Bruce Sterling gave a remarkable, inflammatory, hilarious, confusing, terrific speech at Computers, Freedom and Privacy in San Francisco. It's a Sterling classic:
So, I went to my hotel room here. Very nice,
perfectly acceptable. It has a bedside digital clock that
was never reset for daylight savings time. There's even
digital media on the hotel TV. Did anyone else notice
Channel 19? It's supposed to be showing a promotional DVD
for San Francisco tourist sites. But it's a scratched
DVD. So there has been a scratched record, repeating the
same 5 to 7 seconds of video, around the clock, in this
hotel, all week. DVDs really suck. When they
malfunction, the visual damage on the screen is just awe-
inspiring. Why several hundred computer experts at CFP
never complained to hotel management about this stuck DVD,
that is beyond me. I mean, it is a commercial DVD, so
maybe they were afraid of being prosecuted under the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But come on! How long
has this thing been malfing? Maybe it's been screwed-up
ALL YEAR!
