Siri on my phone turns on at odd times when I’m speaking French (I have Siri set to English), and does weird things since it’s interpreting French as English.
seems to work the other way too. when i say the incredibly common english word 'theatre', it thinks i'm saying 'théâtre' with all the accents i didn't insert into my speech and then says "sorry, i didn't find a device named 'tay-AHH-tra'". alexa is a fucking idiot.
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 11 October 2018 10:40 (five years ago) link
i mean... alexa, not siri
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 11 October 2018 10:53 (five years ago) link
now that i'm here:
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 11 October 2018 11:16 (five years ago) link
having gone all-out with google home i'm now able to drift through the flat with one (1) music/podcast playing everywhere. a damned decent and relatively affordable way of doing things, especially since i'm trying to do less with headphones (due to fear of further hearing damage), and especially since there have been a pile of good specials recently (i straight-up can't justify the cost of a full sonos kit-out).
on the whole, it works. if you want music played on a speaker group, it plays on that speaker group and stays nicely synced across speakers. chromecast is better for this because asking the homes to play something is a lucky dip. the sound quality (a mix of homes & minis) isn't excellent but it's absolutely fine, and i love having it follow me around without needing to crank it.
i've gone a bit nuts with home automation too, where it's convenient. so:
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 25 November 2018 07:11 (five years ago) link
luck·y dip/ˌləkē ˈdip/nounBritish term for grab bag.
― Je55e, Sunday, 25 November 2018 15:40 (five years ago) link
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51KDzehG%2BZL._AC_SY400_.jpg
― conrad, Sunday, 25 November 2018 16:43 (five years ago) link
Siri just plain doesn't understand the things I say and doesn't seem to be getting any better so I've stopped using it.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, 25 November 2018 18:17 (five years ago) link
siri is outright broken on watches, doesn't fire at all most of the time
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 25 November 2018 20:07 (five years ago) link
"electric blankets"
i'm astonished these still exist. do they or are you kidding?
i need to make the first elective duvet.
my commercial song is gonna be a repurposed "electric guitar" if i can clear it somehow
― legit lib llc (check our patreon!) (Hunt3r), Sunday, 25 November 2018 20:20 (five years ago) link
elective, electric, whatever lol
― legit lib llc (check our patreon!) (Hunt3r), Sunday, 25 November 2018 20:22 (five years ago) link
― Jeff, Sunday, 25 November 2018 20:39 (five years ago) link
About 9,720 results for "electric duvet"
― Bing The Mighty Seat (sic), Sunday, 25 November 2018 20:48 (five years ago) link
i'm astonished these still exist. do they or are you kidding?as long as there are cold blankets there will be a device to warm them
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 25 November 2018 21:13 (five years ago) link
It’s working again on my series 4. I had given up on my previous series 2.it was absolutely fine on my series 3 until watchos 5
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 25 November 2018 21:15 (five years ago) link
google assistant is now available as a siri shortcut, so you can yell e.g. “hey google, i parked my car here” into your watch and google maps will remember where you parked it
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 26 November 2018 10:52 (five years ago) link
Serious question: why are you guys all not bothered by having every sound you make in your homes spied on?
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Tuesday, 27 November 2018 05:18 (five years ago) link
because1. network activity monitoring has shown iirc that they (at least google’s iirc) only scan locally for the wake word and don’t send any voice data to the mothership unless they’re invoked2. i honestly can’t think of a trade-off that matters, given i have what 40 years left to live and will just waste it anyway3. phones everywhere are doing exactly the same thing all of the time
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 27 November 2018 07:19 (five years ago) link
that said i would never buy one for anyone as a gift, that would be a really shitty thing to do
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 27 November 2018 07:22 (five years ago) link
Sounds as though google is a bit better than alexa, then. Cheers.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Tuesday, 27 November 2018 08:27 (five years ago) link
yeah alexa got sprung recently for over-listening (can’t find the link i saw recently, but here’s another one from may)
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 27 November 2018 08:38 (five years ago) link
i have what 40 years left to live and will just waste it anyway
my man
― sign up for my waterless urinals webinar (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 27 November 2018 09:43 (five years ago) link
lol wait for it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVhFxxyXd0o
― In space, pizza sends out for YOU (Ste), Wednesday, 4 December 2019 08:58 (four years ago) link
I got an Echo as a "welcome to the new office" gift 2.5 years ago (to cushion the blow of being relocated from Soho to a Z4 industrial estate, as far as I could tell). My gf also worked at the same place then, and now we live together, so we have two of these bastards. They continually fall off the wifi, and have to be powered off/on, which entirely defeats their only use, which is playing music while you're cooking/doing dishes/otherwise unable to fiddle with a touch-screen. The novelty of Alexa singing songs or telling lame jokes or ghost stories wore off for the kids after about six months.
Still, Amazon have a nice little archive of me saying "go fuck yourself" and "why is everything so shit" or "where are my fucking keys, eh? Tell me that" after the wake-word which I'm sure can be weaponised at some point.
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 4 December 2019 11:53 (four years ago) link
gotta wifi those keys bruh
― maffew12, Wednesday, 4 December 2019 11:57 (four years ago) link
Surprised the Echo didn't just drop £500 of home-security facial-recog tech into my Amazon basket so I never have to fumble for physical keys again. "I'll let you back in when you stop swearing at me".
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 4 December 2019 12:01 (four years ago) link
all I do with these things now (alexa and google) is control lights, add stuff to shopping lists and play music (which on google is a major clusterfuck at least half the time). worth having around but I wouldn’t update unless these ones die.
― times 牛肉麵 (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 4 December 2019 22:40 (four years ago) link
u people are mad letting these things in your homes
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Thursday, 5 December 2019 00:37 (four years ago) link
we have a five month old called hazel in the house, and sonos speakers with google voice support. saying 'goo goo goo' often sets them off - more worryingly, so does 'hey hazel', though it makes a slightly different beep and doesn't actually respond to any commands afterwards.
― The Pingularity (ledge), Thursday, 5 December 2019 10:54 (four years ago) link
I feel confident that Alexa won't send a random email out, it's not linked to my email account (other than through my amazon account). I'm pretty sure it doesn't have the function to just look up my contacts in google mail and send out an email.
― In space, pizza sends out for YOU (Ste), Thursday, 5 December 2019 11:03 (four years ago) link
No one will ever want to come to my house again once I get this new little robot.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 21:28 (two years ago) link
Five and two year old at the table, two year old asks "hey google how does a sponge work"
"According to the website mayoclinic.org the contraceptive sponge is a type of birth control (contraceptive) that prevents sperm from entering the uterus. It is soft and disk-shaped and made of polyurethane foam. The contraceptive sponge contains spermicide, which kills sperm. Before having sex, you insert the sponge deep inside the vagina so that it covers the cervix. Your vaginal muscles hold it in place. The contraceptive sponge has a strap on one side for easier removal. The sponge can prevent pregnancy but doesn't protect against sexually transmitted infections (STIs)."
― namaste darkness my old friend (ledge), Friday, 10 December 2021 14:53 (two years ago) link
lmao amazing
― rob, Friday, 10 December 2021 14:54 (two years ago) link
haha!
― towards fungal computer (harbl), Friday, 10 December 2021 14:56 (two years ago) link
hey google what is an upper decker
― my hands are always in my pockets or gesturing. (Karl Malone), Friday, 10 December 2021 17:38 (two years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/29/amazons-alexa-child-penny-live-plug
― two sleeps till brooklyn (ledge), Thursday, 30 December 2021 08:35 (two years ago) link
Also belongs in a Darwin awards thread:The challenge began circulating on TikTok around a year ago and often results in the person getting electrocuted
― two sleeps till brooklyn (ledge), Thursday, 30 December 2021 08:36 (two years ago) link