I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving holiday. I love the whole thing myself, I mean what's not to like about an American feast with friends and family?
(Depends on the friends... and the family.... or so I'm told.)
Well, this year I travelled to be by my son and his wife in the Portland area. I saw the sky briefly on the first day there. But afterwards.... well.... let's just say we were in no danger of overexposure to the sun. :-)
A nice thing about being in a densely populated area is that it's easier to do some fun things. We went to two movies... Dr. Strange (see it) and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (see that too in case you are on the fence).
While at their house, I got reacquainted with their Amazon Echo. They have it set up to turn on and off lights among other things. And contrary to my public statements in the early days of this blog, I really am a technophile. I cannot help myself. So I found her quite fascinating.
Since they had two of them for different parts of their house, A. told me I should borrow one of them and see if I REALLY would find it useful.
So we popped it in one of my totes and I drove home with.... well to me it's a her. Forget the IT thing. It has a woman's voice and you naturally refer to it as a her. Listen, I'm a good Star Fleet officer, I know my android etiquette.
(I hate to tell you this, but there is no 'Dillweed' branch in Star Fleet.)
No? Well, if I WAS a Star Fleet officer, I would be 'Ship's Mystic' and my uniform would be a nice sensible lilac dress.
Anyway...
I started setting her up as soon as my head stopped buzzing from the 350 mile drive home. So far I have configured her to play three radio stations with my favorite talk show hosts (we don't GET very good radio here on the edge of the world). She will play music from my on line music collections, I hooked her up with weather and two news sites where I can get flash briefings as they are called. I'm getting to listen to the BBC which is kinda fun. And since my kitchen clock seems to have gone on the fritz while I was away, I keep asking her what time it is. All of these functions are controlled by voice. This morning, since I sleep in a totally dark room and do not want a clock with lights, when I woke up I asked her what time it was. She told me 5:32. I went back to sleep. :-)
So, I made a little video to show you what it's like to interact with her. She's a far cry from the computer on the Enterprise, but it's a little taste of what that might be like in real life.
https://youtu.be/3cmDPpZYUDw
Now I won't kid you.... I still have some reservations about technology. Everything has a back side. Our job is to remember that and keep an eye on it.
But for now... this is pretty cool. I don't know if I want to purchase one or not. That's what the visit is for. Ask me in a month. :-). But you will always have to say.... "Yetzirah" before every question, or I won't be able to hear you. :-)
(Can I say "Dillweed" instead? It would make me so happy....)
Sigh.
