Conversations with Siri

Siri at your service?

I've finally made the jump to using a tablet. An iPad, to be exact. It took me awhile to appreciate the benefits of this form factor, particularly in relation to its price, but now I understand the value (to some degree - it's less valuable when one publishes quite a bit, particularly for work and particularly for doing a lot of typing and creating Microsoft Office documents, but I digress...).

My wife also got an iPad, more precisely a mini. This suits her well, considering she likes smaller things (witness our dog). My wife has taken longer than myself to embrace a tablet, due to the issue of publishing quite a bit, particularly for work and particularly for doing a lot of typing and creating Microsoft Office documents (but I digress...). But little by little, she has started to adopt it as well.

The other night, we were sitting on the couch, and my wife made one of the latest steps towards tablet adoption, by holding down the home button and calling up Siri, the virtual assistant lurking within the latest version of iOS, the iPad operating system. My wife thought it might help her send an email, which led to the following exchange:

My wife: what does this do (holding down the home button)?
Me: It answers your questions, if you want to find something
Siri: beep beep (prompting "What can I help I help you with?")
My wife: ok
My wife: Email Todd
Siri: I'm sorry, I did not get that.
My wife: Email Todd
Siri: I'm sorry, I did not get that.
My wife: You're worthless.
Siri: I understand.
My wife: I'm sorry. I feel bad.
Siri: It's all good

After the exchange, my wife decided to just tell me what she was going to write instead. Not quite the fully-functioning virtual assistant that was advertised, but random and entertaining (not to mention understanding and polite). One day, conversations with Siri will be more productive (although perhaps still random and entertaining).

Comments

New York Pause

Heading to the Helmsley Sometimes I work in NYC, and this is my office. More precisely, there is a desk in the upper floors of this distinctive building that has a major thoroughfare running through it that I inhabit while typing up documents and conducting meetings in the city. It is nothing exceptional, usually the work and sometimes the desk at which I sit, but the surrounding city is commanding, ever-thriving, and never-still. If I pay close enough attention, I am reminded of the countless things that make this city unique among the many cities I have had the pleasure to live in and visit. But on this brisk morning, when winter gusts barrel down Park Avenue as I hustle the blocks from Lex to the building entrance security guards, I pause long enough to snap this picture. That pause is enough reminder that I am lucky to be here, and New York City is ready to give me its best shot (I'm still not sure if the city is better personified male or female). But that is all t

Party Like It's 1999

A coworker sent me a meeting invitation to the end of the world. Fitting. I'm not sure if I should accept or not (suppose it depends on your views of the end of the Mayan calendar ), but somehow it reminded me of the Prince song on a related subject . Fitting as well that this coworker was not born when Prince extolled the virtues of partying like it's 1999 (side note: I did party like it's 1999 while studying abroad in Milan at that time, which was a heady experience with the coming of the Euro and all. How times have changed, how the mighty have fallen...). Time change, sometimes faster than we think, and our cultural references become dated. Perhaps just like the Mayan calendar falling out of fashion over the last few centuries, until its end becomes a modern cultural phenomenon - or not, depending on your view of things. In either case, it's worth partying like it's 1999 regardless because hey, it will be Friday when this all goes down, and Fridays

A Little Bit of Proust

Somehow I started to read Proust. The blame goes to Alain de Botton , a writer whose witticisms deconstruct modern thinking and make intellectualism seem but a trifle and a whim. He wrote a book in 1997 called "How Proust Can Change Your Life" which distills the enigmatic French novelist into a self-help dispenser of pithy ideas. How clever I found Mr. de Botton to be when I dipped my toe into the vagaries of Proust; I picked up volume one of "In Search of Lost Time" and instantly fell into the deep end. What author dares to run sentences onward into the stratosphere that sometimes seemingly mellows behind the stars of a bright night, but never so much as an introspective person that wretches for the meaning of a simple thought, sometimes stumbling, but always emerging strongly as that same night in starry sky, almost an homage back to Van Gogh, whose rich paintings greatly represented the mood of a generation - and generations often afford a few mis-steps in l

Journal : OpenRoadWorks

Search This Blog