Amazon Wants Alexa To Read Blog Posts and Broadcast Church Sermons (cnet.com) 60
Amazon's Alexa Skills Blueprints are free online templates that let you create custom Alexa tricks without needing to code. Now, the online retailer is giving those blueprints some new tricks of their own. From a report: Announced in a blog post Wednesday morning, the newest Skill Blueprints are "built specifically for content creators, bloggers, and organizations so they can reach anyone with an Alexa-enabled device." Skills created with any of Amazon's blueprints can now be submitted to Amazon for certification and publication in the Alexa app's Skills Store in the US. "Keep your skill personal to Alexa-enabled devices associated with your Amazon account, share it with friends and family, or publish it so anyone can discover, use and review your skill," Amazon says. That open approach might help bolster the number of Alexa skills available in the Alexa app.
Wank limit exceeded (Score:1)
"Sorry, Dave, I cannot open heaven's gate bay doors."
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Alexa, please play the hymn, In the Garden of Eden by I. Ron Butterfly.
Also add tittychips and bloody tampon boogers to my shopping list.
Alexa, read me the Penthouse Forum (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Alexa, read me the Penthouse Forum (Score:1)
Dearly beloved...
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Well not all Churches are so focused on Satan. There are a number of moderate churches out there. Like it or not America is Amazons biggest customer base, and is also a very religious country.
I myself wouldn't want Alexa to read the sermon, but make it cheap and easy for the local churches to record them onto Amazon, and have Alexa rebroadcast it on demand, I think would be a good use of the technology.
From listening to some of the religious people (poor) arguments about atheism. It makes me worry, that th
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It makes me worry, that the only thing stopping some religion people from being mass murders is the fact they have religion.
Now only if religion could stop their priests and ministers from abusing their congregations' children . . .
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That is more of a case of Administration then Religion.
For nearly all religions their key marketing point is that they are more moral, then the other religion.
This fact that "we are better then that", in essence puts priests and ministers into high-power jobs. Power, Status with a high community standing, gives them the ability to often get away with it, without much outrage. And when it comes down to who we should believe a Priest or a troubled teenager, the victim would be punished by the community.
Now t
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I don't understand it, I'm just trying to help them with their English when suddenly I get this pounding headache...
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Ministration, then religion.
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Can you imagine an entire 2 hour sermon being read in one of those annoying text to speech voices?
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Can you imagine an entire 2 hour sermon being read in one of those annoying text to speech voices?
Two hour sermon? How does the priest keep people's attention that long? My Sacrament Meeting lasts 1 hour and that includes hymns, prayers, the Sacrament, and 2 or 3 talks. I don't think I've heard a sermon last more than 30 minutes.
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I honestly can't recall for certain, since that was such a long time ago and much of my former religious life is a big blur; but with some of the services I had to sit though, it seemed like the preacher was going on for hours on end. Then again, that could just be due to the Theory of Kid Time Relativity, where the younger you are; the slower time appears to move.
How about imagining instead someone suddenly speaking out in tongues, and Alexa then "interpreting" the so called message. That has a lot of gr
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I honestly can't recall for certain, since that was such a long time ago and much of my former religious life is a big blur; but with some of the services I had to sit though, it seemed like the preacher was going on for hours on end. Then again, that could just be due to the Theory of Kid Time Relativity, where the younger you are; the slower time appears to move.
How about imagining instead someone suddenly speaking out in tongues, and Alexa then "interpreting" the so called message. That has a lot of great church trolling potential...
LOL! I must say that gibberish sounds are outside of my religious background (if someone's going to speak in tongues, there's got to be someone to interpret or else its nonsensical chaos according to the Apostle Paul). Alexa would have to be pretty smart to detect which language is spoken in just a few words (think the Latin-based tongues).
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Alexa, preach a sermon about the evils of relying on Amazon for all your daily needs.
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Well not all Churches are so focused on Satan. There are a number of moderate churches out there. Like it or not America is Amazons biggest customer base, and is also a very religious country.
I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We focus on God blessing / rewarding people for doing good instead of punishing them for doing bad. Very rarely is Satan the main topic. Also of note, we don't have a paid / professionally trained clergy. Most talks during our Sacrament Meeting are from lay members instead of clergy. Our local Sacrament Meetings are not recorded nor broadcast. Stake and regional conferences are broadcast real time to chapels in the area, but not recorded or put on
Just what the world needs (Score:5, Funny)
The word of God through the mouth of the Beast.
Re:Just what the world needs (Score:4, Funny)
Today only! Any Alexa-enabled device, only $6.66!
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“And God said, ‘thou shalt Subscribe & Save to many items.’”
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"Remember to smash that 'Like' button like God smote Sodom! This sermon brought to by 'Salt of the Earth' seasoning products. Use order code 'Pillar2019' to get free shipping on your next order. Now, back to the hellfire."
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Don't forget to bang the belle...er...bell as well (giggity)
And speaking of which, a new Sandman post is up. Time for a listen while working on today's Etsy, eCrater, and eBay listings.
Get thee behind me, Amazon! (Score:2)
Read blog posts and then broadcast church sermons? (Score:3)
At first I read this to mean "read blog posts and then broadcast church sermons". I want to see what kind of sermons an AI comes up with after reading random blog posts.
How ironic... (Score:2, Insightful)
An artificial intelligence, built from science and technology, sharing messages of religion?
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So... a real thing built with a fake intelligence talking about imaginary beings?
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On that note, I am finding myself wondering where in the galaxy Jesus should be at this time. According to the New Testament, he ascended to Heaven, I believe from the Mount of Olives. So assuming it was a straight trajectory, where would he be located now if he managed to reach solar escape velocity?
Of course, he would be traveling forever, since we now know the universe is by and large infinite, and there is no glass dome over the earth, above which would have otherwise been Heaven.
Heck, if he didn't re
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What's more ironic is messages of morality and personal holiness from the American tech industry.
The notion of religion being anti-science is only about 100 years old and largely an American invention.
Gated Podcasts (Score:2, Insightful)
> Amazon AI plug-in for WordPress and provide the blueprint with an RSS feed.
Everything I see on this is literally just using RSS to do the equivalent of a podcast to the Alexa device, then later converting this on Alexa's servers via text-to-speech.
They could literally just do podcast support and achieve not only the same goals, but START OUT with hundreds of thousands of "broadcasts". Wordpress also comes RSS enabled by default.
This plugin I cannot see what it does at all except make the process more
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then later converting this on Alexa's servers via text-to-speech.
That won't work so well.
Background: I like to listen to shortwave radio. Unfortunately, most of it has been taken over by preachers. When I tune across a band, looking for new sources, I turn on the BFO (beat frequency oscillator) so I hear the whistle of a nearby carrier. On-frequency, that makes the voice unintelligible, like Donald Duck. But I have developed an ear for listening to the cadence and other speech patterns still evident. And I can easily spot the difference between a Christian station and o
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BigCo (Spotify/Amazon/Patreon/etc) have only just twigged about the huge untapped potential for podcasting. I guess YouTube/Twitch caught fire in the video sphere, but podcasts were kind of overlooked as a second-rate citizen.
It definitely feels like a huge number of people listen to podcasts while travelling/doing housework/exercising - i.e. when you're not directly in front of a screen. If Amazon
I can see where the church idea will go. (Score:2)
The events are predictable even this far in advance. Churches will use it. Most will use it without problem. The mega-churches will especially like it, as their focus is on sheer member count (and donor pool) rather than an active relationship with each individual member. All will be well - because most church sermons are safe, bland lectures about doing good and charity. No problem.
Then, somewhere, a preacher will use it to broadcast a sermon of more difficult content. Most likely, though not certain to b