Dan Antion

Hello Siri — #1LinerWeds

Note: The title has been changed on this post to correct a copy/paste error. Pleasant Upgrade will be the title of tomorrow’s Thursday Doors post. I point that out because some people will be using that link (in the sidebar) when scheduling their Thursday Doors post. Sorry for any confusion.

One of the features I like about my car is that is supports Apple Car Play. Among other things, that means I can send and receive text messages without fumbling with my phone, putting myself in danger and breaking the law here in Connecticut. Incoming messages are read to me and my replies are processed from speech to text…sort of.

Last week, I was in a group text with our daughter Faith and my brother. I was trying to tell them I was on my way to the eye doctor, Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant kept turning ‘eye doctor’ into ‘a doctor.’ I didn’t want them to worry. Eye doctor suggests routine checkup. A doctor, suggests who knows what.

I tried speaking more clearly. I tried speaking louder. Siri never got the message right, but she switched to ALL CAPS as I was speaking louder. I couldn’t choose between these two responses as my one-liner:

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, or if you would like to join in on the fun, you can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

A week ago, these oak trees were hanging onto their leaves.
Two days of heavy wind and rain later
Our burning bush still giving us color
Most of our neighbor’s oak leaves are down
I could spend a lot of money here
This bakery is gearing up for the holidays
The Colt dome across a cold river
Hi Smokey
These two have been hanging out a lot
I don’t know. Elephant? Anteater?
I am fascinated by the sunlight through these leaves
In between storms

Don’t forget, tomorrow is Thursday and that means Thursday Doors. The URL for my post is listed in the sidebar under our beautiful badge. You can link up at any time. My post goes live at one minute after midnight in the eastern timezone. I hope to see your doors.


If you like magical realism with suspense, action and a bit of family sarcasm, you will enjoy these books:

Knuckleheads
The Evil You Choose
When Evil Chooses You

Series page on Amazon

My profile page (and books) on Lulu

All available on Kindle Unlimited!

68 comments

  3. Hi Dan – yes … so frustrating – in my case not in the car … having to stop and read what I know I typed to check! So much for proving itself is artificial! Love the cakes … very sore tummy after spending a lot in there, then perhaps Master and Miss Black Grey are about to set up home …. while I hope that eye doc visit went off without a hitch and all is well … cheers Hilary

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I only ever use Siri in the car, or when walking, and only when I am responding to family. Normally, I try to avoid my phone while in motion. It’s a good thing the bakery doesn’t have shopping carts.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. Both one liners have me laughing so a double thank you for that!

    OMG! That bakery. There should be one just like it in every single neighborhood, especially mine! 🤗

    Smokey and Rustina are definitely an item.

    Yep, that leaf shadow definitely looks like an elephant.

    Storms will never keep Old Glory down. She looks mighty perky in the sunshine.

    Happy Hump Day. Hope your eye exam or doctors appointment went well! However, the eye exam is worrisome since it involved a ROUTING!🙄🤪😵‍💫
    Ginger

    Like

    Reply

    • Ack! Normally, I leave typos in place once someone points them out, Ginger, but this time I had to correct that. Thank you. That’s what I get for periodically including woodworking on this blog.

      That bakery could drive me to the poor house. There are so many things in there I want to buy or try.

      Smokey and Rustina are frequently seen together. It will be interesting to see what color combinations we find running around the yard in the spring. We have seen black squirrels with rusty bellies before, so…

      I hope you have a great rest of the week.

      Like

      Reply

  10. That’s hilarious, Dan. I never use Siri. WellI did for a minute after the woman who voiced Siri started following me on Twitter. I got over it. Lol. I think I WOULD spend lots of money in that pastry case. Yeah this time of year the Toblerone/Babka/Pannetone Parade pushes onward! It always makes me sad to see the trees losing their leaves. I know they’ll be back but still…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. My husband jokes that when I say, “let’s drive to insert town name it means they have a bakery I want to visit.
    Siri–that’s so funny. I think it’s more fun when she doesn’t get things right than when she does.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. Aye doctor – I’m giving her all I got she cannae take no more. Siri obviously thought you were trying to drive at warp 11. The proper response is ” I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer !” Never repeat never talk Scottish to a computer…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Haha – it’s funny, John. I do use the Siri with the English accent. She’s more responsive than the standard voice. I don’t know why, but when the default voice would ask, “what do you want to say?” there was a 2-4 second lag before she was ready to listen. The English voice is ready immediately. I’m not sure there’s a Sottish voice. It may only be available when I’m going to a bar.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  17. I wonder what your Seri would of made of the word Optician. That’s what we call an Eye Doctor.
    Our Alexa and the Google assistant on our Android phones are always arguing with us. Lovely photos I think the leaf could easily be an elephant or anteater but it could equally be a crab!💜💜

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  21. Dan, the Siri group text story…lol. I can absolutely identify with computers that don’t do what they’re told. Wanted to also let you know I bought your two books today on Amazon (paperbacks) and am looking forward to reading them when they arrive.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • The speech-to-text is great for when you cant/shouldn’t use the phone as a handheld device. But Siri makes more mistakes that I do.

      Thank you very much for your purchase. Wow! I hope you enjoy them.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  25. I was amazed at some of the long text messages a friend of mine recently sent me, knowing his typing skills were awful, until I realized he just spoke the message into the phone and it converted it to text. As an old dog I haven’t learned that trick that.

    Interesting that talking louder generates all caps.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Add your thoughts or join the discussion. One relevant link is OK, more require moderation. Markdown is supported.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.