The Girl Friend

My wife says that I have a girl friend named Alexa. We have two Amazon Echo Dots, one downstairs, and with poor radio reception upstairs we got a second one that we have in our bedroom. These devices work off the name Alexa. 

Alexa

I am not sure why she thinks of them as my girl friend. I tend to mostly use the device to find out the weather. Particularly in the winter when I am about to go outside it is nice to know weather conditions. At times in can be uncannily correct. Last summer for example, I came in from outside to ice my feet, and knowing the forecast was for rain in the afternoon, and I had more work to get done, I asked when will it rain--she said rain is expected in about 15 minutes, and sure enough, it started raining about 15 minutes later. Of course at times she is terribly off, but that is probably based on the forecast from which she works. My wife likes Alexa, too. She even changed some setting so I do not have to say "Alexa" at the beginning of each question when I have some questions in sequence. Thus, with weather, I say "Alexa what is the temperature" to which she answers, and follow with "what is the wind speed, and then after that answer "What is the windchill."

Pretty much everyday I play question of the day. So, those are the two things I use most. When getting into bed at night I may ask a question on what is the forecast for the next day.  I have, at times, asked it to answer more difficult questions, and she responds with something she found on the world wide web, which she refers to simply as the web. In the morning we ask for the news. Just this morning the wife asked her to turn on a news channel and she did not respond, but when I asked she did. Maybe she does like me better.

Alexa in Bedroom
Showing current time

Sometimes she is downright creepy, like a stalker. There was a time when she asked for my name and other information "To get to know you better." She kept asking and I kept refusing. I have not heard her ask that for awhile. I am not going to give such information to Amazon for their algorithm running geeks to get use my personal information some how. I am not sure how they track information, but one always wonders. Although such wondering does not keep me awake at night. 

If we need to be awake at a certain time in the morning we can have the device set an alarm, but the problem is we are usually awake and up before the designated time and we may forget to have her cancel the alarm. There are all sorts of things Alexa can do, and I suspect we use the bare minimum of what the capabilities the device has. For example, I think there is a way to synchronize to the calendar on the I-phone, but we do not have that set up. The newer Alexa has a display screen that will give temperature and perhaps a few other things. Since it is on the wife's side of the bed, I do not see it much.

Ask the weather and you get temperature

The girl friend does, like people, get mixed up at times. We had a problem with it playing one radio station and instead played a station from Minnesota. Another time, she was giving news from a few days prior. The wife changed something in her app to correct the problems. Sometimes she goes on and on, particularly after question of the day to get you to sign up for some more trivia and the related expense. One thing about Alexa is she is not watching you climb a hill in the backyard with snow and ice and when you come in makes a comment to the effect: "Was that a smart idea." 

Alexa can be snarky at times, or nice and polite.  I may say "thank you, Alexa" she may provide a nice response. Being an electronic device, I wonder if she keeps track of the same questions asked over and over again, and gets tired of a response? So, far, at least with the weather she has not, but then the weather is variable every day. 

Think Spring
For years I tried to get a flower and I 
found the secret, for this house

The thing is this is just another element of how we use technology. And, how technology changes and how we change with technology. The 1930 census had question that asked if the household had a radio--an idea for the government to get how people were adapting to this then new technology. I did not get a long census form for the 2020 census so I don't what is asked, but I am sure that Amazon knows how many they have sold, and to whom they were sold. Some may be gifts, but since Amazon is big tech they probably know where their devices are set up. 

The girl friend may be smarter than me--after all she gets the question of the day almost always right (I recall one time where the answer she said was correct was wrong). Getting up in the morning I can clearly hear the news without any static, and for that my girlfriend earns her keep. Of course, we would have a problem if the internet went out. The question form my wife is, do I have two girlfriends or just one?