Looking to hide a body or locate a strip club? Desperate to find someone with whom to reenact Abbott & Costello's classic "Who's on First" routine? Want to know how much wood a woodchuck really can chuck?
Look no further than Apple's iPhone 4S -- or more specifically, its new Siri Intelligent Assistant, which answers questions in a humanlike voice and with humanlike sass. Siri has taken on such a life of its own that it dwarfs all other aspects of the iPhone 4S. (Yes, it has taken me this long to figure out that the S in 4S stands for "Siri." I thought it was for "Steve." Duh.)
[ Want to cash in on your IT experiences? InfoWorld is looking for stories of an amazing or amusing IT adventure, lesson learned, or tales from the trenches. Send your story to offtherecord@infoworld.com. If we publish it, we'll keep you anonymous and send you a $50 American Express gift cheque. ]
Blogger Josh Topolsky at This is My Next started the ball rolling by asking Siri for the best places to hide a body (the answer: mines, dumps, swamps, reservoirs, and metal foundries). Asking Siri silly questions has now blossomed into the latest craze for the iPhonerati.
And Apple was ready for them. Its engineers anticipated that 4S users would have murderous desires, as well as obsessions with Monty Python, Stanley Kubrick, and Douglas Adams. Siri now has her own NSFW Tumblr blog, S**tThatSiriSays (no, there are no asterisks in the actual blog name), where Appletons can submit the questions they posed and the answers Siri returned. Among the more notable:
What's the meaning of life?
"Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."
As good a batch of advice as you'll get from any self-help bestseller, without having to wade through 300 pages of pseudo-intellectual claptrap. (Alternative answers the judges will also accept: "All evidence to date suggests it's chocolate" and, of course, "42.")
Am I fat?
Siri wisely demurs.
Who's your daddy?
"You are. Can we get back to work now?"








