I recently purchased an Amazon Echo thingy, mostly because it was dirt cheap on Prime Day, and because I thought it would be cool to be able to ask “Alexa” to play music, order coffee, inquire about ingredient measurement conversions without getting my phone covered in flour, etc. My husband refuses to call the thing “Alexa,” so I programmed it to respond to “Computer” so he could feel like Captain Picard. Or Kirk. (But I prefer Picard.)
Anyhoo, despite that “wake word” customization, I’m the one who uses the Echo 95% of the time. But yesterday evening while we were cooking dinner, I walked the mister through how to ask “Computer” to play his Lefty Frizzell station on Pandora and adjust the volume with voice commands. I think even he would admit the thing was handy. But in the wee hours, “Computer” turned into an instrument of terror.
I’d dozed off on the sofa while watching Great British Bake-Off reruns. It has been stormy as hell around here, and during the night, we lost electricity briefly. It turns out that when “Computer” loses connectivity, it alerts its owner in a LOUD, BOOMING VOICE that the connection has been lost. (To be fair, the volume was way up because Lefty Frizzell.)
I didn’t understand the words spoken by the sudden voice in the dark void, but it caused me to leap up from the sofa, arm myself with a wooden decoy duck from the coffee table and scan the room frantically for a brazen female home invader to clobber. This in turn caused my dogs to leap up and bark hysterically at nothing, as it dawned on me what it was. Jesus. The good news is, the mister slept through the whole thing. (He’s a goddamned log, the lucky bastard.)
I was still feeling a bit foolish about the voice in the dark void incident this morning, until I saw this:
Imagine being that person — a pit of need and insecurity so bottomless that you had to construct a towering cathedral of self-regard to hide the awful hole, transforming yourself in the process into a monster incapable of recognizing that other people might have a legitimate function apart from worshiping you. The mind reels. “Computer — more bourbon!”
dp
Another Lefty Frizzell fan! I am more archaic, though, depending on CD’s/
Hunter Gathers
Cry me a river, you Orange Bitch.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Per the Village’s Code of Political Etiquette, do these people still hold Real American status?
germy
Hats off to the balloon-juice commenter who said MAGA means “My Attorneys Got Attorneys”
LAO
I needed a good laugh, thanks Betty.
I too ordered one during prime — watching the dog freak out every time it speaks, has been so worth it.
Villago Delenda Est
This creature is vile. I do not wish death on him. No, I wish a slow, agonizing death on him with him fully conscious the entire time.
donnah
Let’s see, we have his slam at “fake news” and his slam at “dying magazines” so we know he’s feeling the sting of criticism. I think he’s expecting that by waving the flag of Texas, he’ll generate good will and admiration from the victims and the rest of the country, what with his presidentin’ skills and all.
Such a tool.
JEC
My Android phone’s wake-phrase is: “Skynet, do me a favor.” Feels strangely natural….
The Moar You Know
Best show ever put on the television.
LAO
@Villago Delenda Est: On the other hand, I wish him a very long life — filled with humiliation and contempt — as he is confronted daily with his total and abject failure as president.
Butch
We have yet to even get a cell phone; I can’t imagine how far off our purchase of “Alexa” will be.
Major Major Major Major
I like our Echo Dot. I use it to tell me the forecast each morning when I’m picking out clothes, and sometimes the Spotify playlists it comes up with are funny. “Alexa! Play cleaning music!”
As for trump, fuck him, I’m on vacation
schrodingers_cat
I will be honest, I have T fatigue. If I don’t ever read one more word about him, it will be too soon.
LAO
@The Moar You Know: Seconded. The contestants are the nicest people. I find it soothing.
hitchhiker
Politico has a fun story this morning about doing a Pittsburgh focus group that was made up of a mix of voters — meaning, not the usual Hey Let’s Ask Dummies If They Still Love The Big Dummy situation.
It’s worth a minute if you can stand Politico.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/29/trump-pittsburgh-focus-group-242158
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
He ain’t fully conscious now so I doubt impending depth will sharpen his perception abilities. Whatever his fate, speed it the hell up.
Roger Moore
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Only the steelworkers. And yes, I realize there isn’t any steel industry worth mentioning in Pittsburgh these days.
Doug!
I’ve resisted getting one of those in part because I hate the idea of calling it “Alexa”.
Sab
Wow. Even front pagers have issues with their electronic devices. Now I feel human, instead of merely inept.
I didn’t think I was a jealous person, but I feel twinges when spouse is joking around with Siri.
alhutch
Betty, even before your provided link (thank you), it was always Picard. Patrick Stewart is just a great human being. Shatner, not so much.
Oatler.
@Doug!: But it must have a female name so we can imagine a slender chambermaid, far younger and less doughy than we ourselves are!
different-church-lady
Nobody every learns.
bemused
Betty, I think you may have posted a hilarious tweet with image of stiletto shoes with web feet, ala Melania. Cracked me up but now I can’t find it.
What a horrid way to be woken out of a deep sleep. I’m a bad sleeper so I’d be so pissed off knowing the odds I’d get back to sleep were slim to none.
debit
I have several Echo Dots and love them. I bit the bullet and spent a small fortune on smart bulbs and plugs for hard to reach or remote areas and can’t imagine going back to regular bulbs. Yes, the bulbs are expensive, but will last for years and I don’t have to walk into a dark room just because the switch is on the other side.
@Major Major Major Major: The playlists are awesome.
Frankensteinbeck
@alhutch:
I am reminded about the story of when Wil Wheaton just got his Star Trek job. He’s a starry-eyed fan, and hears Shatner is filming something in the next studio. Goes over to get an autograph, and Shatner refuses him, saying he doesn’t have time for loser fanboys (I forget the wording, but it was cruel). Wil is crushed. Roddenberry goes to Wil’s changing room, asks what’s wrong, and hears the story. Roddenberry says “I’m sorry, I thought you knew. Bill’s an asshole.”. The next day, Wil receives a signed apology letter from Shatner.
Mike in NC
Pathetic man-baby only wants to be loved. Sad!
Mar-A-Lago cannot be eaten by a sinkhole soon enough.
Amaranthine RBG
Does anyone know what’s actually going in re the transgender ban.
News broke yesterday about Mattis “putting the ban on hold” until he convened a panel of experts. Several stories I saw spun this as a rebuff to Trump.
But other stories today said that Mattis was just following orders: transgendered people are immediately barred from enlistment (Mattis procedure does not change that) and all Mattis is doing is studying how to deal with/discharge those already enlisted which was contemplated by Trump’s order.
Cant figure it out.
Frankensteinbeck
To the OT, I am uncomfortable talking to Siri. She’s not smart enough to answer most of my usual question, and not quite alive enough for me to enjoy her responses.
Aardvark Cheeselog
In my moments of insight I realize that Trump must be an indescribably miserable person to be.
bystander
Thanks for the laugh, Betty. My other half can’t remember “Alexa”. It’s fun to let him try out a variety of Al- variants before correcting him.
We do like the music options but forget saying any foreign words to it. So no Trenet, Lai, Aznavour…
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know & @LAO: I love GBBO so much! Not sure why it’s so compelling — maybe because it’s not a cut-throat competition like most American shows. I don’t think the new version will be as good. :(
@bemused: Here you go.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@hitchhiker: The Republican dude said that Reagan wasn’t a politician? He was the fucking Governor of California for 8 fucking years.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: yeah but before that he wasn’t!
Most people are dumb.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: It won’t be, I agree. Paul will turn that show into shit. He has poor people instincts. It’s a shame because he obviously is quite talented at the baking part.
It’s just amazing to watch people competing with each other who are nice about it, praise each other, and try to help each other out. They could not have made that show in the United States, it would be nothing but backstabbing and assholes jockeying for the most camera time. I found it incredibly relaxing and reassuring, while still exciting enough to watch. Turns out you can make a good TV show without sex or violence or even people being jerks (David Attenbourough can do that too).
Shantanu Saha
I’m thinking of getting an Alexa. Will it play audiobooks from my Audible library?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@hitchhiker: Except for Lowry and Shafer, Politico is for the most part now legitimately good. (And I linked to it upthread). And the piece is both far more useful and less infuriating than the “we STAND BY OUR ORANGUTAN” chickenfucking typical of these profiles (in particular that Guardian piece interviewing Phoenix MAGAsshats).
Amir Khalid
@The Moar You Know:
Actually, his wildlife shows do have some sex in them. It’s a part of life for other animals just as much as it is for us humans.
Frankensteinbeck
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Look, Reagan made him feel like he could not possibly be racist for his racism, and that people like him ruled the country politically and socially with no opposition. It must have been a golden age, and he wants to go back to it. That is Reagan worship in a nutshell.
Bruce K
He wants to “MAGA”. I want to be an astronaut. Our respective wishes are beyond our respective skill sets. The difference is: I know my limits.
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA: They are loving the stricter immigration enforcement, they love T alright, they are just upset that he is embarrassing them with his ineptitude.
People fucking think it is easy to immigrate to the United States. They have no idea what getting even a tourist visa entails.
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck:
Alexa is the same. They are all more like Google with voice recognition. They don’t really understand what you’re saying; think of it in terms of picking the right keywords to unambiguously define what you’re looking for.
gene108
I am a bit overwhelmed by the pace of technological advancement.
I am also troubled by the fact that they now have a “smart” SleepNumber bed, “smart” refrigerators, etc. It is only a matter of time before our appliances, beds, etc. achieve true sentience and murder us all in our sleep (especially the beds).
We are just setting ourselves up for letting robot overlords rule over us.
rikyrah
@Amaranthine RBG:
He really has 5-10k troops to throw away?
Really?
rikyrah
@gene108:
See..see…
You get it….
You understand ..
Come sit by me as we watch in horror.
SenyorDave
If I had the chance to ask Trump a question that he had to answer in a serious way, I would ask him this:
Give me a timeline that shows when America became great, and then stopped being great. Tell us why it stopped being great.
I always thought the Democrats should have been pounded him with ads asking him to identify when America stopped being great, and explain why.
Gelfling 545
@bystander: We get a modest chuckle out of hearing mapquest pronounce local place names: Cheektowaga, Tonawanda ( Town of Wanda?), Scajacqueda.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: eh, nature (including humans) has been murdering us in our sleep for millennia.
Cermet
@SenyorDave: When it stopped being great – a black man was elected President; it was great again – he the orange fart cloud was elected dolt45
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@rikyrah: Probably not, which is why he is stalling here. He’s also aware of the paperwork and financial losses involved if people are forced out and then the government loses the lawsuit the ACLU is honing as we watch. It would be easier just to keep people from re-upping and letting them leave with benefits intact, and probably less likely to bite him on the ass later on.
TaMara (HFG)
Dang. Now I want an Echo (I know that’s not the point of this story, but that’s what I got).
The Moar You Know
@gene108: Called the Internet Of Things. Read the “Internet of Shit” Twitter feed. You won’t feel better about any of this but at least most of it is pretty funny.
As a guy who has spent half his working life now in tech, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the end result of all this tech being put in places where it absolutely does not belong is not going to end well at all. I don’t allow any of that IoT shit in my house.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
Thx! Love it.
Betty Cracker
@Shantanu Saha: Yes.
@schrodingers_cat: Most people have no idea what a long, arduous and expensive process it is. I certainly had no clue until fairly recently.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
“Voice in the Dark Void”, what a cool title!
My android only responds to “Galaxy”. Boring!@rikyrah:
According to the retrogrades on my local paper comment section, the ban was a good thing because trangendered people are mentally unstable (supposedly because they have a high suicide rate) and would interfere with “unit cohesion” or something. All responses to my arguments had no citations and ended with snide insinuations of me being trans because I said the ban was like segregating the armed forces. Which they denied was the same thing.
different-church-lady
@The Moar You Know: Notice how there’s no buzz about Nest anymore? Know why? Because people finally figured out (a) those things don’t really learn jack and (b) there cannot be a more effective interface than I’M COLD: TURN DIAL RIGHT / I’M HOT: TURN DIAL LEFT.
But noooooo…. everything’s gotta be a toy instead of a tool nowadays….
Shana
@rikyrah: In addition, I hate that everything has to be electric all the time, beds? fridges? etc. I had a thought early on when Harvey first hit Texas and there were reports of people stranded in hotels. I know they have emergency generators and assume they’re on a low floor or a basement. What happens when all of that it underwater? Do all the hotel locks controlled by electronic keycards stop working? Would they all automatically lock or unlock?
A weird detail to fixate on, I know, but there it is.
bemused
@The Moar You Know:
It’s so civilized! US tv could learn a thing or two instead of the race to ramp up reality shows to be more and more crazy, tacky and cutthroat competitive.
Major Major Major Major
@The Moar You Know:
Certainly not. The question is what the funny:damaging ratio will be.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@The Moar You Know:
Yup. The IoT is pretty scary in its potential to violate privacy like the telescreens in 1984 or even cause “accidents” ala Final Destination.
lgerard
@SenyorDave:
I ask this question all the time from my wingnut friends.
Whenever someone starts blathering about the “decline of morality” I ask them “exactly when was the apogee of morality in this country?”
You get some interesting answers
Major Major Major Major
@lgerard: like “what’s an apogee?” I’m assuming, given what we know about the wingnut intellect.
tobie
@hitchhiker: I found the story in Politico depressing. These Trump voters still won’t admit they made a mistake, firmly believe Twitler can pivot, and still hate HRC more than Trump, which is a sign of both the hit-job the media did on the woman for 30 years and the Pavlovian response of GOP/GOP-leaning voters to anything associated with the Democrats.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Forget permanent residence or the green card, even getting a visitor visa is not exactly straightforward. This regime has added pages and pages to the already complicated forms, it is adding other requirements like interviews, demanding social media handles and passwords, as a part of the “extreme” vetting.
ETA: The core assumption of T Nation is that immigrants/people on long term or short term visas are moochers or criminals and that the United States does not derive any benefit from its immigrants and visitors. In their world only a win-lose outcome is possible.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@lgerard:
When the darkies started getting uppity and thought they had rights of course!
Matt McIrvin
@lgerard: John Oliver did a whole segment about that several years ago: he firmly established that the answer is “when I was a child, and adults took care of the scary and gross stuff.”
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
It involves cooking with normal ingredients and not some freak show contest, wherein cooks try to scramble to make something edible out of a strange basket of ingredients.
These are recipes home bakers could try at home and see, if they can match the results of the show.
The Moar You Know
@different-church-lady: There’s that. It also sends false fire alarms and keeps track of how many people are in your house at various times of the day, and has a microphone that has been used by hackers and suchlike to capture conversations…and the new version has a camera.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@The Moar You Know: Seconded. British Baking has become the go-to refuge for the spousal unit & I during these dark times. Something about it is just so uplifting AND soothing. God bless the Brits.
bemused
@lgerard:
Do tell! Lots of so-called immoral behavior since white man came to America. History books and tv in the 50’s, 60’s put on a prim and proper face for the most part but behind the curtains…..
beth
@Shana: I recently went sofa shopping and the saleswoman was really trying to sell me a power reclining sofa. They sure were comfortable but I realized they needed to be plugged in which doesn’t work since I have no outlets near my living room furniture. I sure wasn’t going to duct tape power cords along the floor as the salesperson suggested. What happens when your couch breaks down? Who do you call to fix it?
Major Major Major Major
@gene108: Terrace House is the new Great British Bake-Off.
gene108
@The Moar You Know:
I know it’s the Internet of Things. The IoT was used last year to launch a massive DDOS attack on the USA last year. A lot of those devices do not have much security and were hacked to ping the shit out of a DNS, making a DDOS attack all the more devastating than before.
Hungry Joe
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m just one degree of separation from Wil Wheaton (oh, I get around), and from what my friend tells me Wheaton is a really good guy.
Major Major Major Major
@gene108: there’s only so much you can do with a botnet of dinky DVR’s and toasters, but that’s one of them!
bemused
@Matt McIrvin:
Ooh, I think you’re on to something there. Makes sense to me considering conservatives, republicans scare so easily and are drawn to authoritarianism. They want daddies and mommies to tell them what to do and take care of the boogymen so they don’t have to.
MattF
I’m a little surprised that T is aware of any magazines and what’s in them. I’m guessing it’s on the ‘riffle through and read some headlines’ level. I know, he’d have to flex his thumb a little, so there’s an effort involved– which makes the whole scenario unlikely.
mai naem mobile
@hitchhiker: Peter Hart’s focus groups are good. I’ve seen them on CSPAN. I would love to see this one on tv.
Thru the Looking Glass...
There’s a great low budget horror movie lurking somewhere inside that sentence…
Frankensteinbeck
@Hungry Joe:
I have never heard differently. Shatner, on the other hand, I have heard from multiple sources is an asshole. Although there is a meme going around about him trashing SJWs, and apparently it’s a sheer coincidence. He’s trashing a fan group that just happens to have the acronym SJW.
beth
@MattF: Weren’t there a few magazine covers a week or two ago portraying Trump as a Nazi or KKK member that made the rounds on Twitter? I’m sure that’s where the magazine reference comes from.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@MattF:
More like on the level of ‘open up the centerfold and stare’…
MattF
@gene108: I’m getting a new heat pump installed, and specifically requested a non-IoT thermostat– which may not be possible. But the HVAC guy was sympathetic, and said he would look into deactivating everything he could.
J R in WV
@Butch:
We don’t have cell service here at home in WV, because cell service is direct line of sight service, and here the geography is folded quite a bit and our home is in a cove tucked into a tall ridge. The hills block the signal.
But when we started to travel more we picked up smart phones to call for help – if there’s a signal available. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t. Cell phones are way more useful in flatter places, the mid west, high plains, high desert, etc. Here there are interstates with NO cell service in many places.
Our cell phones stay turned off the vast majority of the time, unless I need to call someone. No messaging, no voice mail, turned off. You would be surprised how long a charge lasts on a good phone shut down totally.
Laura
@Major Major Major Major: Please, please PLEASE confirm that you will be enjoying the Highline Park while you’re NYC’ing.
Heidi Mom
@gene108: Stephen King was way ahead of us. It was a washing machine, and it wasn’t even “smart.”
Mnemosyne
@Doug!:
I have a niece named Alexa, so it creeps me out that thousands of people now associate her name with an obedient computer servant.
Davebo
We went with the Google home. Bought my girlfriend one for Christmas and now she has two. Ditto with the smart light bulbs.
I went with the Google device because I thought it would get more upgrades and eventually be compatible with more other devices. We’ll see.
Hilarious to ask it to sing you a song or tell you a joke!
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@tobie:
Tony sounds like a pretentious know-nothing know-it-all. “Hobbesian”, what a joke.
I read the article and I think you overstate how committed the Trump voters in that focus group still are:
There will be no paradigm shift. Trump just isn’t up to it and will never change. Sciullo will just be disappointed.
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck: fuck shatner, i saw that Twitter nonsense, he wasn’t even invited to Takei’s wedding, who has time to care what he thinks?
@Laura: I’ve been a few times, since I always go! ?
Amir Khalid
@The Moar You Know:
My take on it is that there are people in the AI field speculating about what can be done without necessarily taking into account what people are willing to let machines do for them. In fairness, I suspect we wouldn’t know how we felt about a technological capability until its potential actions came to require our consideration.
Remember the home refrigerator that would be able to order stuff from your grocer, via dedicated Internet access? Never took off. I guess people weren’t all that keen on letting a home appliance make all their grocery-shopping decisions. Also, there’s this to consider for companies that would make AI-enabled devices: a machine capable of choosing to harm its owner would bring on lawsuits from some really dissatisfied customers.
p.a.
Attack Decoy Duck would be a good name for an alt-country band.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
That’s why Google Home is better. At least the name can be changed.
IdahoFlaneuse
@Gelfling 545: i was traveling in Hawaii with a Garmin GPS when it told us to turn on King Kamehameha III road. The kamehameha part was odd, but the III was “eye eye eye”. It reminded all of us of the old Fritos Banditos commercial. We had to pull over until we could stop laughing.
Amir Khalid
@Major Major Major Major:
As I understand, Shatner was an asshole to all his Star Trek co-stars, with the sole exception of Nimoy.
HeleninEire
@The Moar You Know: The new series just started here last night on BBC.
MattF
@p.a.: Pretty much my favorite Wikipedia page.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
My take on it is that marketing people want to slap the tag on anything they can, and the engineers go along with it no matter how stupid it is, because that’s their job.
The Moar You Know
@gene108: @MattF: My stepfather, a couple of months ago, started getting emails from an ISP in Germany telling him they were going to report him to the cops for running a botnet. We pulled his firewall logs. We finally traced the offending device down to the new Lennox wifi thermostat, which had been shipped from the factory with malware installed. It was both hitting a server in Germany, attempting to run telnet commands to break in, while simultaneously trying to compromise everything else on my stepfather’s LAN. We called Lennox and made them come out and remove it. They had no idea what we were even talking about and thought we were insane. They have no tech people, they’re a HVAC company! How could they know?
Larger point is, companies are putting this tech in stuff and don’t know how it works, much less how it’s secured (or as is usually the case, not). They don’t make any of it, they just buy it from some guy, always someone in China, and put it in and ship it to the stores.
SenyorDave
@lgerard: You get some interesting answers
They must be twisting themselves into pretzels. I guess America was moral in the 1950’s with Jim Crow laws. Or the 1940’s when the “Greatest Generation” won the war and decided that the black soldiers, the same ones who helped win the war, won medals, died for their country, had to go back to being third class citizens. I’m sure tom Brokaw would agree that the 1940’s were the pinnacle of American morality (Tom, GFY!). Or maybe the 1910’s when women couldn’t vote.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: so can Alexa, see Betty’s post :)
In both cases the list of words is necessarily but unfortunately limited… at least Google’s isn’t a person’s name though.
T S
And he’s got a feelin’, he’s not the only one….
J R in WV
@Hungry Joe:
He comes across as a good guy playing himself on Big Bang Theory, which is my only current appointment TV show. There are two reruns on one channel, and the original run on CBS, so some days we get 3 shows. Many of them hold up well enough to be fun a second time, tho not all of them.
Amir Khalid
@IdahoFlaneuse:
The talking satellite-navigation systems I’ve heard here tend to speak English with an American accent — and with absolutely no sense of how to pronounce non-English names. When I ride with a driver who’s using one of those things, every mispronunciation makes me cringe.
MattF
@The Moar You Know: Uh, whoa.
jl
” other people might have a legitimate function apart from worshiping you. ”
That is a nice thought. But I sense some dissonance in applying that to my role as a decent human being, versus my role as a BJ commenter.
I’ll consult my AI computer assistant on the matter, and if I don’t like the answer, I’ll turn it off.
MCA1
@Betty Cracker: That’s my take, too. The contestants aren’t afraid to fail, have a good time, support one another, and make friends along the way. I don’t know if that lack of uber-competitiveness is just a uniquely British characteristic, the producers actively seek out what seem to be “nice” people without horribly obvious psychoses, or (most depressingly) that Americans have just really turned into degenerate jackals for whom winning and money are everything. I also noted how diverse the contestants were and how seemingly none of them even noticed or gave a shit.
I stumbled onto that show a few months ago and watched two episodes in a row because it was just so pleasant. Like a tonic.
ETA: And I don’t even enjoy baking. I cook, and have become quite good at it over a few decades, but baking is too rigid for me. I don’t like the precision of it, preferring the on-the-fly inventiveness of cooking instead. I get enough precision in my professional life, I don’t need it in the kitchen, too.
Laura
@SenyorDave: Henry Rollins raised that very question in his current spoken word tour.
His premise is that America IS great -full stop. The again is an interesting point in how far back you want to go to a time when white men were not questioned in their absolute position of authority and what That says about you.
Yes, I have a crush on Henry Rollins, and yes, I encourage you to see him if he comes your way.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Hungry Joe:
I used to hate his character, Wesley. Weaton seems cool tho.
When I binge watched TNG a few months back I found I still hated his character in the first season, but he became less annoying as time went on and I didn’t mind him as much as I remembered.
ETA: I guess I didn’t mind Wesley as much when he wasn’t saving the Enterprise every other episode he was in and just assisted the crew. I still never liked that he was made a an “ensign” by fiat by Picard. No matter how smart and mature he was, the bridge was no place for a teenager.
lgerard
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I do the same thing to those fools who argue that “The Civil War wasn’t about slavery.”
It is pointless to bring up the Cornerstone speech or any historical context because you quickly enter their world of alternative facts. I just pose the question:
Suppose Lincoln had acquiesced to succession and let the Confederate states go their own way
When would the Confederacy have finally outlawed slavery?
One guy actually told me he thought it would have been in the 1940’s because of WWII!
Laura
@Major Major Major Major: for some strange reason, it reminds me of the Saturn Steps. Possibly because I feel so good when I’m lucky enough for the rare treat of either.
bemused
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I’m convinced they are cultists, republican moonies. An old white guy has small town local paper and last week he again wrote a pity the poor donald column. The national media, a hostile, angry pack, never think Trump does anything right. “Former President Barack Hussein Obama never had to go through that. He could do no wrong.” Everything is opposite reality with guys like him.
Miss Bianca
@lgerard: Do they start with “what’s an apogee?”?
ETA: Dammit, M4 beats me to the punch *again*!
SFBayAreaGal
@The Moar You Know: Yes it is. I read an article where the participants are encouraged to support each other.
The Moar You Know
@MattF: We were not pleased. I was glad that the ISP at least contacted us first and provided logfiles of their own. They didn’t have to do that, but it saved us a lot of hassle and stopped the immediate problem.
Since this is my field of work, I have been saying for a long time that nobody is going to take security seriously – and I mean truly, as a bedrock principle like seatbelts in cars seriously – until we wake up one day, go to the ATM, and everything comes up zeroes.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: didn’t Wheaton hate Wesley too?
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Also, I am not a techie, but I understand it’s all hackable for invading privacy.
Just One More Canuck
@Gelfling 545: try driving through Quebec using Google Maps as your guide
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Well you gotta admit thirty years of shit slinging at Hillary really did the job.
MattF
@The Moar You Know: There’s a half-dozen people in my condo who are getting new heat pumps– I’ve forwarded a couple of links to articles about IoT botnets to the group, but if you’ve got any good introductory links, I’d like to see them.
For the record, the reason there’s a bunch of us getting heat pumps at the same time is that there’s going to be extensive roof repair in my condo in the very near future, so the contractor for the roof repairs is giving us an opportunity to avoid various complications by getting new heat pumps.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@lgerard:
The answer is likely never, if they could have helped it. Their constitution, largely a copy and paste of ours, aside from prohibited the outlawing of slavery. It also banned internal improvements by the government, so likely no industrialization on the scale of the Union. Besides cotton the CSA wouldn’t have had much to offer until oil was able to be tapped out in massive quantities. I doubt they would have made it to the 1940s as a coherent, single state.
The Moar You Know
@MCA1: The Brits yield to nobody in the competition to be assholes, but their society REALLY doesn’t seem to put any kind of premium on it, quite the opposite in fact. When I was in London this past Christmas, some jackass cut the line at Sainsbury’s. I, being American, didn’t even notice. Until every single person in the store started bitching him out, employees included. I’m sitting there asking myself “fuck, are they going to kill this guy?”
Don’t jump lines in Britain.
Butch
@J R in WV: I would have to admit a little inaccuracy in saying “yet to.” We did buy an international cell phone specifically for a trip to Tahiti this last winter (memorable because we spent the majority of the vacation in a tropical cyclone with 110 mph winds that blew the roof off our bungalow at 3 a.m.). I had no idea the + sign with the number meant that you actually had to dial a plus sign to make a call, so the phone was useless; I got rid of it when we got home.
Here in the Upper Peninsula there is service but sporadic, so to me it isn’t worth it.
SFBayAreaGal
@different-church-lady: Cute
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
I imagine he does. Wesley Crusher hurt his acting career. He was on a high after the success of Stand by Me. What has he done since the end of the ST: TNG and Nemesis that didn’t involve him playing himself? He was in some movies after, but none that were big successes if I remember right.
Shell
Asking “Computer”, makes me think of Lt. Tawny Madison in ‘Galaxy Quest’.
David Evans
@Doug!: A friend persuaded me on feminist grounds to call mine “Echo”. You would be amazed how often that word is spoken on the TV news.
WaterGirl
@bemused: In the olden days before TV remotes and cable channels, I had fallen asleep on my couch. I woke up to the sound of screaming – yes, some TV news show thought it would be a good idea to play the 911 call of the young woman who called because her father was trying to kill her, and her screams as he did so on the 911 call is what I woke up to. Very disturbing on so many levels.
Mel
@The Moar You Know: This, indeed.
When you have to worry that the innocent looking toy that your kiddo got as a birthday present is actually sending data to a voice database managed by a defense contractor, well…
The toys are also easily hacked, and can readily pick up conversations in distant areas of a home, not just the one-on-one interactions between the child and his or her toy.
That rotary phone and tinfoil hat are starting to look slightly more appealing.
bemused
@WaterGirl:
If I fall asleep with tv on, what’s on tv will be incorporated into my dreams. Not a great thing for bad sleepers.
Mnemosyne
@Shana:
FWIW, every major hotel I’ve ever stayed in has a deadbolt and chain on each door in addition to the electronic lock, so your door shouldn’t just swing open as long as you remember to use those. They’re not electronic, so they wouldn’t be affected.
different-church-lady
@The Moar You Know:
Already starting to happen.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
I think that one of the reasons I’m mostly immune to the “Good Ol’ Days” bullshit is that my mother died of cancer when I was 7, so there was never a time in my childhood when my parents were able to completely protect me from sad and scary things.
There does seem to be a cut-off point, though — my older brother is quite prone to that kind of thinking, and he was 13 when our mother died. So pre-teen, maybe?
Shana
@Shell: Love Galaxy Quest! A way better movie than I was led to thing it would be.
jl
GBBO!. It rocks!
MCA1
@The Moar You Know: I love that. It’s not a social norm if no one enforces it when it’s violated.
I’m that guy who, when two lanes are merging and you’ve reached the point where people are alternating and getting in single file, rides half way over in the lane that’s disappearing to prevent assholes from zipping up past 20 rule followers and then forcing their way in. I’ve actually considered carrying a pack of post-its to put on egregiously double parked cars that say “What makes you so special that the rules don’t apply to you?” And I’ve gotten into a few heated conversations with jagoffs on trains who insist on subjecting 30 strangers to one half of their phone conversation. Sometimes it’s cluelessness, but sometimes there’s malice, too; selfish people prey on other people’s desire to avoid conflict by calling out their bad behavior.
It’s the German in me, I think.
mayim
@Gelfling 545:
Aaahhh…. I waited for the bus to high school just off the Scajacquada, with wind courtesy of a direct route from Lake Erie….bbbrrrrr!
Now that I live in Maine, I get to hear Google Maps massacre lots of similar names.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
From everything I’ve ever heard, Shatner is a social liberal but an asshole. Rumor had it that he didn’t go to George Takei’s wedding because he’s anti-gay, but Takei says that didn’t even invite him, not because Shatner is anti-gay, but because he’s an asshole.
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
A whole lot of places in the United States have non-English names. It’s pretty weird to hear Google Maps struggle to pronounce street names like “Sepulveda” and “Figueroa” around here.
Suffragette City
Betty, you are a treasure. That was some funny shit.
Mnemosyne
@Shana:
FWIW, I was moved to post a long quote from Wodehouse last night to explain why people are now looking back on W with nostalgia. It was from “Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court.” ?
ruemara
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Hobbesian choices my brown hiney. A neonazi or a credentialed, decent human woman. Also, fuck you, Scalio, Sculio, whatever.
@The Moar You Know: I dread this crap, but people are so much more likely to blow themselves up than be hit by an asteroid, so I’m grateful that I don’t care about internet of things and live in an old apartment where the only thing that talks to me are my stuffed animals.
cosima
Little Cosima used her bday/xmas money to buy herself Alexa when it was cheap on the amazon prime sale day. The second thing she asked Alexa was ‘Alexa, make a fart noise.’ Alexa has apparently been programmed to have a sense of humour, as she said ‘would you like me to download that skill?’ the answer was yes, of course, and fart noise followed. I later heard my husband asking Alexa to make a belching noise.
It’s actually been really helpful for Little C (‘Alexa, what’s the capital of Latvia?’ among other things), she uses it as an alarm clock, to play music, as a translator, and more. Pretty great £35 investment.
FlyingToaster
I refuse under any circumstances to get a wifi Thermostat — plain old programmable digitals do a great job; I just checked HomeDepot and they still carry 19 models, at least 6 with alkaline battery backup.
As the sysadmin at ChezToaster, the only things on WiFi are computers, tablets, phones, printers and TiVO. And the printer isn’t allowed to take anything from outside the firewall (on my firewall “this device — LAN connection only”). While I don’t object to Alexa/GoogleHome/Whatever on principle, this XKCD cartoon explains my trepidation…
Butch
@Mnemosyne: Many of the street names in Houghton-Hancock (Upper Peninsula) are Finnish. I would love to hear Alexa take a shot at those.
Patricia Kayden
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
I’m dying of laughter here. That is too funny. Must remember to use that in the future.
VeniceRiley
“Hey Siri, can you please get my music from Alexa and play my frequents? Thanks.”
That’s what I want. Integration. But we can’t have nice things, because they consider our things THEIR things.
Alexa, please send 1,000 boxes of fart smells, set to automatically open upon delivery, to the RNC.
bluefoot
@Gelfling 545: When i was last in the area, the GPS pronounced “Wherle Drive” like “whirl.” I laughed. It’s *terrible* with local names. My favorite local place-name joke: Q – “How do you spell Scajaquada?” A – “198” Heh.
Yutsano
Deleted, wrong thread.
Sab
@cosima: where have you been the last two Months? Glad to hear from you!
matyroshka
@The Moar You Know: Ditto. Just read Richard Clarke’s book called Warnings that addresses this in one chapter. Terrifying.
JustRuss
“All I want to do is MAGA!” needs to be a meme.
different-church-lady
You know what’s depressing? (Other than the big obvious thing…)
Four or five times a day, every day, day in and day out, criminals from overseas use a simple technology I have in my home to attempt to steal my money.
That technology is the lowly voice telephone call.
And yet somehow we’re supposed to hook every single electronic object in our home up to the web and just… trust it.
bemused
@Butch:
lol, me too. Lot of Finnish last names in northern MN and hilarious to hear local newscasters just mangle them.
matyroshka
@different-church-lady: Not only our personal electronics, but our power grid, nuclear plants, banking system. . .It’s born of a false belief that technology will save us from ourselves. It won’t.
George Spiggott
@The Moar You Know:
Your stepfather wouldn’t be Steven Wright, by any chance?
ruckus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
It is about bigotry, but more than that it’s about power. For a good percentage of humans they feel that they need to be in some way better than others or they are nothing. They don’t understand the complexity that exists or the compromises necessary whenever you have more than 2 people per square mile.l
J R in WV
@Just One More Canuck:
I tried to use Google maps to get around in Florence / Firenza Italy. When we hit the same intersection the 3rd time, I started taking the next road away from the intersection that we hadn’t tried yet, which at least eventually broke the circle we had been doing. Eventually the tablet said “You have arrived!” but we couldn’t see the hotel anywhere, and the only place to pull over was the bus stop. One of us got out to see where the hotel was, then the bus came and blew its horn.
Nightmare! Street signs were minimal, pedestrian tourists were ignoring cars. Awful to get around. Taxis were very professional, quick, arrival of a cab guaranteed in 3 minutes or less, and they lived up to that.
Betty Cracker
@J R in WV: Good God, you attempted to DRIVE in Italy?
Jeffro
@Villago Delenda Est:
floating fire-ant colony? Or two? I’m good with that.
TriassicSands
Alexa…Impeach Donald Trump.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
I did it, from the rental place outside the airport down into rural Tuscany, all around Tuscany to see sights, back into Florence, where things went screwey, even with Google Maps steering. Eventually I managed to get it to say “You have arrived” even though we couldn’t see a sign for the hotel, but we were there. Then we took the car to the downtown drop off, and got a cab to the hotel.
Cabs were great, prompt to arrive, quick to deliver you where you wanted to go…
We liked it a lot, saw Etruscan tombs, hell, got to walk into the tombs, wander in the castle, great food and wine!
cosima
@Sab: I’m still here in Scotland (thankfully). I’ve not been well, and most all of my energy has been put toward being present with Little C every day in spite of it. I do check in on BJ daily, but I’m conserving my energies, and the 24/7 shiteshow that is politics has to be minimised. Thank you for asking, though! :)
debbie
SNL did a great ad parody for Alexa Silver for old people.
cosima
@debbie: Little C asks Alexa what time it is & what the weather is like all of the time. It is good to be able to get a weather forecast (for a week, even), though I prefer to just look outside myself… They really are very handy. Creepy, but handy. As long as it’s not sharing our info, conversations & photos of our adolescent daughter with the dark web I’ll consider it a good investment (of Little C’s xmas/bday money).
lahke
Late to the thread, as usual, and too lazy to read it all to see if anyone brought up this point: doesn’t having an echo DOT mean that you have a microphone in your house that’s connected to the cloud?
I received one of these for a gift and wanted to pass it on–it took forever to find someone who wanted it, with the main reason for rejection being that people said they didn’t want an open-ended ear in their house with no control over who could listen. Is that concern valid?
Van Buren
@SenyorDave: That short period of time between putting a man on the moon and the nigras starting all that civil rights uppityness.
workworkwork
@Fair Economist: I use Siri to update my shopping list. I’m a lot less likely to forget something if I tell her while it’s still on my mind instead of scrambling for pen and paper.
YMMV, as always.