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"Bureaucracies hide their mistakes, because people's careers are tied to those mistakes. Therefore, bureaucracies are a perfect mechanism for perpetuating mistakes."
- Frank Herbert

Kitchen Korner  
  Just exactly what futurists say you're going to get, like or not, in a refrigerator.  

The future is not all it's cracked up to be; many of the people in it, not to mention the appliances, have cracked up already.

He got up. The Kitchen Korner, sensing him, woke. The fridge door slid aside. A single ancient leaf of lettuce sagged blackly through the plastic rods of one white shelf. A half-empty bottle of Evian on another. He held his cupped hands above the lettuce...

"Hey there," the fridge said. "You've left me open." Laney said nothing.

"Well, do you want the door open, partner? You know it interferes with the automatic defrost..."

"Be quiet." His hands felt better. Cooler. He withdrew his hands...the fridge taking this opportunity to close itself without further comment.

From Idoru, by William Gibson.
Published by Putnam in 1996
Additional resources -

Sure, a refrigerator that talks back to you. How smart does a smart fridge need to be?

This piece of technovelgy neatly anticipates and pans the classic Bluetooth-enabled refrigerator (circa 1999) that was going to revolutionize our lives.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Idoru
  More Ideas and Technology by William Gibson
  Tech news articles related to Idoru
  Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson

Kitchen Korner-related news articles:
  - Talking Washing Machines Are More Accessible

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