Some things we read these days just force us to let out a long, ragged sigh. Take, for example, this ZDNet article about Microsoft's push into the so-called "embedded systems" world. The idea here is that just about every kind of electrical appliance in existence could benefit from an integrated, on-board computer-- not necessarily with disk drives and a keyboard and all the standard personal-computer-type accoutrements, but some kind of solid-state processor and memory with enough logic to improve the user experience. Like, your toaster could scan your fingerprint when you push down the lever and automatically adjust the darkness setting to suit your preferences; you like your bagels light and your wheat toast dark, but your spouse likes everything a hair short of actually catching fire. Get the idea?

So Microsoft's making inroads into the embedded operating system market, and that's where the long, ragged sigh comes in. The article leads off with "A Windows-powered gas pump or networked refrigerator may sound more like science fiction than fact." Actually, to us it sounds more like a frickin' horror story. Our fridge works. Our dishwasher works. The absolute last thing we want to do to them is replace them with new ones that rely on Windows to operate properly. "Hon, the fridge blue-screened again-- all the Popsicles melted." Or watch a divide-by-zero error turn your dishwasher into a glass-breaking, dish-cracking appliance from hell. Then there's the dryer that shrinks all your clothes, the hot tub that boils you alive, the blender that leaps off its base and goes for your throat, etc., etc., etc.

Remember, Bill Gates's own house is run on Windows NT, and he admitted years ago that one night he couldn't get his bedroom TV to turn off. His solution was to cover the screen with a towel and go to sleep. Is that the kind of architecture you want in your coffeemaker? You know, with Apple striving to be the Sony of the computer world, maybe it's time it tried to be the Maytag, too... we'd feel a lot more comfortable buying a microwave oven with Mac-based technologies driving the logic than one built on Windows.