Alexa, do we have reason to fear you?
Published 1:30 am Sunday, January 29, 2017
By Carol MacPherson
The headlines having been backing up like a clogged drain. Let’s gingerly give them a flush so we can start the Lunar New Year fresh.
“Red Skittles spilling onto Wisconsin highway were headed for cattle feed”: No, former Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch hasn’t opened his own ranch. It turns out it’s a decades old practice — to keep costs down, of course — to add the candy to cattle feed. All that corn syrup in the candy is being used as a less costly replacement for straight corn that cattle have been fed for decades, even though in nature cows eat grasses, not corn, which is extremely difficult for them to digest.
Would it really be more costly to feed cattle grass than corn? (Or Skittles?) Or does the corn industry rule the food industrial/government subsidy complex?
“Russell Wilson moves on from Seahawks’ playoff loss in way only he can”: By making a new commercial?
“McDonald’s heads to the Vatican”: Where one can presumably order The Maxima Mac, a Sistine Shake and a Pope Francis Filet-o-Fish?
“Amazon’s Alexa lets you purchase from your car”: Ah, distracted shopping and driving! What an innovation.
“Amazon wants to dress you — literally”: Really? So Jeff Bezos, or a drone, a robot butler or some other employee is going to come to your house, pick out an outfit, and help you put it on? What Amazon wants to do, of course, is literally sell you clothes from its “affordable private label clothing lines.”
“Who will dress Melania Trump?”: It would have to be Alexa, right?
“Seven unexpected Amazon Alexa abilities”: Not mentioned in the “article” is the amazing ability is to generate headline after headline on news websites, pretty much eliminating the need for paid advertising.
What the article does mention is that Alexa keeps an audio recording of every voice command you’ve issued. The article has a link (blocked on my computer) that let’s you listen to your commands and learn how to delete them. Which you should do, especially if dear Alexa provides evidence that you were shopping while driving, which is against the law, or should be.
“Agency: TCF National Bank tricked customers on overdraft fees”: The scheme worked so well, the bank’s chairman and former CEO, Bill Cooper, named his luxury party boat “Overdraft.” You can’t make this stuff up. Apparently that’s what happens when financial institutions try to keep up with the Wells Fargos of the world.
“Housing sought in Everett for WSU medical students”: The billet program, where students will stay with families, has a few restrictions: No hypochondriacs, no super competitive Husky households, and no one who thinks “billet program” is code for a “dating” site.
Dream up names for your luxury party boat this week. Such “Deep Pockets,” or “Other People’s Money.”
