When Tech Goes Bad

Years ago, when the doomsday prophets were panicking about running out of IP addresses, people talked about giving every appliance, and even every doorknob, an IP address.

Frankly, I don't want my doorknobs on the internet. I suppose it could be nice to know if a door was open or closed, especially if it opened when nobody was supposed to be at home, but sooner or later this would result in the cops sticking a gun in my wife's or my face when one of us came home unexpectedly.

And I really, really don't want hackers locking me in my bathroom. Or worse, out of it.

 

On an unrelated note, today I invented the USB fork (an eating utensil with a USB cable).

Perhaps "invented" is too harsh a term here. I conceptualized it. Actually, the phrase just popped out of my mouth. It was a half hour later that I began to ponder the many uses of such a 21st century device. Frankly, all I came up with was that if you were using your laptop or tablet as a hot plate, the USB cable would tether your fork to it so that if you dropped your fork while walking back from the couch to the kitchen for seconds, it wouldn't hit the floor.

In other words, USB forks are pretty pointless, but cool in a total computer nerd sort of way.

Look for them on ThinkGeek soon. After that, USB spoons, USB knives... but no USB ladles. That would just be silly.