From Pine View Farm

“The Listener at the Hearth” 0

In The Guardian, Rory Carroll muses on his experiences with the Amazon Echo, which is sort of a stand-alone Siri. He suspects that it is compiling a list and checking it twice. Here’s a snippet:

A few days after my wife and I discussed babies, my Kindle showed an advertisement for Seventh Generation diapers. We had not mooched for baby products on Amazon or Google. Maybe we had left digital tracks somewhere else? Even so, it felt creepy. Quizzed, the little black obelisk in the corner shrugged off any connection. “Hmm, I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”

I am a long-time fan of H. P. Lovecraft. Granted, his plots have a certain sameness about them, but no writer I’ve encountered is more adept at creating atmosphere.

On wonders what horrors he could have imagined had he ever conceived of the Amazon Echo (or even Siri, for that matter).

If you’ve not read Lovecraft, I recommend The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadith (long) or The Cats of Ulthar (short) for starters.

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