I was having difficulty with a DVD I had bought from a public domain movie vendor on eBay. My finicky old General Electric DVD player flatly refused to recognize it. “That’s because those older players won’t read burned DVDROMs,” a friend sagely told me. “You should get a newer DVD player.”

Finally I got fed up with it and went downtown to shop for a newer model. As I was heading for Best Buy, I noticed a new electronic shop had opened in the strip mall next to it. I decided to stop there first—Best Buy pricematches to 110%, after all.

The shop decor was gleaming silvery metal, like the whole thing had stepped out of a Star Trek movie, and electronic appliances of brands I’d never heard of were sitting on display cases. The man behind the counter smiled when I explained my problem.

“Oh, yes, you want the HyperDVD 9000. It plays absolutely anything.“

Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the strange gleam in his eye when he said that…