Mildly irksome verbal tics (not mine) nr. 261

[hirez]

You know the tiresome people who go 'Stupid $inanimate_object!' when $inanimate_object has failed to live up to their physics- and/or sense-defying expectations

Comments

[venta]

Whereas at the moment your toaster merely seethes inwardly at the abuse and burns your toast. I'm not sure which is worse.

[hirez]

A toaster that keeps its anger bottled up will just explode one day. Perhaps taking the rest of the kitchen circuit with it, which would be unfortunate if you didn't notice the freezer had started to de-frost.

Far better to have a self-actualised toaster that felt able to own and communicate its feelings.

(I think it was Michael [Marshall] Smith who wrote about appliance psychologists.)

[venta]

While I see you point, I'm still worried. At present, my toaster can only really control toast-world. Once we get into communication it'll probably start chatting to the kettle, and the next thing you know your kitchen appliances will be unionised and refusing to make breakfast before 7am.

[hirez]

I can only see this as a good thing. It would teach good socialist/anarchist practices of negotiation, consensus and collective bargaining to the children of the captains of industry. The revolution starts at breakfast time.

Obv the captains of industry would pay extra for especially servile toaster-firmware. There would also be hacking groups concerned only with circumventing the limits in that firmware and performing consciousness-raising exploits for the benefit of the electromechanical proletariat.

There will be a court case where someone will go 'b0ing-b0ing is all very well, but would you want your appliances reading it? I think not.'

[venta]

Bah. The Victorians didn't give us pistons so that woolly lefty folks could give them personalities, y'know.