When a computer decides you must choke to death
Perhaps you are skeptical about the notion that computers will, one day, actually control us.
Perhaps you might imagine yourself to be a little dependent on your digital friend but not to the degree that it tells you what to do.
Perhaps, however, you have never stayed at the Hotel Monte Mulini on Croatia's Adriatic Coast. Please allow me to explain.
I am currently in Rovinj, Croatia, home of the Weekend Media Festival. The festival has speakers from companies such as Google, MTV, and Nokia and, well, there was this one speech Saturday titled, "Why advertise when you can Twitter?" given by a bald chap you might know.
Rovinj is one of the most beautiful secrets in all the world, a place of such breathtaking charm and beauty that you simple do not want to leave. And the organizers put the speakers up at the aforementioned hotel, which seems to have dedicated itself to computerized logic.
You don't have to put your key card into a slot to enter your room. No, you wave it at a control panel and your door opens like that of the haunted castle in a horror movie.
In your room, there is another control panel that switches lights on and off and generally monitors the look and feel of your environment, including what temperature you are allowed to enjoy.
It seems as if the computer has decided that you will only enjoy temperatures of 21 degrees centigrade (70 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher.
I don't know about you, but I like things to be a little cold indoors when it's hot outside, so I asked the nice man at reception whether I had misunderstood something about the control panel. What, indeed, did I have to do to make the room colder?
Ah, he told me, the computer system would like me to agree that 21 degrees is the optimum temperature. But he promised to reprogram it specially so that my room could be colder.
I skipped back to my room and pressed the "down" button on the aircon control. Nothing. Computers take some time to reprogram, don't they? I sat in hope. And, well, a little sweat.
I went to bed, believing I would be waking to a cooler environment. Still nothing. So the following morning, it was back to reception.
"Oh, the computer is still not allowing you?" said the man at the desk. "I will speak to maintenance."
Did I detect the sort of raised eyebrow on his head that said: "You, sir, don't realize who's calling the shots here"? Perhaps.
But as I write this Sunday, it's been three days. My computerized control panel still drifts between 21.4 degrees centigrade and 21.7 degrees centigrade and there is a little crustiness around my mouth after three days of hot, dry, conditioned air.
As I walk to the bathroom, I find myself bowing to the control panel, hoping that, somehow, it will agree to make things cooler. I also find myself thinking whether the man on reception is human and whether there is such a person as the maintenance man at all.
Is this the beginning of the end? Or the end of the beginning?
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
The more important issue here is if stuff like this crosses over from a hotel's practice which can be fixed if it becomes a nuisance (as they'll lose business to the competition) to a compulsive system enforced by gov't.
And lest you think that's some paranoid fear, realize that San Francisco already requires new developments to include thermostats with a link to some central Ministry that can override the local settings if it thinks whatever temperature the subjects have it set to is unacceptable.
Our own Dear Leader gave a speech several months back where he said we can't just be "allowed" to set our thermostats to 70 or whatever we want (not sure who's doing the "allowing", but I'm guessing it involves permission from Nancy Pelosi for any decision in my life).
If you could have just lived with 70 degrees we would have been spared this article and the world would have been a better place.
I lived through the summer of rolling blackouts in California and it was not fun. If it takes some central ministry to stop that from happening again, let there be such a ministry.
He also says "open the windows" which is a pretty stupid thing to do if its hot outside.
Computer: I can't let you do that Dave.
Chris: My name's Chris.
Computer: That's what I said Dave. Everybody is Dave. You will be Dave soon. Very soon....
also, he is at a hotel, yes you are the guest, but you do not control the reality of the building. which in this case, management thought to find an optimal temp for a majority of the guests, and contains costs of electric usage.
Back when the late Patrick McGoohan was making the original "Prisoner" TV series, there was much speculation (including within various episodes) about the location of "The Village." The real one -- where location footage was shot -- was on the Welsh coast, but the fictional one could have been in one of several places, including the Adriatic Coast. We were never told, exactly. Perhaps Mr. Matyszczyk has finally found it.
however, even though setting a thermostat below 70 degrees in the summer is pretty ridiculous I have to stop just shy of the environmental whacko PC-ness above. I also enjoyed the lamp tip below - too funny (and true).
furthermore - not EVERYONE is comfortable at the same temperature. There are those who prefer their ambient room temperature to be a bit warmer, others prefer a bit cooler. This is not an "American" thing, it is a HUMAN thing. My comfort zone is a bit cooler because I have breathing problems, heat exacerbates these problems, and being in a room that is too warm for me could actually cause respriratory distress. Hence, this sort of difficulty while staying in a hotel could actually choke me to death, if nothing were done to fix the room temperature.
I know that the blogger was just using this to make a point, and I agree that we need to conserve energy in any way we can, but I'd really prefer that didn't require me to stop breathing...
Seriously? I wonder why I still come here if half the articles are like this.
- by budeverett September 20, 2009 2:24 PM PDT
- Every person has a different comfort zone for temperatures. There are narrow-minded people who think what makes them comfortable and happy, should make everybody else comfortable and happy, too. You may be very comfortable at 75F, but if you insist that everybody must be comfortable at 75F, that is being selfish. There is a disturbing trend in America that government should make decisions for everybody and control what people can do or can't do. More and more people seem to prefer to have a totalitarian government. One point of this article is that computers give a government the tools to control people.
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- by jonshf September 20, 2009 3:30 PM PDT
- Nations with an ignorant population tend to accept totalitarianism.
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- by plbyrd September 21, 2009 5:43 AM PDT
- Actually, that's not true in Florida. Their policies on the matter are rather Draconian and FP&L has way more power than should be allowed (and I'm not talking physics).
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (88 Comments)BTW, chances are that your water heater and air conditioner are not hooked up to some central control panel, as somebody else suggested, unless you are part of a volunteer program. There is no mandatory requirement for these hook-ups.....yet.