​Seattle #27: Machines (not) understanding me.

I've given up on telephone services in which a machine asks "in a few words, tell us why you called so we can put you through to the right department." Mind you, humans on the other end of the line struggle enough that I put an English accent on so that I am understandable. 

I find having an Amazon Echo very useful for converting metric/imperial units (which need to do all the time), converting currencies and setting timers/alarms, but it does tend to struggle with my Australian accent, whereas my Google Voice Assistant on my phone is generally flawless with Aussie accents, from the strong, "broad" Strine Australian accent (think Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin) to Standard Australian and Cultivated Australian (the Australian equivalent of the mid-Atlantic accent Kelsey Grammar as Frasier Crane used). I tend towards the latter in the US so people and machines can understand me.

Still, it could be worse. I could be Scottish, some of whom try as they might were totally unintelligible to me.

​The random wake up word detections results are weird though. I'm not sure if it's just my strong Aussie vowels, but every now and then we'll be having a conversation and the Echo will behave as if summoned and will think we asked it something. Weird questions get answered and songs randomly start. Today the topic of 'poop' came up in conversation and Alexa loudly interrupted, declaring "I'm not equipped to do that."
I mean, I had assumed, but still, thank god.