There's a much easier and cheaper way to avoid interacting with Alexa, or any of these AI-powered surveillance devices.
You can simply choose to not purchase one and install it in your home.
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
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I wonder if it responds to Billy Joel singing The Downeaster Alexa...
In Hungarian, this actually persists.
Wolves are called the "tailed ones" ("farkas", "farok" means tail), stags are the "horned ones" ("szarvas", "szarv" means horn), with the original words not being used anymore.
Or you could just remove that shit from your life. You choose to have that thing listening to you.
Surveillance capitalism is like the devil, it never enters where it hasn't been invited to.
...what? It's a pervasive thing that needs to be actively avoided
The real moral of Vampires stories: Don't invite evil into your home.
Not quite, they started saying "bear" instead of its real name, Ȧ̷̢̨͇͓͛̒͐͐́̓̎́͌͜͝Ṛ̸̭̫͕̒̈̚͜Ķ̶̢̛͍͚͕̤̜̗͕͖͎̞̣̋̓̄͒͆̏̐͑͒̿͆́͠ͅṬ̷̢̩̠̖͖͖̼̙̼̪̯̈͜O̵̰͕̓̋̊̊̾̈͐
| PIE | Proto-Germanic | Old English | Middle English | Modern English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| *h₂r̥tḱós | *arhaz | *earh | *earh | *are, ere |
| *h₂r̥tḱós | *arhsaz | *earx, arx | *arx | *arx |
| *h₂rétḱ-os | *rahso | *reaxa | *rax | *rax |
| *h₂ŕ̥ḱtos | *urhtaz | *orht | *orhte | *rought |
| *h₂ŕ̥ḱtos | *urhaz | *urh | *urgh, rugh | *(o)rough ? |
I'm not sure if Lemmy does tables the same way and hope that renders correctly, but I've borrowed some possible non-euphemism PIE reconstructions for how it might've gone, and I have to say my favorite would be "rought" pronounced /ɹʌft/. But I could also see "orough" turning into "owo" which amuses me greatly.
isn't bear supposed to mean 'the brown one' ?
Yes, so "bear" is the euphemism people started to use in order to avoid saying its real name. Or so the theory goes, anyway.
It's always awake, always listening. It just lets you know that when you say it's name.
my neighbors' put the creepiest picture of jesus they could find on their alexa
My wife just calls her "the bitch"
I use "dumb bitch" because it seems to fail too often.
My spouse insists on having one of these. I unplug it when it's just me at home.
I call her "our friend in the other room."
Add a smart plug that alexa controls and plug it in to it. Tell it to unplug itself. You would have to hit the button to turn it back on though.
You can do it a better way though. Home assistant is a local, open source stand alone home automation suite that can use alexa as an interface. You could have it set a timer to disable alexa with the power plug, and re-enable it when when your wife gets back.
You could even set it up to turn off alexa whenener you wifes phone leaves the house, and come back on when she comes back if you want a "real time" schedule.
Thanks for thinking through all this, I appreciate the time.
For me, it's a privacy issue, which is why it lives in a room we rarely hang out in. It's our only IoT device, which the spouse uses for Spotify and we both use for timers and reminders. We've had it for years, so it's just sort of settled into a low tier of constant usefulness. Though I'll check the open source Home Assistant to see what options might also be out there. But I wouldn't want to add layers like constant location tracking relayed to Amazon after doing a lot to cut them off from that data.
I do like the timer on the socket idea. Might do that.
Friend?
Yeah, it's sarcastic for me and not my spouse while also personifying it without gendering it. Plus, we call too many things "machine" for that to be a good name.
Like the fair folk or the kindly ones.
Elves!
I always wonder how you can distinguish this from people just being poetic. Beaver means basically the same thing but no-one is proposing people were afraid of summoning them.
This character from Welcome to Nightvale makes so much more sense now.
It's been so long since I listened. Maybe I should give it another spin sometime.
I just saw the live show and it was amazing
I came in to mention her, though the listening devices don't live in your house secretly.
In the show Mrs. Davis, the protagonist calls the AI "It", and refuses to use it or call it by name.
"It" is the term in my house.
no there isn't
Yes, there is. Why deny something without checking, elaborating or citing a source? Sure, it is fun to doubt anybody is ever saying true things on the Internet, but denying a fact just because you do not know it yet, is misinformation in itself.