California fires: smart speakers and emergency alerts

Mon Oct 16 20:50:52 UTC 2017

On 10/16/2017 09:01 AM, Sean Donelan wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Oct 2017, Aaron C. de Bruyn wrote:
>> Simple programming problem.
>>
>> Speaker: "There is a tornado warning in this area, would you like to 
>> hear more?"
>>
>> User: "How did you get my phone number?"
>>
>> Speaker: "You have opted out of tornado warnings"
>>
>> Fast forward to the next tornado and techno-darwinism will take effect.
>>

I have done what I could to turn off all of these alerts. My first 
experience with one was several years ago with an amber alert, making my 
phone emit strange and somewhat unsettling noises I didn't recognize. 
The amber alert was for an event some 400 miles away from me (I was in 
northern cal, and this was taking place in los angeles). How useless. So 
there is a control you can set to make sure you don't get these... 
everything up to but not including 'presidential alerts'. From what I 
see, this is really wrong. Yes I would like there to be a broadcast 
capability with some kind of gps fencing. No, I am not the police nor 
will I do their job and be their eyes and ears. Yes, I want to know if 
there is a major fire or other natural disaster in my current area but 
otherwise, no, don't bother me. Is that too much to ask?

Mike-