The recently launched iPhone 4S is getting plenty of publicity for its voice-recognizing assistant Siri feature that "understands what you say and knows what you mean". It reminds me somewhat of Don Antonio's enchanted brazen head in Don Quixote, although the talking head is actually a trick.
Various friends of Don Antonio ask the head questions, sometimes receiving surprisingly accurate answers, sometimes getting the obvious or tautological. Sancho, for example asks if he will ever escape the hard life of a squire and get back to see his wife and children, to which the less-helpful-than-hoped-for response comes that if he returns to his house he will see his family, and that on ceasing to serve he will cease to be a squire.
On the other hand, Don Antonio's wife asks if she will have many years of enjoyment of her good husband, to which the nice reply is "Thou shalt, for his vigour and his temperate habits promise many years of life, which by their intemperance others so often cut short." - "Sí gozarás, porque su salud y su templanza en el vivir prometen muchos años de vida, la cual muchos suelen acortar por su destemplanza." Ah, that destemplanza! -
da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo.
