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Siri, What Time Is It in London?

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Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#381

Post by eloisant »

mikepurvis wrote: post #354
nsavage wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, where I'm from, "London" would probably refer to London, ON, but that's just because I live in Southern Ontario. So it's not like no one has heard of it. On the other hand: no one in Southern Ontario will be asking what time it is in London, ON because it's all in the same time zone, so this seems like a problem.

Well, and it's further complicated by the context of what's being asked. Coming from Waterloo Region, if I ask what time it is in London, I almost certainly mean in England. But if I ask for directions to get to London, I probably mean the one that's a few hours away by car. So it's not as simple as just fitting these queries into generic templates and sending all instances of $LOCATION to a common geocoder.

Yes, but we expect those assistants to be a little smarter than college programming assignment...

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#382

Post by Beldin »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #292
gambiting wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would I be incorrect to assume that something like 17:00 will be understood by literally everyone in the world(if maybe not the preferred format) though? Using AM/PM is worse in a sense that say someone in Poland will literally have no idea which means which. 24 hour clock has no ambiguity. Unless I'm wrong and there are countries or cultures which literally won't understand what time 17:00 is?

There are huge swaths of Americans who will literally not know what 17:00 translates to in AM/PM. And even for the Americans that do know, virtually all of them (unless they are in the military or another profession that commonly uses 24h time), will have to "translate" by subtracting 12 in their head for PM times. 24h time is extremely rare in everyday use in the US.

> 24h time is extremely rare in everyday use in the US.

Sure.

> There are huge swaths of Americans who will literally not know what 17:00 translates to in AM/PM.

1. Same is true for most people in the world

2. Wait, you mean they don't know if 17:00 is early morning or late afternoon??

Seriously, I have a hard time to believe that. I'll believe that most Americans need to convert to am/pm, but not that "huge swaths" literally cannot understand this.

My expectations of the average USA'ian are better than that.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#383

Post by hanche »

criddell wrote: post #241
Recursing wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think almost everybody in European countries knows about AM/PM, but I certainly get confused by 11:59 AM vs 12:00 AM

I've never been able to keep 12 AM vs 12 PM straight in my head. If I have to put something on my calendar or set an alarm for that time, I always use 11:59 AM or PM. Is there a mnemonic or trick for remembering?

I learned it by traveling the US on a one month Greyhound bus pass. I had to deal with the time tables, after all. It’s a rather inefficient way to learn it, but it was interesting in other ways.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#384

Post by hanche »

gmac wrote: post #277
criddell wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been able to keep 12 AM vs 12 PM straight in my head. If I have to put something on my calendar or set an alarm for that time, I always use 11:59 AM or PM. Is there a mnemonic or trick for remembering?

12 AM and 12 PM are only meaningful by some arbitrary convention, and I'm not sure if that's even very consistent. I try always to use 12 noon and 12 midnight instead.

That’s why insurance policies in the US usually comes into effect at 12:01 AM.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#385

Post by astrobe_ »

fireattack wrote: post #58
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…

But if none of these contexts you mentioned exist (which is the case here), what would an actual assistant answer?

If your company is located in Paris, Texas and you are in New York, ready to embark for a business to Paris, France and that you ask your assistant over the phone, out of the blue, "what is the temperature in Paris?" they would probably ask "which one?".

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#387

Post by darkwater »

smikhanov wrote: post #59
darkwater wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH I think there are only two cases where you would answer with London, Ontario time: - you are from London, Ontario and are traveling in another TZ - you are in London, UK In all the other cases, without no further context, Londo UK should be used because it's one of the "capitals of the world"

Your #2 is not good. I live in London, UK and when asking "What's the time in London", I mean London, UK. You may ask why do I need to specify London at all? Here's one of the possible scenarios, sounding very normal as human communication goes: (I'm in London wanting to phone my relatives in Moscow, which is several time zones away. I don't know the current time in either Moscow or London, and I don't know what's th…

Fair enough, although I do see it as a not so common case. But maybe it is more common than people wanting to know the time in London, Canada while being in London, UK.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#388

Post by criddell »

1_player wrote: post #375
criddell wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been able to keep 12 AM vs 12 PM straight in my head. If I have to put something on my calendar or set an alarm for that time, I always use 11:59 AM or PM. Is there a mnemonic or trick for remembering?

My mnemonic is literally "it's the wrong one". 12PM is morning, 12AM is afternoon.

This one works for me. Thanks!

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#389

Post by thrwn_frthr_awy »

pjc50 wrote: post #146
DangerousPie wrote: post #41

It's ridiculous how Siri is still this shitty. I have an 11 Pro and even on such an expensive phone I can't really trust it to do anything more advanced than set timers. Every few months I try to do something else and just get annoyed at how bad it is. Before lockdown I even had it disabled entirely because it would get activated randomly from time to time, even if nobody in the vicinity said anything remotely close…

The problem is not just that it is wrong, nor that it doesn't have enough personal information, but that it lacks proper personalisation and the ability to learn. You can't reply with "no Siri, not that London" and have it remember. It doesn't learn your voice among the people who normally use your Siri in your household. "Artificial intelligence" is always going to make mistakes, as do real humans. Humans can perfor…

Siri is not artificial intelligence-it is speech-to-text + a poor search experience with one result.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#390

Post by myrandomcomment »

Kye wrote: post #230
gambiting wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would I be incorrect to assume that something like 17:00 will be understood by literally everyone in the world(if maybe not the preferred format) though? Using AM/PM is worse in a sense that say someone in Poland will literally have no idea which means which. 24 hour clock has no ambiguity. Unless I'm wrong and there are countries or cultures which literally won't understand what time 17:00 is?

I don't intuitively know 17:00 is afternoon. I have to think about it. You get used to what you grow up with.

If you are an American joining the military is a quick lesson. Dates are d/m/y and time is 0000hrs. Distance for anything that is not your PT run is in KM. I had lived overseas so not a big deal for me, but others in my unit struggled for a bit. I have forced doing both f/c, mi/km and 12/24 on my family from the start. Both my wife and kid where pretty happy I did when we started traveling outside the US quit a bit. No issues on if they needed a jacket, how far away it was and what the transport schedule said.
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