A fellow Marlboro Coors Lite Ford Chevy SUV pickup banking insurance sportsball enthusiast, I see

2 years later, somewhere in their sales and marketing departments:

“Hey, you know what would make us even more money?”

“No, but do tell”

“Advertising”

“Genius - how is it nobody has ever thought of this before?”

Roku somehow thinking that the Ferengi rules of acquisition was a how-to guide book.

Jeff Geerling discusses having done the same, in one of his videos.

Something something superior siege weapon

“This here’s the Lockpocking Lawyer, and today we’re going to take a closer look at the Flipper Zero….”

Orthogonal, but I have fond memories of the firewalls mailing list (greatcircle.com iirc) as well as the Usenet Oracle

Just wanted to throw something else into the discussion.

I’ll preface this that a) I’m no economist, and b) I’m Canadian.

Let’s harken back to circa 1996 when the Quebec separatists were once again threatening to leave. Also, they were going to keep the Canadian dollar as their currency.

I was having a chat with a coworker, who did have a minor in finance. He pointed out that if Quebec separated and kept the Cdn dollar, their fiscal policy would be dictated by Canada.

So reframing this for Texas: if they seceded, would they keep the USD? If not, how quickly would they be able to design their own currency and mint it? What exchange rate would they use for their citizens and how quickly could they get the new currency into the hands of everyone, including out in the boonies?

I’m completely glossing over any considerations around what might happen if they kept the USD.

FWIW I enjoyed your post. And yeah, quite the knack for shite friends/relationships :D

“WHOA THERE DUDE! Geez, didn’t you see that paper cup being blown by the wind?? Totally saved your ass.”

True, there’s that :)

And of course there are those times that Alexa completely misunderstands. Neither my wife nor I know how it happened, but some months back we discovered “blow job” on our list.

“Alexa, add bananas”

“Alexa, 3 minutes”

“Alexa, add 30 seconds”

I think that’s just about everything I’ve ever used it for.

Yeah, that works because of the ‘z’ I would say.

I’m having trouble finding another word that rhymes but still uses an ‘s’ and not a ‘z’.

I guess there’s ‘choose,’ but visually it looks closer to ‘loose’. Which would just confuse the people we’re trying to give clarity to.

And lose rhymes with no-

Er.

Let me get back to you on that.

This came up in my feed today:

https://youtu.be/QGqj0_IITHE

Sharing, in case it’s useful at all.

Very true, and along the lines of what I was thinking.

But it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a way to establish a voice print. In fact, isn’t that already a thing? Even if it is a little rough around the edges, it wouldn’t surprise me if we were even closer to a higher reliability than thought.

With or without that, consider the copyright infringement suits for someone wanting to protect their song, melody, or whatever. Someone could poke at the 8 keys of a toy piano, and if a music artist’s legal team felt it sounded close enough to the original? The ol’ beatdown-by-seeking-damages trick if not a cease and desist order.

Anyway. If someone has enough money and too much time, they’ll make a case out of anything.

Man, I misunderstood the headline. I thought the AI had created a likeness of her voice, and SJ was going after them for that.

Which begs the question, just how unique are our voices? There’s being distinct, and then there’s being literally one of a kind.

Guess the next Fasnacht is gonna see some changes, then.

Put a pebble in my shoe, gottit.

[insert goofy stone-in-shoe scene from White House Plumbers]