Re: Long way around the barn!
I recently stayed in a "pod" style hotel room that promised a level of technical sophistication for the social media generation - this would normally be enough to keep me at a safe distance, but the alternatives were at least double the price. The lights were all controlled by a glass panel on the bedhead which managed simultaneously to be touch-insensitive to fingers, but extremely responsive to the nearby motion of head on pillow.
While you could disable the lights completely by removing the key card from its wall-switch captivity, it was a little tricky to find it again in the darkness of a winter night, particularly since the room offered by way of accessible horizontal surfaces only the floor and a narrow shelf from which everything was destined to fall into a small crack between the bed and the wall. And of course, if I had been of the social media generation, I would have been devastated to find that the ability to sleep in uninterrupted darkness was directly and negatively correlated with the ability to charge my phone and tablet (and those of my imaginary partner) from the single USB point that the double room offered as an incentive to "leave your chargers at home".
And almost none of the promised "exciting" digital TV channels actually worked, which is perhaps just as well as I find it increasingly difficul to rise to the challenge of being "excited" by a stream of advertisements interrupted by people with alarmingly unnatural teeth.
And it was clear from the flecking of the grouting and sealant in the bathroom that the cleaning staff were having great trouble fighting the mould that resulted from putting a high-intensity "rain" shower into a poorly-ventilated space the size of a telephone box.
Oh, and the deadlock on the door didn't actually marry up with the keep on the jamb. But being purely mechanical, who was going to be interested in that anyway?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
