January 13, 2019
UPDATE [1:30 p.m.]: We regret to inform all of our BDN fans that either Amazon, Wikipedia or both made changes to its Alexa response, that earlier today called the Eagles quarterback "Nicholas 'Big Dick' Edward Foles."
No matter what you ask your Alexa, it will now read a pretty bare bones description from Wikipedia about Foles. Interestingly, we found that Foles' Wikipedia page had been locked and revisions were banned. Research shows that seven revisions were made to Foles' page just this morning, with several users being banned from Wikipedia's site.
In contrast, Carson Wentz' page allows editing to be made at this time.
Enjoy below the videos of what Alexa said earlier today, while contemplating the odd fact that Amazon's Echo and Alexa use Wikipedia as a source for their information — a practice I know was strictly forbidden by all of my college professors.
Leading up to what may be Nick Foles' final game as an Eagle (should Philadelphia fall to New Orleans later Sunday afternoon) has us feeling a little sappy, which is why we couldn't help but share this with the BDN loving public.
We know Ryan Phillippe is an Eagles fan, and when we saw this tweet earlier we couldn't help but be intrigued:
i asked alexa ab BDN, she know what’s up.#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/o4r0OM1hkN
— dr. philz (@RyanPhillippe) January 13, 2019
We tried ourselves, and were very disappointed at first when we asked Alexa to "tell me about Nick Foles" and it just read the first few lines from Foles' Wikipedia page.
But then we noticed Phillippe said, word for word, "what about Nick Foles?" And when we prompted the Amazon device in that way, we got the same result:
I just tried this and it actually works. #Eagles #BDN pic.twitter.com/00pM2ZLxrl
— Evan Macy (@evan_macy) January 13, 2019
We wrote extensively earlier this week on Foles' NSFW nickname, how former Eagles' pass rusher Connor Barwin helped to start the myth and how Foles' incredible Super Bowl performance took it to the next level. It was fitting to have found this enticing development Sunday before the NFC divisional playoff finale.
Here's hoping Alexa's response will never change and will be preserved for all of time. Try it yourself without telling your friends what will happen. It's good for a pretty fun laugh.
Follow Evan on Twitter:@evan_macy
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