My iPad got into “voice over” mode the other day and started talking, explaining everything on the screen while taking no touch or voice commands from me. Took me a while to figure out how to get it shut the f*** up. After which I was wondering, if this software is “so smart” (as it says on the label), why doesn’t it accept the verbal order “shut the f*** up!” as a way of turning “voice over” off(1)?
I have actively tried telling Alexis and Cortana to shut up, especially with Cortana when starts talking to me out of the blue in some sinister cross between Hal 9000’s semi-neurotic voice and my kindergarten teacher’s “everything’s OK” voice.
Not always “shut the f*** up,” either. “Shut up,” is my most common verbal reaction when a piece of supposedly servile electronics unexpectedly starts talking at me. Not that it ever works, mind.
Really, “shut up” or “quiet” or “stop talking” or the many other variations on that concept should be accepted, don’t you think?
Or “fermé la bouche” maybe, oui(2)?
Would be nice if the Browsers(3) took verbal convenience commands, too, such as “kill all extensions” or “stop all alerts” or “disinfect yourself(4)” or “block all ads.” Wouldn’t that put a wrestling hold on runaway, predatory advertising? You could soften it a little with “pause all alerts” also being an option, but really, why would you *want* to invite all those hungry, disinformation artists and sales people into your living room? That’s about all internet alerts are actually for, after all.
Anyway, “Cortana! Shut Up!”
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(1) Once when I was being irritated beyond human endurance by Microsoft’s phone system I let out a huge “F***!” and the phone system actually came back with “would you like to talk to a representative?” Imagine my delight…
(2) French for “shut your mouth” and it’s considered slightly rude in French — or was upon a when, at least — fashions in “rude” are subject to change without notice.(Which is itself kind of rude, don’t you think?)
(3) Browsers, you know: Chrome, FireFox, Safari, SeaMonkey, Maxtor and all the rest (dozens more). I exclude Internet Explorer and its truly hideous heir-apparent Edge, as they are not really browsers so much as thinly veiled advertising portals. They are also the slowest and least secure browsers on the market. Question: when browsers are free, why is there so much competition between them? Figure that one out and you might have figured out how this time will be remembered in the historical footnotes of future centuries. 🙂
(4) Probably the number one “infection” on computers these days, Apples included [in spite of what Apple corporation claims, OSX *is* subject to malware — their official statement is true but deliberately misleading] , is from the many ways browsers can be attacked. Predatory or outright malicious extensions, run-away alerts, “chromium” instead of chrome, “click here now for your free million dollars,” and etc beyond belief.