Tech Museum of Innovation - Missing Exhibits
(Originally posted 4/99)

As most of you know, the new Tech Museum (www.thetech.org) just
opened in San Jose and it's a pretty cool place, but if they
REALLY wanted to capture life in Silicon Valley, they should have
included some of the following:

1. The Unreasonable Expectation Work Week Simulator: Ever wonder
what it's like to work 80 hours a week? You can now experience
blurry vision, diminished reaction time, the health effects of
eating nothing but Doritos, and the heart-racing excitement of
Jolt Cola addiction with the Unreasonable Expectation Work Week
Simulator! Hey, who are those strangers claiming to be your
family? They're just part of the mysteries you'll experience at
the Tech Museum!

2. The "Find Help At Fry's" Cyber-Challenge: Don your Virtual
Reality goggles and take a tour in the Valley's favorite
electronics chain! Your challenge: find someone who can help you.
It's not as easy as it sounds, though. If you do find someone,
you still have to somehow get them to make eye contact! And once
you get help, the challenge isn't over! You still have to avoid
the "Let me get my manager" monster, endure the perpetual
"Humans as Cattle" cash register corral, and make it past the
paranoid door Nazi without getting a body cavity search! Youch!

3. The Valley Fair Mall Parking Space Scavenger Hunt: Your
mission: get in our car simulator and find parking at the
Valley's most congested mall! Extra points for finding a space
within a one-mile radius of the mall itself. Next year we hope
to make this scavenger hunt even more challenging when we violate
the laws of conservation of mass with the addition of the Town
and Country Monument to Bad City Management!

4. "Sell or Die"!: Kids will learn valuable lessons playing this
interactive game designing and marketing superior, technically
advanced products that fill a niche and meet a need. But wait!
The fun is just starting! It's time to play "Sell or Die"! Kids
get to choose whether they will let themselves be bought out by
the "innovative" Microsoft, or whether they will resist the
urge and have their product undersold by Microsoft's inferior
competing products! The fun is in seeing how long you can last
in the face of unfair marketing practices. The last player to go
bankrupt paying their legal bills wins! Extra points for kids
who survive long enough to testify in front of the Justice
Department!

5. Mr. Jobs' Wild Ride: Get in your Apple Stock Rocket and
experience the wildest roller coaster ride of your life! Just
when you think the Rocket is about to hit a wall, swerve wildly
and unexpectedly to one side and avoid certain death (for now)!
And the best part is, your fate is completely in the hands of one
all-powerful and unpredictable hippie-turned-power-player-turned-
exile-turned-interim CEO for life! And look out! The Larry
Ellison Hot Wind Machine will try to blow you off course! You'll
lose your lunch on abrupt policy changes, and scream your lungs
out as you free-fall on the final Mac Clone Maker Betrayal Drop
of Death! Riders can then regain their composure looking at the:

6. San Jose Mercury News Wall of Premature Apple Obituaries: Get
up close and personal with Valley history by reading over 15
years of stories lamenting the imminent death of everyone's
favorite fruit company! With all that circling, don't buzzards
ever get dizzy?

7. The Silicon Valley Virtual Commute Race Course: You have two
hours to go 15 miles! Think you can do it? Well, buckle yourself
into our simulator and give it a try! The Tech Museum offers
several racecourses to choose from: Try the "880 Endurance
Course"! Hey! You finally made it past the Winchester Mystery
Puddle at The Alameda on-ramp, and you're finally up to 25 mph!
You'll make Brokaw Road in no time. But look out! 101 merges
into 880 AND the freeway goes down to two lanes AT THE SAME TIME!
Who designed this nutty course? Or try the "17 Face Off of Doom"!
You're behind one truck in the right lane going 21 mph. The
truck in the left lane is going 20.5 mph! Calculate how many
hours it will be before you can pass both trucks! Or try the 680
"Trail of Tears"! You've got to make it from Pleasanton to
Fremont with only one full tank of gas! Sound easy? Don't forget
the inept Caltrans contractors who block off lanes for no reason
at all!