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may appear to take when they malfunction. Your computer screen may start fading in and out or flickering frantically because of some electrical spark or virus. Your HDTV may spit and the picture may disappear for several seconds or even minutes in the middle of a great football play. Robotic arms have had occasion to malfunction in the past, flailing a factory worker to death, but of course, we've worked those bugs out of things now or have we?

Let's look at an average day in the life of the techno-slave:

He is startled awake by a digital alarm clock's shriek or perhaps some acid rock blaring in his ear and probably already has the coffee pot pre-programmed to start brewing each morning. Dragging his feet to the shower, he clicks on his shower radio to hear something a little more pleasant. Then he probably plugs in his razor and has a nice shave, provided by the nice, hot lather machine that heated his can of shave cream.

He grabs a piece of toast from his electric toaster, smearing jelly on it as he heads over to his computer, he logs on, checks his email and responds appropriately then downloads his favorite music into his iPod or iPhone. He quickly "synchs" his hand-held device, while reading a few lines from the on-line version of his morning paper and dresses for work. In minutes he is out of the door and into his computer-controlled car, pressing the button on his automatic garage door opener, automatically adjusting his heated seat to a comfortable driving position and heads off to work..

Pulling into his office parking structure, he has to get out his ID card so that he can park, sticking it into the reader and quickly pulling it back out, he watches as the

arm raise. He drives through. He's parked on the fifth level, so he takes the elevator down to his office floor while chatting on his iPhone, exits and sticks his microchip key into the opening of his office door reader. The door swings open and he begins his day picking up the paper from the floor that has fallen from the fax machine's overloaded tray. The last three faxes didn't print well, he has to change the toner on the machine and email the senders that their faxes didn't come through so they can re fax them. This wastes all of the first hour of his workday.

His secretary pages him to, "Pick up on line 4". He speaks to the customer whose order was incomplete, because when they ordered on-line, they pressed the "Submit Order" button one too many times because of the company program's

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