Dear Dr. Eldritch,
    Three months ago, my husband Wade and I bought a computer-controlled "House of the Future." All the appliances are centrally automated, from the furnace to the coffeemaker. It's voice-interactive, and Wade insists on the sultry female "Victoria" setting. He says it's friendlier than the others (I suspect he's turned on by it). At first this just made me roll my eyes, but it gets worse.

Weird things have been happening. The microwave runs, but my food stays cold. When I was removing a fork from the garbage disposal, it switched on by itself. The lights went out as I was halfway down the basement stairs, and I almost fell. When the computer responds to me, it's the superficial politeness of a stuck-up sales clerk who doesn't think I'm worthy. Of course, Wade's never around when these things happen. When I tell him about it, he gets all sulky. He thinks I'm making it up because I don't like the automated features. I feel like I'm constantly being watched, and it's creeping me out. I want to feel safe in my own home, what should I do?

-- Sophie, in San Jose

Dear Sophie,
   Although we're well into the Third Millennium, life is not like the Jetsons, and your situation is a perfect example of why that's so. Your house has bugs, but not the sort that can be exterminated with insect spray. One might blame the original engineers and programmers, but managers and marketers make these breakdowns happen. Desperate to beat the competition, they push products to the market, forcing technical teams to rush designs, take shortcuts and release software without testing. The resulting structures are inherently weak, and tiny errors, that might otherwise only cause the refrigerator to order too many eggs, drive the artificial intelligence mad. Electronic systems gone insane are prone to obsession, and you're becoming the recipient of a multi-megahertz jealous rage. Those little annoyances are going to mature into a 220-volt Bathtub Surprise. The only consolation you'd have is that this techno-insanity would eventually turn from obsessive love for your husband to seething hatred, and his remains would be found protruding awkwardly from the garbage compactor. A tragic end to this twisted love triangle, indeed.

So what does one do when an automated marvel has developed a personality, fixated on your husband, and is just a few computer logical steps away from deciding that everything would be better if you were eliminated? Two 12-step chat-rooms for insane computers are on the Internet (one for Windows, one Mac), but exchanges tend to be micro-second bursts of posts ending with each computer deciding that the others are a bunch of losers. You could try uploading a psychologist application, which could coax your main computer into working through those feelings of hostility and validating your relationship with Wade. These solutions are probably "too little, too late." You need to take direct action.

When you arrive home after dropping Wade at the airport for a business trip, park your car under the garage door to give yourself an escape route. Head for the central control in the basement, blocking doors open as you go. Pull the phone line and switch the main circuit-breakers off, jamming them so they can't be turned back on. While Victoria is running on battery backup, fight your way through her punitive assaults (alarms, sprinklers, power appliances, etc.). Crawl under the garage door (which is probably slamming repeatedly on your car in a vain attempt to trap you), and you're "home free," so to speak. She'll shut down extraneous functions in an attempt to conserve energy, but eventually her flashing lights will fade and she'll become just a ghost in the machine. Have a service technician reboot the system to a bland, personality-free setting and remove the other options. Sure, Wade will sulk for a while. Let him buy a big-screen TV and he'll quickly forgive and forget.

Ironically, this could all be prevented if the engineers would just provide an emergency "Off" switch. They probably suggest it, but their managers always say, "Why? What could possibly go wrong?"

Good luck, and let me know how it comes out!

-- Dr. Eldritch