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Software Eats the World?
I’m told software is going to eat the world very soon now. Everything already is, or will be, software based. To some folks, this sounds completely wonderful, but—leaving aside the privacy issues—I still see an elephant in the room with this vision of the future.
Quality.
Let me give you some recent examples.
First, ceiling fans. Modern ceiling fans, in case you didn’t know, don’t rely on the wall switch and pull chains. Instead, they rely on remote controls. This is brilliant—you can dim the light, change the speed of the fan, etc., from a remote control. No unsightly chains hanging from the ceiling.
Well, it’s brilliant so long as it works. I’ve replaced three of the four ceiling fans in my house. Two of the remote controls have somehow attached themselves to two of the three fans. It’s impossible to control one of the fans without also controlling the other. They sometimes get into this entertaining mode where turning one fan off turns the other one on.
For the third one—the one hanging from a 13-foot ceiling—the remote control sometimes operates one of the other fans, and sometimes the fan its supposed to operate. Continue reading