A surprise doll's house

Caroline Roper, Ella Hubber and Tom Lum from 'Let's Learn Everything!' discuss a question about a timely toy.

GUESTS:

HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.

EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.

[darrenmorby]

5:00 "a doll's house and four pounds of cookies" is a statistic worthy of "Little" Alex Horne. 😂

[donsample]

“Is her name like ‘Sarah Drop Tables, ’ like that xkcd joke?”
No, it’s like that other xkcd joke where he wanders into people’s houses and says “Alexa, order me a …”

[Soul-Burn]

Famous story! Knew it from the first second, but loved how contestants eventually got there.

[FlesHBoX]

I love how Tom basically gives it away immediately after they bring up Alexa, and still sit there fumbling for several minutes.
When I got my google glass back in 2014 the VERY first thing my coworkers did was start yelling "Hey google..." and asking for things that would have definitely gotten me in trouble with the network admins, lol.

[kiomopo]

Tom explaining why the listener won't be able to hear Alexa and them not getting the second half of the question immediately

[michaelmcchesney]

When my niece was 4 years old, she ordered 2 Peppa Pig toys from Amazon costing over $100, charged to her Uncle's credit card, but it wasn't through Alexa or another voice assistant. Also, it wasn't my credit card. My niece was watching Peppa Pig YouTube videos on her tablet. My brother-in-law noticed that and signed her tablet into Amazon Prime because Amazon had Peppa Pig videos without commercials (this was before Amazon added commercials). The next day, my brother-in-law called my sister and asked if she had ordered expensive Peppa Pig toys and she said she hadn't. When my sister asked my niece if she had ordered the toys, my niece said, "How'd you find out? But I'm still getting them, right?" She didn't get them.

[pyricmacguffin]

gosh I love it when these three are the guests. if it were always ella, tom, and caroline, I think I'd be okay with that. (not that the other guests are bad!! they're just my favorites!!! especially since learning that caroline plays roller derby hehehe)

[MadCatPerson]

The Snopes website actually has this scenario down as 'unproven'.

I do remember it being widely reported at the time and the story travelled well because it was very funny!

That said I don't have one of these devices myself, but I understand that you can set up an optional PIN number to be confirmed every time you order something.

Maybe if this safeguard was a default feature, this story wouldn't have happened as the girl wouldn't have been able to order anything.

[LynnP]

This reminds me of Mark Rober's appearance on Jimmy Kimmel a few years ago telling Alexa to change volume to 10 and play Who Let the Dogs Out and then Jimmy telling Alexa to order a bunch of pool noodles.

[darthbob]

My first thought, when I heard about it being a digital mixup, was a labelling error; I've heard about people trying to order boxes off of Amazon and getting boxes full of stuff, because the boxes they get are reused packaging from granola or whatever, and the picker scans the label for "granola" rather than "empty box".

[SuspenduAuGaffa]

What a brilliant story! My favourite since the question about sheep in Blaenau Ffestiniog.

[maxpayne]

Another good reason I will never have a voice activated device.

[wardrobeartem]

2:28 So it DID turn out to be like the xkcd comic, the 1807 Listening

[stevemoore]

One of my favorite questions I've heard!

[vaclav_fejt]

I heard San Diego and I immediately thought of Ron Burgundy. "Was she watching Anchorman on TV?"
but....
(spoilers)
.
.
.
Serves them right for not turning their surveillance servants off. :D

[smylesg]

3:55 I thought she said "the Insta-bunny." Now that's an idea.

[TecHippy]

7:50 having worked in customer service positions, the number of people who need to have experienced an issue before they call in to complain about having that issue is 0.

[hopha]

Also: "Alexa, play William Shatner's Common People"

[thomasloos]

My first instinct was actually to take the acronym of the doll's house's name (KCSM, as I imagined "craft" written with a C when listening to the podcast, though KKSM would work, too), and wondered if it could be the name of a radio station, since a city's area was affected and I recall many American ones starting with K.



I didn't get anywhere with that thought and turned out to be completely wrong, but weirdly close at the same time.


Edit: I just googled it and it turns out KKSM is actually a station near San Diego!

[glossaria]

I still remember the meeting I was in where the speaker said "We need to take this seriously" and about 8 phones in the room beeped and started listening in.