Q: My wife and I have been discussing electronic personal assistants. Which do you prefer, Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri?
A: Technically, they are different things with slightly different functions. Siri is a smartphone assistant, while Alexa is a home assistant.
That being said, I much prefer Amazon's Alexa, mainly because it actually works almost 100 percent of the time. I can't say the same about Siri these days. I don't know what happened, but Siri has become so unreliable that I now refer to it as a personal irritant, not personal assistant. It has been screwing up simple commands like "Call Dad" with increasing regularity, and sometimes it takes several tries to get a response at all. And it's not just a problem with my phone; other people report the same frustrations.
Alexa is very reliable, and I use it regularly when I'm home. An Amazon speaker with Alexa, even the $49 Echo Dot, makes the greatest alarm clock ever. Every night I say, "Alexa, set an alarm for 7:30 a.m.," and the speaker replies that the alarm is set. Then I say, "Alexa, set an alarm for 7:40 a.m.," so I have a backup. When the alarm goes off in the morning I say, "Alexa, cancel all alarms." If I don't know what alarms I have set, I say, "Alexa, what are my alarms?" and it will tell me.
Alexa and linked devices can do reminders and timers, serve as a household intercom, control your thermostat and lighting, shop, play music and provide information, news and weather from anywhere in the world. You can make phone and video calls, integrate a security system with cameras and pet monitors, and even play "Jeopardy!" via voice commands. It is easy and fun to use, and you can start with a single Echo Dot and expand from there (amazon.com).
For the record
Q: I have heard that new vinyl records of old albums have very poor sound quality and you should buy used, original versions to get the best sound. Is this true?
A: I don't buy much new vinyl these days because I already have thousands of albums, most of them purchased used. One of the beauties of owning a turntable is the ability to expand your music collection very inexpensively, across a wide variety of musical genres, by buying used records. I probably pay an average of only $3 per record.
To answer your question I consulted my friend Erik, who has even more records than I do. He confirmed that some new releases of old material are phenomenal and some are horrible. Plan on doing your due diligence before buying.
