Ask it where I live!
When I was at school in the 70s the school had one computer - a Digital PDP8-f. A few of us were really into it, and for speech day we were given the task of demonstrating it to parents who had wandered as far as the maths block.
We wanted it to look impressive, so we set it up with the lights on the front blinking in groovy patterns, the teletype clattering away, the VDU endlessly solving 'The Towers of Hanoi' etc. We were delighted with the results.
Eventually one mother came in, immaculately dressed, trotting along on high heals, and with a cute, pale blue wide-brimmed hat, which she'd probably worn at Ascot. She took her time looking at the whirring contraptions, then finally said:
"Ask it where I live"
We mumbled some reply about it not being Mystic Meg, and after she left we fell about with gleeful scorn. How could anyone be so thick??! For years afterwards I used this story to illustrate the vast gulf between the expectations of people who understood computers, and the great unwashed.
But suddenly we have phones with things like Siri. You say "Siri, where do I live?" and it tells you. It even shows you on a map.
1-0 to the muggles!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
