilize the small floor cleaning robot.

But then I had an idea.

I set New Roomba down and pressed the Power button, without installing any apps or connecting it to wifi. And you know what?

IT STARTED CLEANING

It bumbled around the house mapping everything itself and did a marvelous job, without my having to do any of the recommended crap in the Quick Startup instructions. And without configuring its wifi there's no way it's sending data to iRobot's servers. Yayy.

I have installed exactly none of these apps, and have connected exactly zero of these appliances to the wifi.

They all work fine.

Like seriously 99% of my dishwasher cycles are "auto" and the remaining 1% are "express", neither of which I need an app for. Allegedly the app can tell me when the dishwasher needs more rinse aid but so does the little red light on the display. Which is handier than the app because the rinse aid lives in the cabinet next to the dishwasher and so when I see the little light I fill the rinse aid and am done, instead of an alert on my phone stressing me out everywhere and impinging on my brain.

The washer? 95% of what I was is cold water on the colors cycle. The rest is towels in hot water or delicates in cold water. Sometimes I get fancy and delay the towels an hour so it's not competing with the dishwasher or the shower for hot water. None of that needs the app. Allegedly the app can tell me when the washer is done but so can a timer I set to the wash time handily displayed when I start the washer, and that doesn't send any data to the manufacturer.

Honestly I don't even know what the stove app does because I can do fancy things like "turn the oven on in 3 hours" without it.

Yes, it is incredibly shitty that these all have apps now and that some features are app-only and that we are all pushed to give up more and more of our control and privacy in order to feed the gaping maw of corporate "profit". HOWEVER. Sometimes you can still just not.

Side note: polonium-210 is a very dangerous isotope, however it "does not pose a radiation hazard when kept outside the body", as the alpha particle it emits have very little penetration power and cannot pierce even the outer layers of dead skin. It has still killed countless people, though, not because of children's rings, but because of tobacco. Polonium latches onto and concentrates in tobacco leaves, leading to heavy smokers being exposed to more radiation than survivors of the Chernobyl disaster.

the kissy kissy <3