iPhone 4S Siri answers my absurd questions and likes Star Trek, but not war

If you haven't heard, the iPhone 4S has a talking assistant named Siri. She talks and takes orders like a champ. She's also apparently programmed to handle some pretty random questions with sarcasm, elegance and ease. This makes me have a little crush on the Apple programmers.

I'm an unabashed gadget geek. So, since it was a work holiday, my sister Cayla and I designated Monday as Phone Day. Then we stayed up late into the night asking our iPhone 4S Siri assistants questions.

Absurd questions.

Yes, various folks have tried this since the shiny new phone came out in late 2011, but we wanted to push the envelope, get creative, and ask the anthropomorphized phone software the most random (and pressing) questions possible to, ahem, test its capability.

Not the most efficient use of time, but it was fun.

Following are the results of our useless experiment. All images below are real screenshots of 'conversations'

Click to read more ...

Village life in Lesotho, Africa - photo essay

In May I took a pony trek through rural parts of the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, in southern Africa. It was one of the best things I've ever done.

One of the biggest privileges it provided was being able to sit quietly and watch remote villagers go about their day as if a lone tourist wasn't in their midst. Here's what it looked like:

In charge of the entire village of Sekoting's population of toddlers (about 12) while parents were harvesting wheat, was this heroic grandmother. Traditional 'rondavel' homes are round because locals believe evil spirits

Click to read more ...