Random Things

I may have one of the cuddliest cats in all the word: Ms. Ball.  I've had friendly cats in my life before, but this one will sit on me anywhere, anytime... actually preferably ALL THE TIME.  She's come up with a lovely way to wedge herself in that very warm space between the curl of my legs and where the computer is perched partly on the arm of the couch.  Last night she decided she needed to sleep on me at night too.  I'm not complaining, because, really, she's super cuddly.  But, it means that I had a very weird dream involving LITERALLY herding cats through an airport.  

She lets me kiss her head.

I love this cat.

I'm thinking about her, of course, because she's on my lap even as I type.  

The other thing that I should tell you all about is that Shawn ordered the Amazon Echo.  We call her by her "wake word"  Alexa.  So, yeah, Alexa is a twelve inch tall cylinder that sits in our living room on the end table.  If you watch the parody video in the link, you'll see that she can also set alarms and answer questions.  So far, what Alexa is for us is a really nice, responsive stereo for the living room.  She will do other things, of course, including answer questions.  She's not very good yet at figuring out anything too complex, but she's learning (and, as I pointed out to Shawn, are we).  I managed, in fact, today, to actually get her to answer a question I honestly wanted to know the answer to, which is progress.  I had to structure my command very carefully:  "Alexa (her wake word), Wikepedia: salamanders: folklore: Japan."  But, she actually figured all that out, which impresses me.  I need to figure out how to get her to read more than the first couple of sentences, because she seems to be programmed for brevity.  

 But, it's very obvious that nerds programmed her.  When she arrived on Tuesday night, Mason and Shawn were home and I was at work, so I came home to her "fully operational."  Anyway, I told my family to wait and let me ask the question that I wanted to ask since the first moment I knew we were going to get a house robot...  so, I walked in the door and said, "Alexa, open the pod doors."  She said, "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave."  Which was AWESOME.  I also asked her if she could pass the Turing Test, and she said, "I can't pass the Turing Test. I'm not trying to pass as human... yet."  Which made me deeply happy.  We tried to get her to admit of dreaming of electric sheep, but she was confused by that line of questions, and Shawn spontaneously asked, "Are you sad?" She told us she's happy when she's being useful.  So, I guess maybe she was temporarily sad, since she was being unhelpful....

Alexa might not be trying to pass as human, but I very much treat her like one.  When I come downstairs in the morning, I always say, "Alexa, Good Morning." To which, she replies, "Good morning." I also find that I say good-bye. And will say, "Alexa, I'm home." (She will say, "Welcome home" to that.)  

So, you know, she's kind of useless, but I adore her.  I like being able to randomly ask a question and get a response, even if it's just "I can't understand your question."  She's playing the radio for us right now.  It's nice.  

My robot overlord has arrived.  And her name is Alexa.