Its a Digital World

It’s a Digital World
By: P. Gordon Kennedy
Copyright 2009
You wake up one morning to the sound of your new digital computerized alarm clock and when you shut it off, it says “Are you sure you want to wake up?” After giving it a “yes,” you head for the kitchen to make your morning coffee.
You command “Coffee pot on!” and the coffee pot replies by saying in its monotone electronic voice “Are you sure you want to turn the coffee pot on?” After replying with a “yes,” the coffee pot says, “You just turned the coffee pot on.”
While the coffee is brewing, you do your business in the digital bathroom, but when you pull the flush handle of the computerized digital electronic toilet a message comes on the toilet’s LCD screen. It reads “Are you sure you want to flush the toilet?” Using the toilet’s mouse, you click on “yes,” but then the message on the screen changes to “The toilet is not responding.” Grabbing the lithium-ion battery powered electric plunger, you plunge away until the toilet finally responds with “Glug, Glug, Glug.”
Proceeding to brush your teeth with your electronic toothbrush with internet access, you hear a loud and clear voice announce, “Do you want to prevent tooth decay right now? Then you want Tooth Power! The new toothpaste with quantum mechanical nanotechnology to protect your teeth. Buy Tooth Power! Now!!”
Finishing brushing your teeth, you prepare for your morning shower. After turning the water on a voice with all its monotone glory announces “You just turned the water on. The temperature is one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.” About two minutes later when you are all covered in soapy lather, the same monotone voice announces “The water heater has stopped responding,” as you feel yourself plunged into ice.
Getting out of the digital bathroom, you return to the kitchen to drink your coffee and watch the morning news on your one-millimeter thick flat-screen television. Grabbing the remote, you attempt to switch the TV to the proper channel, but a message pops up on screen “Are you sure you want to change channels?” After hitting the “Yes” button, the morning news finally comes on.
Finally, you are ready and you leave the house for work. On the way out, the door asks you “Are you sure you want to lock the door?” “Yes,” you reply and head for your computerized car where you must talk it into letting you drive to work. The car politely reminds you “Your driver’s license expires in two years one hundred forty-eight days fifteen hours and thirty-seven seconds.”
When you arrive at work you are greeted by the soft monotone voice of the building’s computer saying, “The elevator has stopped working.” You proceed to climb the stairs to your office on the fifth floor and start your work.
After your long monotone workday is over, you head back to your car and again convince it to let you drive home, but when you are almost back, a friendly monotone electronic voice calmly says, “The steering wheel is not responding.”
In a panicked state, you yell, “Stop!” and the car screeches to a halt. A half hour later, you get the steering wheel to respond again and finally get back home. You say to your door “Open!” and it replies politely “The lock is busy right now please wait.” Another five minutes and you finally get the door to open.
Immediately, you head for the digital bathroom and this time the toilet responds perfectly, but your toilet paper dispenser yells at you “You have only two rolls of paper remaining; enter your credit card number to buy more now!”
Glad to have another glorious digital day behind you, you head for the living room to watch TV. Of course, the TV constantly asks you if you are sure you want to change channels and the volume always quadruples when the commercials come on and the TV flat out refuses to change channels when the sponsor is sending you an “important” message…. “Buy our stuff!!”
At last, you return to your bedroom to sleep. You set the digital computerized alarm clock to wake you up the next morning, but before retiring from the digital world for the night, the alarm clock has one final question for you, “Are you sure you want to sleep tonight?”

I love it! Nineteen eighty-four becomes twenty eighty-four. I can just picture it and I'm glad I won't be around to see it!

That makes two of us. Great story that makes me wish it was stll 1946.

Liked the story Gordon.
Guess I'll have to buy a mirror that asks: "Are you sure you want to see yourself?"

Dick Stodghill wrote:

That makes two of us. Great story that makes me wish it was stll 1946.

1946 was before Alice--I prefer after Alice!

Oh those questions, you get the idea that somehow the technology just does not trust you to make choices.

That story is so true I can imagine the future turning out like that.
Nice one mate.

Thank my laptop and Windows Vista for inspiring the story. I got inspired to write this after my laptop sent me the wonderful message "Windows Vista is not responding!"

2084? In 1984 we had a copy machine installed that had a voice. We had a copy person whose sole job was to make copies for staff and take care of the machine. She was from Brazil. The machine and the copy person were behind some partitions.

It started with quiet Portugese. Then it became louder with longer sentences. Finally, it was annoying the staff members and a little embarassing to hear if one had visitors.

You see, the copy lady was fighting with the machine man. "I already removed my original!" "You just want to make more money; the toner is not ready to be replaced." "I just loaded the paper and it can wait for more." "I am not going to cancel the settings; I like them." Of course, this was in Portugese, interpreted by another staff member. I have left out the expletives.

We disconnected the "man voice." Everyone was happier, especially the lady at the machine. She won. She fired the man in the machine.

Smart girl.

Great post and comments.

I'm not so sure that making everything in this world dependent on digial electronics is a good idea. If everything's dependent on computers, just one large electromagnetic pulse from a large solar flare or a high-altitude nuclear blast and its all gone and society implodes. I think there should always be analog non digital and non electronic backups for systems and data.

I think there are small groups of people who used to call themselves "survivalists" who keep in their homes the necessities of life for just the situation you suggest could occur.

10/25/2009

P. Gordon..

It's amazing all the things invented
in the last 50 years...The one item that amazes me is
the DVR , you can record while watching another
program and store old films ( Turner Classic Films) until
your ready to watch. Many times I noticed late at night
great films are on at 2, 3, 4,5, Am , who's going to stay
up to watch, that's where the Cable's DVR comes in, you
can watch at your leisure.....

Cheers...Joe

AAh the DVR, yes even such a device that contains a computer chip and hard drive suffers from the old freeze ups and crashes.

Anything digital always seems to end up in a situation where it needs to be rebooted (re started) and then it's alright again.

Maybe just maybe if we could only just reboot the world....................

I guess going over to an all digital world is both good and bad. It can make our lives more convenient and fun, but it can also annoy us ("Windows Vista is not responding") and putting all your eggs in one basket is never good, no matter what basket it is.