Alexa – the snoop that blabs to your friends

I am not sure that the Alexa story has me as worried as perhaps it should, I see no personal need or interest in such a device. I am also a bit surprised at the way Alexa ab-reacted. I had not seen similar reports in the past and wondered why this device had ended up with a configuration that caused the issue. I should expect that someone somewhere will be taking more than a passing interest in the how and why this arose.

That said, I am not surprised that a ‘room bug’ was able to perform that way, in essence that is what bugs do. I imagine that an unfortunate combination of ‘Hey’ + ‘Alexa’+ ‘call whoever’ could easily result in similar events.

OK Google either looks up unwanted and unconnected on the internet or tries to call a wrong number, never what I wanted it to do. I abandoned trying to get it to work as I wanted. One example; ‘OK Google, call home’.

Google answer; ‘You want to speak to someone in the Home Office?’

Or it gives some similar nonsense response.

This is a feature they activated by accedent.

We have an a alexa somewhere. Think Thr lads use it, but you can call other alexas that are in your alexia phone book.

Google home ups it one and can call anyone. I’m not sure how it does it, or who pays for thr calls as you can call mobiles and land-line. It’s really good tbh,

I never thought I would say it but I am an amazon fan boy now. Be that shopping or fire tv sticks and the apps for the phone including the music one which I pay a bit extra for. Plus I owe amazon/Morrisons apology as I had a proper sharp word with them when my steak was missing from my order last Friday. I must have had a funny moment when unpacking as it was found in my fridge last night. Still they delivered the wrong flavored cat biscuits on the same order how ever they sent 2 bags instead of 1 bag that I paid of so it’s hard to complain there to “But I Will” 🙂

That Amazon suck you in bit by bit, and then one day you realise, your a fan boy.

It’s there customer service that keeps me. Nothing is ever an issue. Also my Mrs has a knack of never paying full price for prime.

Ed P wrote:

Cats are incredibly fussy eaters if given half a chance.

I could introduce you to a husky, that will turn over every morsel, inspect every biscuit from both sides, even including the lick test before deciding the time is not right, selecting the one to eat or some other issue gets in her way; like today is not a food day.

I never had a problem getting any of my German Sheppies to eat, but every single one would go right off drink at the wrong time: when it was really, really hot. Stupid buggas just would not drink. I found the best solution with the last one, who lived in the workshop with me at work: he loved ice cold milk. Yes, I know it’s wrong, but I let him drink just enough then started dribbling cold water into the bowl and he fell for it. Eventually he drank so much water that his belly was distended, after which he had a HUGE urinary event and I made him lie down in a cool corner, with a breeze playing over him.

My Army dog Blue, I would buy and boil up a Sheep’s head, and make up a thick stew with carrots and whatever dry biscuits I could find, let it set. (he loved carrots) those two were pure-bred German, proper Deutscher Schäferhund, with all the papers. They were both massive dogs, but my Blue had been bred as an attack dog and had to be carefully kept. My workshop dog J-J was maybe a little larger, but due to his early life of abuse, he hated everything and everyone except for myself and the garage staff. I used to make him a sheep’s head stew too, every 2 weeks, he loved it. An Army vet gave me that tip for bigger dogs, reckoned it gave them stuff they didn’t get in tins and dry food. I never actually gave any of my dogs tinned food, always got to know a local butcher and got scraps: all good meat, that humans would not eat. I got them knuckle bones as well, stripped out the marrow from bones and cooked it in with the sheep’s heads. The living proof was always a healthy dog. J-J was not the garage dog, he was mine and would go home with me, once he knew the family and decided they were not for eating!

Ellen freezes a plastic takeaway container full of treats and snacks, topped off with water. We separate the dogs and give them one each. In their rush to get to the snacks, they usually eat the ice too. Thanks to the size and shape of the containers, we can usually keep a couple in the freezer too.