A nice LOL-Ewww:
And then a nice LOL-Awwww:
And who doesn’t enjoy a good Alexa-Siri joke?
And an Ouch-LOL:
He meant to order an inflatable doll, but received an inflatable bed of nails.
P.S. A couple days later, this character and that prop re-appear; but decidedly not funny :-( .
BTW, Gocomics gives this feature filenames that look like loesp230927.jpg, clueing us that at some point they were considering it to be Life On Earth in Spanish. (The same artist does the Life on Earth comic.)
Again on the meta train.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Many thanks to the editor who looked up and revealed the meaning of “Muñeca” in Spanish. The word turns out to have several meanings, and the translator that I happened to use insisted that it meant “wrist”.
I do not get the first one at all ~ Tracy
Imagine how many spikes the blow-up doll would have had, and where.
Anon #2: You are often asked if you want to donate your body to science, so why not donate your consciousness to philosophy?
I don’t get the one with those three elves or whatever they are
@lazarusjohn That’s a Macanudo, and I guess it’s more of a Meta than a full LOL. The elf-or-whatever doesn’t like the situation he and his companions are in, but now thinks he sees a way out of it. But it isn’t something that would work strictly within their world. Instead, it is to fly up and away, rising off the comics page.
Re: Andertoons: I for one do not enjoy Siri Or Alexa jokes. Never used either nor wanted to. A big frustration of being forced to use an iPhone for work is that I can’t uninstall Siri.
I don’t use either, either. (That didn’t feel so hard to parse when I said it!) But that aversion is for me a reason to enjoy jokes that sort of flick at them.
I’ve seen the “crib of nails” joke before (which isn’t an accusation – it was long ago and seems a natural enough joke). I’m all but certain it was in an old Playboy, and was definitely an “Arlo” version: Swami reclining on a bed of nails in the background, crib of nails with baby in the foreground, wife saying something while, uh, preparing to breast-feed the baby.
@ Carl Fink (6) – Siri is built-in as part of iOS, so you can’t offload it, but it certainly is possible to disable the stupid beast so that it’s not bothersome. It takes some perseverance, but I know it can be done (because I have).
P.S. @ mitch (7) – When you said it, did it come out as “EEE-ther AYE-ther”, or was it “AYE-ther EEE-ther”? Or did you pronounce both words the same way?
I probably said “Me neither!”
Mr. Fink, look at Settings|Siri &Search. I haven’t completely disabled Siri, but it only pops up suggestions occasionally.
On all of my Apple devices, Siri has to be activated before I can ask it anything. Alexa, I understand, is always listening (and that’s why I don’t have one).
If Siri is not always listening, how does it know when you say “Hey Siri” to activate it?
Siri reminds me of my little brother, who was supposedly upstairs in bed when the adults were talking. One of the adults said “I would say more, but somebody upstairs is listening.” My brother yelled “No I’m not!”
Memo to Boise, Boston, and other parts of the Universe: I have a Late Jurassic iPhone 8 which gives me the choice of Listen for “Hey Siri”, Press Home for Siri, or neither (both off). I think Mark is right that, for “Hey Siri” to work, Siri must be listening all the time. I’m not sure she isn’t listening even with the third option. My wife and I are ocassionally surprised to see an ad pop up for some product or service we casually mentioned a few moments before. Coincidence?
It depends what you mean by “listening”. Siri-enabled devices are programmed to recognize the phrase, “Hey, Siri”. That one phrase is the only thing it can decipher. Everything else is just noise. The sound of that phrase triggers the Siri application, which can then react to the next thing you say.
If the ability to “hear” one specific phrase is “listening”, then yes, you would say that Siri listens all the time.
It reminds me of the Far Side cartoon, “What we say to dogs/What they hear”. I can’t post it here, but Google it.
Alexa allegedly sends every sound the comes through its microphone back to Amazon for interpretation and analysis. I don’t think it is true that Alexa works that way. However, Amazon has been subpoenaed several times when an Alexa device was found at a crime scene. I don’t think the cops got anything useful.
‘ “Hey, Siri”. That one phrase is the only thing it [Siri] can decipher. Everything else is just noise.’–That is so, as I understand it.
@ ootenaboot (15) – I’ve always been quite comfortable describing the eclectic collection of inherited and reconditioned Apple hardware in our household as “Neanderthalic”, but your description of an iPhone 8 as being “late Jurassic” implies that we must must be “Palaeozoic”. My son currently leads us all with his iPhone 8, everything else (including our iPads and desktop systems) are older than that.
P.S. I did finally retire a pair of venerable iPhone 4s when the German Telekom discontinued Internet service† for them about two years ago. At the time I did consider investing in something new, but I quickly realized that I just wasn’t comfortable walking around with an $800 piece of hardware in my pocket.
P.S. † – I think those 4s can still make a phone call, but none of the online services will work with them, unless you have an active WiFi connection. Besides that, their batteries were starting to become severely limited.
I got my first cell phone last week, an Android version. I will be moving in the next couple months, and will be giving up the landline. I didn’t want to lose the number, so I ported it to the cell. I turned off the “hey google” thing immediately.
I have an Android also – my second one as it had to be upgraded. I could deal with the first one, hate this one even more. I would not have gotten a new one, but my old one a 4 for some reason was discontinued when the 3’s were discontinued.
The first one was a Samsung which was bearable to me. The new one is not a Samsung (it is a Moto). Robert had told me that everything would look and be the same. It is was/is not. Apparently Samsung had its own software over the Android software and everything that I liked was in the Samsung software. It took weeks for him to find apps for me that I could deal with how they looked on the phone – he went through at least 4 apps doing this. Even then – I had to go and change listings in my calendar as pictures would appear which annoy me. “Dinner” had to be changed to “supper” or a picture of a meal was on the calendar. (This listing rings an hour before we eat dinner to remind me to go and cook it.) But the word “supper” also annoys me as I want it to say dinner. (Yeah, amazing that we have been married almost 45 years and 50 years since first date this November – but then again, there are times he is “the pain” instead of me.) I can only list a person’s name for their birthday or, again, a picture (icon?) shows up. Setting up a calendar entry is ridiculous to do compared to Samsung. Clock (alarm) is so much easier to set in the Samsung. Then add in, this was the smallest phone he could find which we could afford. It is still about 25% bigger than the Samsung. I am small framed (fat, but small framed) with small hands. If I don’t seat the Moto exactly right in my hand it tips over and falls off the back of my hand. So I am still using the Samsung for non- phone calls around the house – turn on the wifi in it and it syncs with the dats in the Moto – for everything contact info, calendar etc – except for my shopping list as, the app in the Samsung was no longer available and the version I have would not work in the Moto so I have two different memo programs in the two phones. Out of the house I only carry the Moto – not easy as it a bit too big to be comfortable in the front pocket of my jeans, Samsung fit fine. In the house I have my “gang” of phones – each of which has its own purpose. Not only the Samsung, but my Palm Centro is still working for other than phone usage and it has apps (“software” from back then?) and is a better calendar, etc than my newer phones. It also syncs with Lotus Organizer in my computers. Yes, it is dead program – but husband has set up Win 7 desktop computer and my Win 10 laptop with a virtual XP machine in each – just so I can keep using LO. In between the Centro and the Samsung I had a Blackberry – the worst of the 4 phones. It does not do much that I like, but it does have a couple of games I like which I can’t otherwise get – besides, it is good friends with the Centro and they keep each other company. All four travel around the house with me. If/when we go on an actual trip they will come, but normally when I go out I only take the Moto. When I add to my schedule they are all (except the Blackberry) updated by me. If I turn on the wifi on the Samsung it syncs in the house with the data in the Moto so that is easy to do. Yes – Robert thinks I am crazy also, but it works for me and any time there is something I don’t hate (though I do actually hate the Moto) he is glad there is something I like, even if only “sort of”. (Right now all 4 phones are sitting behind this laptop on the kitchen table.)