Alexa, order dog treats!

Only great marketing can make a “thing” out of nothing.    The BIG DAY, for Amazon, that is, to separate willing fools from their hard-earned money, through a Sale day.   Like a often sarcastic comment I have been guilty of making – “only five months till Christmas!”  I’ve many times caught myself thinking, “if I had only purchased this back in July”.

One of Amazon’s biggest moves has been into home automation with it’s Alexa -enabled, voice-driven devices.   Apple first started this lazy-revolution with SIRI,  and Google has it’s own — I use it a lot in my car to remain “hands-free”,  and now Amazon.   Some time ago I bought a little microprocessor kit  – Raspberry Pi – and had the option to install the Amazon Alexa code.     I put that kit somewhere in the garage where my workbench was going to be my plaything.   Then it got to be summer,   Maybe this Fall, I will get back to that.

I understand from several articles that the voice-activated devices continually pick up conversation, including our phones apparently, unless we make some security features active.   And then this gets fed back to BIG CORPORATIONS  ( although they will have us believe that the NSA is the one we need to be concerned with) to help with the Artificial Intelligence and speech functionality.  

I don’t really want my home to be totally automated.  I have some lights right now on my home network but I think a voice -active system would be terrifying at worst and costly, at best.     I read a lot of fiction as a youngster about homes that took over caring for the occupants, and rendering them prisoners,  other stories about rogue computers on spaceships a la 2001, A Space Odyssey,   and still others that wanted to replace humans and walk around among us.    Weird .    But mostly,  with Dexter and Comet at home all day long,  I’m afraid a self-learning automated system might have delivery trucks at my home every day.   Dog biscuits,  specialty dog food,  toys,  and jerky treats.   Not to mention dog pillows,  cushions and  spa-treatments.     Oh boy.   And yes,  I have succumbed to marketing, too.  I am expecting my purchases today to show up in two days.   After all,  Amazon told me it was a good deal!!