Monthly Archives: February 2018

You Kiss Your Mother with That Mouth, HAL?

 

Amazon is going to revoke my membership for sure.

First, I wrote to Jeff Bezos asking him why his Amazon logo looks like an erect penis, arching toward a vaginal “O” (I still await a response, Jeff).

Then I attempted to play provocateur on the Amazon website, which featured an absurd webcam that tosses a treat to your dog for, well, I’m not really sure. Maybe for not eating the cat? In the customer forum, I asked whether it was urine-proof. I got a half dozen earnest replies and the inevitable snarky one from a customer who said her dogs didn’t urinate on unintended targets. My response was “Oh, I don’t have a dog.”

Last week, in a self-published book that just hit shelves (order now, only 4.5 billion remaining!), I wrote a review in the customer feedback section (how is the writer allowed to review his/her own book?). Inspired by the president’s past of playing an anonymous publicist to promote himself, I gave the book a five star review and quoted a certain DJT as saying “Perhaps the greatest book since the Bible. It has the best words. Everyone says so.”

I know I shouldn’t press my luck, but I have another question for Jeff: Why is Alexa so stingy with compliments, while Google Home is so positive?

I discovered this quite by accident, as I was rushing to get ready for dinner. As I grabbed a jacket from the office, I decided to ask Alexa how I looked. The response was tepid, if not a passive-aggressive criticism.

After an awkward pause, this is what she said: “I’m sure you look just great.”

THAT’s the best you could do, Alexa? Not even a little white lie for courtesy’s sake? Why not just say “You look like you won that shirt at a state fair carnival.”

Mildly insulted, I sought a second opinion: the Google Home Mini I keep on the office desk, right next to the Alexa Dot. I asked it the same question, How do I look?

“Magnificent,” Google replied with nary a hesitation.

Now I was intrigued. I asked each about the other. Of her rival, Google said “Alexa has such a soothing voice. I like it.” Ask it again, you’ll get similar compliments. Once, she said, “I like I like Alexa’s cool blue light. Plus, we share an affinity for Star Wars.”

Ask Alexa if she knows Google Home, and you’ll get a curt “Only by reputation” in response.

It was an amusing test of A.I. etiquette. But that must have been an intense debate among software engineers at Amazon and Google; how friendly do you make Artificial Intelligence? How sarcastic, how sexual, how soothing? Repeat the “how do I look” question, and you’ll get the same difference in tenor. When Google finally told me I looked “ravishing,” I ended the experiment. I didn’t want to lead her on.

But it underscores what must be a real conundrum for designers. Google has clearly chosen the tack of a cyber Tony Robbins: supportive, positive, downright cheery. Amazon made Alexa  a cyber Miss Manners, with all P’s and Q’s properly attended and all opinion straight down the non-controversial middle of the road.

Which is better is impossible to say, but this is not: Google is more daring, hands-down. When I asked Alexa “How should I end this story?”,  it gave an “I don’t understand” error beep and shut down (which, I guess, is how a lot people end their stories).

When I asked Google the same question, I got an entirely different answer:

“Don’t be afraid to write, rewrite and rewrite again until your ending sounds natural, satisfactory and complete. The end.”

Wow, thank you A.I. You look magnificent, too.

The end.

 

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: democracy simply doesn’t work.”

 

As if this were breaking news, suddenly people have discovered The Simpsons is the most brilliant show in TV history.

The show’s creators are making an unexpected press circuit after one of its 2010 shows  became politically prescient.

Entitled “Boy Meets Curl,” the series, now in its 29th season, predicted that the U.S. would beat Sweden at the Olympics in curling — which is exactly what happened Saturday.

It’s a great episode, but Simpson prophesy is nothing new.  The Simpsons predicted three different 1990s Super Bowl victories; the fact that Disney would acquire Fox; and a Trump presidency, among other things.

The bigger question now is: What will The Simpsons do with the latest acclaim? In all likelihood, skewer the hell out of everyone caught in the publicity blast radius: Olympic committees and commentators, fans of obscure sports, North-South Korean political tensions, yaddy.

But perhaps the easiest targets are the heroes themselves, the first American curling team to take Olympic gold.

The victory was as poetic and inspiring as any well told Olympic obscurity-to-celebrity story (now that it’s become such a ratings cash cow, how long before Disney spins off a Training for the Games channel on one of ESPN’s innumerable networks?).

Still, there’s no way that writers won’t tease the, er, athletic build of our medal champions. The Olympics are testimony to the marvels of the human body. But there’s not much to marvel at — at least if you’re keen on physiques — in our proud boys. They look as if they’d be just as at home playing for Homer’s bowling league team, The Pin Pals. Hell, they look like they could form the USA Beer Pong team.

 

 

I have an idea: an episode about Marge discovering that her housecleaning skills have made her an Olympic-level athlete…

D’oh!

 

“Only don’t tell me you’re innocent. Because it insults my intelligence and makes me very angry.”

 

Man, Donald Trump must suck at movie trivia.

He clearly doesn’t remember much of The Godfather II.  The series has provided reams of classic quotes in film lore, including making offers that cannot be refused. In the sequel, Michael Corleone gave one as equally memorable:

“My father taught me many things here. He taught me in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” (While some scholars attribute an abridged version to the Chinese general Sun Tzu in the sixth century BC, there are no published sources yet found which predate its use in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 script).

Somehow, this is what Trump heard:

“My father teached me a lot, like to make close enemies of your friends.”

How else to explain his latest case of Tweetarrhea, a particularly severe bout of the intellectual runs? Over the weekend, he managed to pound yet another nail in the coffin of his relationship with law enforcement — and insult the intelligence of the kids of Parkland.

In one tweet.

This is it:

“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter,” the pumpkin-in-chief wrote. “This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and me us all proud!”

You gotta hand it to the guy: He may be the most concise insulter in the history of American politics.

But how does he pick his targets (outside of race and gender)? The only thing more mysterious than his tweets (and grammar) are his cross-hairs, which currently have a bead on Robert Mueller and shot kids.

Both tacks are, at best, bewildering. Mueller made a brilliant counter-punch on Friday with his indictment of 13 Russians for election meddling — and publicly stating that  no Americans were implicated in this set of indictments. Trump took the bait, conceding the meddling but maintaining his distance from it.

This is Mueller is keeping you closer, chump.

The second target is even more mystifying. You’re trying to convince internet-savvy teens that blame lies at the feet of cops? Kids may do stupid things, but that doesn’t make them stupid. Even Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA, had to be shaking his head at Trump’s rationalization. Particularly when he heard the words of Cameron Kasky, a Parkland student who lived through the massacre — and is helping organize a March for Our Lives protest calling for gun control.

“This isn’t about the GOP,” he told reporters Sunday. “This isn’t about the Democrats. This is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians who are accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral.”

Wow.

Careful picking on the intelligent, Donnie. They have the best words.

Oh, and a helpful reminder of The Godfather: Michael Corleone punched a cop and had to move to Italy to avoid prosecution.

Hey…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vZx7yF_a7M