response 19 of 290:

Jan 19 21:51 UTC 2006

Re #18, last paragraph: The "dream" as so often articulated by
what-the-future-will-be-like "prophets" is that, say, your refrigerator will
notice when you're out of milk and tell you (or, in some versions, order it
automatically). Similarly, I heard (second-hand) a news story about a
university where the washing machines in the dorms are on the network so it's
easy to remotely see how close to being done one's load is or what machines are
currently free.