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Siri, What Time Is It in London?

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Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#101

Post by ernesth »

sacado2 wrote: post #29
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because you know that there's only one timezone for the UK, so there's no point asking "What's the time in London" and "What's the time in Preston" because you know the answer is the same, but since America has 3 or 4 timezones (I'm not sure, I know it's at least three), American people intuitively specify the city, since "What's the time in the USA" is not valid

> Maybe because you know that there's only one timezone for the UK And that's where things start to get fun, because there are actually several timezones in the UK if you include its dependencies. I don't really know how it works in the UK because I'm French, so let's take France instead. "What time is it in France?" usually means "in metropolitan France", but now let's say you're in northern Brazil, close to the bor…

France is indeed the best/worst example as it is the current country spanning the most timezones (13).

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#103

Post by molteanu »

erikbye wrote: post #90
molteanu wrote: post #40

The fact that this piece of "news" is front page is really stupid. There was a BBC piece yesterday about the condition in the Malakasa camp in Greece.[1] Some of our fellow brothers literally don't have anything to eat. And while it's 2020, we still fret about what browser is better (I bet half the globe doesn't even know what a browser is or doesn't care) or spend excessive amounts of time for yet a new color theme…

> The fact that this piece of "news" is front page is really stupid. There was a BBC piece yesterday about the condition in the Malakasa camp in Greece ... HN is not a news website in the traditional sense, even though "news" is in the name. How is this not obvious? For what you are seeking you should go to reuters.com, you'd probably have better luck.

Meaning, the rest of the world literally has other pressing problems than the ones the planet's most capable people are spending their days with.

But I get it now. This new technology is not actually about saving the people, is about controlling them, regardless of what the motto of big tech might be. That quote from Dune is still right on track:

"Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them"

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#104

Post by irishsultan »

qayxc wrote: post #65
dustinmoris wrote: post #51

An actual assistant would have a lot of context. Do I know that you're going to travel to London, UK for a break next week and therefore I would naturally assume that you are interesting in the time there. However, are you planning to visit your parents in London, Canada this weekend? Then an assistant who would still answer with the time of London, UK would maybe also not be the smartest? So really context is everyt…

In the absence of context, the best answer is London, UK. You actually need to imagine additional context to make any other answer plausible. If you hear the sound of hooves clip-clopping nearby, you think horses, not zebras.

In the absence of context there is no best answer. You need context to know why London, UK is much more likely to be the right London "without additional context".

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#105

Post by nefitty »

molteanu wrote: post #40

The fact that this piece of "news" is front page is really stupid. There was a BBC piece yesterday about the condition in the Malakasa camp in Greece.[1] Some of our fellow brothers literally don't have anything to eat. And while it's 2020, we still fret about what browser is better (I bet half the globe doesn't even know what a browser is or doesn't care) or spend excessive amounts of time for yet a new color theme…

I’ve based most of my life philosophy on the work of Peter Singer. His response to your comment would be, “we can’t save all the drowning children.” There’s a point where trying to do so deteriorates our personal well being, which benefits no one.

I would rather people sit around the campfire discussing what they know (timezone related software design decisions) instead of making it up as they go (superficially discussing policy or political situations they just learned about 10 minutes ago).

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#106

Post by trombonechamp »

For a related example, type "11:00 EST to UTC" into Google and DuckDuckGo. Google says 15:00 because it interprets "EST" colloquially as "the current time on east coast US". DuckDuckGo says 16:00 because it interprets EST literally as "the time on east coast when it isn't daylight savings time" (compared to ET or EDT). It isn't clear which behavior is more desirable.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#107

Post by madeofpalk »

andy_ppp wrote: post #89

I just bought a Homepod because the price has been reduced to a more normal amount, I think it started at £319 so it being £200 in the UK seemed quite good. I have to say the sound quality seems average to me - I admit it produces a lot of sound and bass from it's small frame but I like a bit of top end sparkle and it basically seems to have zero top end at all. As for Siri there is no point in asking it questions or…

> no point in asking it questions or talking to it for anything but changing volume and setting timers. A smart speaker this is not.

For what it’s worth, that’s what anyone uses any “smart speaker” or assistant for. Settings timers/alarms, asking for the weather, and maybe starting music.

Whether Siri is capable of more is a good question, but people don’t use them for any more.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#108

Post by sadfklsjlkjwt »

dusted wrote: post #48
onion2k wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are probably _A_LOT_ of people who have a lot more to do with the non-british London who'd be very sad indeed if The Machines (tm) suddenly decided that EVERY request about London MUST ALWAYS be about the British one.. There will be a lot more people who are asking about the British London than people who are asking about their nearest London. Apple will be making far more people sad by defaulting to the local…

Selecting a default behaviour based on what "most people" will benefit from is great some cases, but mostly cases people will encounter only once. People who happen to fall beside the "most" category should not have to deal with that every single time. The right thing to do for Siri is to ask, maybe just once, which london you want to know the time for, if its not smart enough to infer it from something else it's lea…

I would guess that there are more people in North America who are interested in London than people in North America who are interested in London, Ontario.

See what I did there? London (which is a major global city) doesn't need a qualifier anymore than New York does.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#109

Post by mattlondon »

dustinmoris wrote: post #51

An actual assistant would have a lot of context. Do I know that you're going to travel to London, UK for a break next week and therefore I would naturally assume that you are interesting in the time there. However, are you planning to visit your parents in London, Canada this weekend? Then an assistant who would still answer with the time of London, UK would maybe also not be the smartest? So really context is everyt…

Isn't half the point of these digital assistants that they do have the context?

I've got no idea about Siri, but the android one ties into your Google account to get your calendar and mail so it can get context about up coming travel etc.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#110

Post by raverbashing »

gruturo wrote: post #36
Hamuko wrote: post #11

Same thing happens with Frankfurt. If I order something from Amazon.de, my package usually goes through Frankfurt. When I checked my package tracker app on my iPhone, I was surprised to find out that Frankfurt is actually on the Germany-Poland border. Turns out that if I enter "Frankfurt, Germany" into Apple Maps (which I assume is what the package tracker app does), it takes me to "Frankfurt (Oder), Germany" instead…

My company (based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany) had an online business travel reservation system which helpfully pre-filled the starting point of all new trips to Frankfurt, Kentucky (which is not even the right spelling of the city). I filed a request to NOT pre-fill the starting city to a place in Kentucky and got a polite but firm reply that this was the default list provided by the 3rd party online booking engin…

You might need to politely but firmly ask them to escalate this with the 3rd party provider, especially depending on your footing and monthly spends

According to Wikipedia Frankfort, KY doesn't even have an airport so this is a double whammy of stupid on the part of the 3rd party

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