{"id":35913,"date":"2019-03-11T00:03:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T00:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=35913"},"modified":"2019-03-11T00:03:38","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T00:03:38","slug":"happy-trails-part-149-smart-home-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=35913","title":{"rendered":"Happy Trails, Part 149: ‘Smart home,’ is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It’s come down to this: No longer do we just move into a structure, call it “home” and then arrange some furniture to make it comfortable.<\/p>\n

That’s only part of it these days. In the 21st century, we now have a home that is equipped with technology that enables it to do certain things for us, such as turn lights on and off, play music, adjust the furnace temperature; if we were so inclined we could acquire technology that irrigates the lawn . . . all on voice command.<\/em><\/p>\n

I refer to “Alexa,” the technology of the space age.<\/p>\n

Indeed, I cannot help but think of “HAL,” the machine that took over the space ship in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” You remember how that turned out. “HAL” became a monster.<\/p>\n

Will this happen with “Alexa”? I’m sure it won’t.<\/p>\n

However, I am utterly amazed, amused and astonished at how much “Alexa” can do for us.<\/p>\n

That’s what we got when we purchased this home in Princeton, Texas. I have to say that this is all pretty darn slick.<\/p>\n

This retired guy is learning a whole lot of new things about “smart home” living.<\/p>\n

We can peek at those on the front porch and answer the doorbell without opening the door. We can listen to music of our choice: name the genre and the system will play it for us.<\/p>\n

I never thought retirement would introduce us to this whole new world. Then again, back when I started working for a living in print journalism I never imagine the course that newspapers would take with the invention and development of the Internet (thanks a bunch, Al Gore).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We’re continuing to settle into our new digs. It’s going to take some added adjustment. But . . . that’s OK. After all we’ve been through on this life journey my wife and I started more than 47 years ago, the rest of it will be an easy ride.<\/p>\n\n

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It’s come down to this: No longer do we just move into a structure, call it “home” and then arrange some furniture to make it comfortable. That’s only part of it these days. In the 21st century, we now have a home that is equipped with technology that enables it to do certain things for … Continue reading Happy Trails, Part 149: ‘Smart home,’ is it?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[217,1063,2293,3297,8367,3920],"class_list":["post-35913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-al-gore","tag-collin-county","tag-internet","tag-newspapers","tag-princeton-tx","tag-retirement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35914,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35913\/revisions\/35914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}