iphone – hannah ananas

Interview and a bedtime story

Well, I had that interview today. I really hope it went well for me in their eyes. I genuinely believe the company and I align quite well with our values and our whys – that is, why we do what we do. And I believe that I would be a valuable asset to its team, and that I would enjoy being part of it.

We shall see what happens next. 🙂

Also, for some coziness and comfort, I asked Siri to tell me a story just now, as preparation for bed, and she has really upped her story game. It even had three options for endings. I loved the ending this time. 🙂

Thanks, Siri. You rock. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Nihonjin Smash a-Gain?!

It must be the weekend of Nihonjin Smashes…

First, we had the food on the train yesterday.

Today, we suddenly had a woman ON HER PHONE on the train today… and not quietly, either.

I was several feet away from her, a few yards/meters, and I could hear her rather easily… and I don’t have the greatest of hearing abilities, by the way.

It was nuts.

And she wasn’t young either…, so she totally knew better (aside from the fact that all over the train there are signs saying to put phones on “manaa mode”, manaa being the onomatopoeia for vibration, and not to be on calls on them while on the train.

(And then they remind everyone, “…please off your seat…,” to someone in need, on the next part of the repeated announcements.)

And she can read those signed… I only barely and I’m part can, and I’m not Japanese…, so she could totally read those announcements, and easily so.

Nonetheless, she took a phone call, it was silly, and I could hardly believe it but for yesterday’s eye-opening act.

Post-a-day 2019

Packing with my Butler buddy

Siri is a great buddy, but occasionally gets the message a bit mixed up on the butler/personal assistant front. I’m staying temporarily at my mom’s house right now, because the hot water went out at my new place, but won’t be finished for another few days…, and it’s gotten really cold out, so I didn’t really want to take freezing cold showers. Therefore, I gratefully accepted my mom’s offer to stay here until the hot water was returned to the new place.

That being said, let us turn to the fact that I had already had a bag packed from various stays elsewhere in the previous week-ish, due to Thanksgiving and moving and all. I did have some clothes to wear still, but I had now run out of underwear in that bag. So, I planned that on my way home (to my mom’s house) from class, on the first night that we’d determined that it wasn’t just a one-night deal but a several-undetermined-number-of-nights deal with the no hot water, I would stop at my new place to dig up (almost literally, since I’d done a terrible packing job and nothing was unpacked yet, really, and most of everything was pushed together in a currently un-useful fashion in this one room) whatever I would need for the now-extended stay. I could borrow socks from my mom, and I already knew that a bra was in my dirty clothes there (so I could just wash that), and I had clothes and could borrow clothes. So, all I really needed was underwear, when it came to clothing. And then I needed to bring my laptop for the various things I would need to do on it this week.

Naturally, I was brainstorming all of this while driving to class, and so couldn’t write anything down. But I knew I would forget if I didn’t have a reminder after class somehow. And so, I asked Siri to remind me. And I cracked up when I happened to glance at a stoplight at what she was writing.

I didn’t need to correct it, because it was clear to me, anyway, what the reminder meant. Plus, I enjoyed laughing at it, and knew I would enjoy it as a reminder later on. And, sure enough, I was right – I loved it later. More than that, even, was how much I enjoyed getting to mark as completed the odd task.

This is not the first time I’ve had an odd accidental reminder, and not even the first in the past week. Add to that the actual odd reminders that I ask Siri to give me (and on a somewhat regular basis). We now have some really odd data to be going back to Apple for stats and improvement… I regularly wonder what the people who see these Siri conversations think when they see how absurd people are with her at times. And I always enjoy the thought that my silliness and absurdity, both accidental and natural, just might bring some utter joy and delight to their lives here and there. It definitely does to my own life, anyway. 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Siri just won’t listen

My Siri stopped “listening” to me this past weekend.

She responds to “Hey, Siri,” but then doesn’t wait for me to say anything else.

When I hold the home button, the same thing happens, where Siri comes on, but then doesn’t give me a chance to say anything – just goes straight to the ‘Recommendations for what to ask Siri’ page.

No one at Apple really understands how this could have happened.

Do you think the world is commenting on my life at present?

The funny part, is that I haven’t been speaking up much lately at all. Not that I’ve avoided speaking or anything – I just haven’t had anything I feel like putting into conversations with the people around me who aren’t close friends or family, so I haven’t spoken, and they haven’t listened.

Post-a-day 2018

Say, What?!

Today, my mom and I went around to help out in various places nearby. We still haven’t hit the highest bit of water for our area as a result of the storm (although the rain has stopped completely), but we have another day or two before then, and the roads were really quite passable in many places already today. So, we decided to get out and be active, since we’ve been so sedentary throughout the storm, and we’re likely to be stuck in our neighborhood another handful of days if the upcoming flooding goes as predicted (Fortunately, it keeps lowering its levels in the forecast every 12-ish hours or so, but we prefer to err on the safe side and be prepared for more days of being home.).

All of this is not the main point for this writing, however, so I move onward to my purpose.

As we were driving from our third helping location to our fourth, my mom was responding to a text message using voice recognition. I pointed out the direction we needed to go, accepted my mom’s correction of our very first turn, and then continued in reminding her of the safe way to get out of the flooded neighborhood. As I pointed out a stop sign that was hidden behind a whole line of cars, we herd a beep emit from her phone. We both instantly knew that the voice recognition had just ended.

And that, naturally, it had been doing its best to write up whatever it had been hearing of our conversation. I instantly told my mom to send it as-is to our friend. Why? Because he does that sort of thing to us all of the time. He regularly sends a message using voice recognition without even checking what ended up in the text of the message. He claimed that it is always close enough, so we can always figure it out. So, he knows that he sends nonsense messages a good amount of the time, and he doesn’t mind it.

Therefore, as I read it aloud to my mother, and could barely speak for the intensity of my laughter, I knew we had to send it to him as it was. I gave it to my mom, and told her just to try to read it, go on… She could barely do it herself, she began crying with laughter along with me. It wasn’t just that we were ‘getting back at’ our friend that we were laughing, but the fact that what had been put into the text of the message was hardly even close to what we had actually said. In the whole double sentence that seemed to have developed in the message, we had only actually said the words “No, left,” and “…turn right.” None of the others were words that we had even said.

Having thoroughly read the message, then, my mom sent it on to our friend. Actually, she had me read it a second time aloud, after the first time had been such a total struggle, and decided then to send it. So, I sent the message then, and then I gave it to her to read herself while at a stoplight. It was a wonderful and welcome comic and laughter-filled relief for the craziness of the day. Try it some time, and you’ll see what I mean by the joy we found in the text of the message. Turn on your voice recognition for a message to someone, and then begin conversation with a nearby person. You’re likely in for a real treat of words. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

Magic in our pockets

Tonight, I have dance class (at long last). But that is not exactly the point… merely a piece of the mix. I am on my way to dance class now, writing this, as I listen to the lady’s voice coming through the hidden speakers on the train, announcing clearly, “Please off your seat to those who may need it,” at which I inwardly chuckle/cringe each time.

Before I left home for class, however, I was baking cake cookies, while watching a film. The film was “Kate & Leopold”, and it was showing on a laptop near me at my convenience. It was well past time to leave, but the film was not quite finished. However, I had finally finished my cake cookies, and so had no real excuse to delay my departure – the film could pause and wait just as easily as it could continue playing… Perhaps even more easily, as it required no power source from my apartment to do that. Though, that is not the point here.

So, I paused the movie, once I saw that it had a good ten minutes remaining in it, and it therefore would not finish in the time it took me to go to the bathroom and put on my socks. Now, I know how the movie ends. That, too, is not the point. The point, my dear readers is this: I didn’t have to stop watching the film, despite my then immediate departure.

How crazy a world is this one in which we now live, where I don’t have to stop watching the film that is at home, when I leave my home?

I could have easily pulled up Netflix on my phone, just as easily as I checked the time when I was slumbering down the stairs outside – which was, indeed, how Inhad even had the idea – , and immediately resumed the film where I had paused it. Just by opening the website (or app if I’d bothered to download it), I could have simply clicked the play button and continued my film as I was heading to the train station.

It seems so simple and normal and standard, because people do this all the time. I see people watching TV shows and movies almost every time I am on the train. And yet, having experienced this particular situation tonight, I suddenly see how bizarre and futuristic a concept this is. A movie can travel with me in my pocket, even if ten seconds ago, it was on a huge TV screen or a computer or wherever. It’s like shapeshifting or magic, and we’re all carrying it around with us, as though it’s a cup of coffee or a slice of bread. Or an apple. Literally, I guess. (Though I’d definitely intended that one to be a reference to its connection with the magic of physics.)
Post-a-day 2017