Siri fun



  • Text parsing has its interesting moments, I guess..



  •  This kinda implies that the US military would be too dumb to use even an iPhone/iPad. What's wrong with "quater past six", by the way?



  • @Severity One said:

    What's wrong with "quater past six", by the way?

    Or "six fifteen", as some would say it.



  •  Excellent. And we'll have our meeting at oh.... ten thirty.



  •  @configurator said:

    @Severity One said:
    What's wrong with "quater past six", by the way?
    Or "six fifteen", as some would say it.

    Actually, it was kind of in desperation since "six-fifteen" was translated to 6:50 multiple times (usually I have no problem with this). I guess I could have said quarter past six, but my military background got the best of me. Touché.



  •  Next up, tell her to wake you at "half six" and see if the alarm goes to 5:30, 6:30 or (in a sane world) 3:00.

    (No Siri for me, but I discovered by accident that the off-brand tablet I picked up cheap has VR, and my immediate reaction was to see what it could do with a different language.  It failed miserably to understand the first thing I said in Mandarin, but when I set it to tell it which language to listen for, apparently my accent is good enough.)


  • Considered Harmful

    @da Doctah said:

    It failed miserably to understand the first thing I said in Mandarin, but when I set it to tell it which language to listen for, apparently my accent is good enough.)

    I was going to demonstrate by counterexample why this is problematic, by coming up with a phonetic polyglot (a sentence that sounds identical which is valid in two or more different languages) but I was too lazy and/or dumb. Anybody?



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @da Doctah said:
    It failed miserably to understand the first thing I said in Mandarin, but when I set it to tell it which language to listen for, apparently my accent is good enough.)

    I was going to demonstrate by counterexample why this is problematic, by coming up with a phonetic polyglot (a sentence that sounds identical which is valid in two or more different languages) but I was too lazy and/or dumb. Anybody?

     

    Spell 'socks'

    S O C K S

    Congratulations! You're speaking Spanish!

    (too many late-night TV commercials in the 90s for me, I guess).

     



  • @RichP said:

    @joe.edwards said:

    @da Doctah said:
    It failed miserably to understand the first thing I said in Mandarin, but when I set it to tell it which language to listen for, apparently my accent is good enough.)

    I was going to demonstrate by counterexample why this is problematic, by coming up with a phonetic polyglot (a sentence that sounds identical which is valid in two or more different languages) but I was too lazy and/or dumb. Anybody?

     

    Spell 'socks'

    S O C K S

    Congratulations! You're speaking Spanish!

    (too many late-night TV commercials in the 90s for me, I guess).

     

    Push sounds the same as the portuguese "puxe", that means pull.

     



  • @Mcoder said:

    Push sounds the same as the portuguese "puxe", that means pull.


    And that's why we don't have phonetic door signs.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @da Doctah said:
    It failed miserably to understand the first thing I said in Mandarin, but when I set it to tell it which language to listen for, apparently my accent is good enough.)

    I was going to demonstrate by counterexample why this is problematic, by coming up with a phonetic polyglot (a sentence that sounds identical which is valid in two or more different languages) but I was too lazy and/or dumb. Anybody?

    I suppose you could recite the lyrics of the song known on YouTube as "Benny Lava" and not tell it you're speaking Tamil; see if it comes up with the same English "translation".

     



  • @arh said:

    @configurator said:
    @Severity One said:
    What's wrong with "quater past six", by the way?
    Or "six fifteen", as some would say it.
    Actually, it was kind of in desperation since "six-fifteen" was translated to 6:50 multiple times (usually I have no problem with this). I guess I could have said quarter past six, but my military background got the best of me. Touché.

    I can see where "fifteen" might sound like "fifty".  My last name has "ss" in it and no matter how clearly I try to speak when spelling it for someone, they frequently think I am saying "ff".

     



  • @El_Hesse said:

    I can see where "fifteen" might sound like "fifty".  My last name has "ss" in it and no matter how clearly I try to speak when spelling it for someone, they frequently think I am saying "ff".

    FTFY



  • @da Doctah said:

    @joe.edwards said:
    @da Doctah said:
    It failed miserably to understand the first thing I said in Mandarin, but when I set it to tell it which language to listen for, apparently my accent is good enough.)
    I was going to demonstrate by counterexample why this is problematic, by coming up with a phonetic polyglot (a sentence that sounds identical which is valid in two or more different languages) but I was too lazy and/or dumb. Anybody?
    I suppose you could recite the lyrics of the song known on YouTube as "Benny Lava" and not tell it you're speaking Tamil; see if it comes up with the same English "translation". 
    Or this?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOgALTFzFbQ

     



  • When Marco Rubio gave the Republican response to the State of the Union message they had simultaneous sub-titles available in both english and spanish.  But the spanish subtitles were created by a program that was typing out what a simultaneous translator was saying.  Not in itself a WTF necessarily.  TRWTF was that the program that they used tried to make the spanish into english words so the spanish subtitles were just a stream of random nonsense - in English.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @da Doctah said:
    It failed miserably to understand the first thing I said in Mandarin, but when I set it to tell it which language to listen for, apparently my accent is good enough.)

    I was going to demonstrate by counterexample why this is problematic, by coming up with a phonetic polyglot (a sentence that sounds identical which is valid in two or more different languages) but I was too lazy and/or dumb. Anybody?

     

     

    I'm not sure if this is exactly what you had in mind, butI'll give it a try...

    Ciao! (Italian)
    Chow! (English)

    Our Feet are stayin' (English)
    Auf Wiedersehen (German)


  • @da Doctah said:

     Next up, tell her to wake you at "half six" and see if the alarm goes to 5:30, 6:30 or (in a sane world) 3:00.

     

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

     I can see where "fifteen" might sound like "fifty".  My last name has "ss" in it and no matter how clearly I try to speak when spelling it for someone, they frequently think I am saying "ff".

     

     

    Call youself "Das_Heße" instead? 

     



  • @configurator said:

    @Severity One said:
    What's wrong with "quater past six", by the way?

    Or "six fifteen", as some would say it.

    Ah yes, the American inability to understand "quarter past" or"quarter to" or "twenty to". It's a pretty complicated part of the English language, sensible to leave it out.



  • @English Man said:

    Ah yes, the American inability to understand "quarter past" or"quarter to" or "twenty to". It's a pretty complicated part of the English language, sensible to leave it out.

    Yeah and can you believe our monetary system only has multiples of 100? While the far superior British system was perfect, what with its 20 shillings to a pound, 12 pennies to a shilling. It must cheese you off every morning that your system was decimalized... such an American thing to do!

    But that's ok, you can feel superior to Americans every time you board a passenger jet, or boot an OS on your computer, or buy a car, or watch a rocket launch into space, or use any of those industries the British dominate so well! Oh wait. Bad examples. I guess you can feel superior when you... uh... eat Cadbury products? Or Altoids? Because the British are far ahead when it comes to crappy chocolate and strong mints.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    @English Man said:
    Ah yes, the American inability to understand "quarter past" or"quarter to" or "twenty to".
    Yeah and can you believe our monetary system only has multiples of 100? While the far superior British system was perfect, what with its 20 shillings to a pound, 12 pennies to a shilling.
    Ah, but one of those things was fixed 40 years ago, so it's no longer relevant to bring it up in what, at first blush, appears to be your attempt at an argument.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @PJH said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @English Man said:
    Ah yes, the American inability to understand "quarter past" or"quarter to" or "twenty to".
    Yeah and can you believe our monetary system only has multiples of 100? While the far superior British system was perfect, what with its 20 shillings to a pound, 12 pennies to a shilling.
    Ah, but one of those things was fixed 40 years ago, so it's no longer relevant to bring it up in what, at first blush, appears to be your attempt at an argument.

    But it's as relevant as English Man's incorrect and successful trolling attempt.


  • Considered Harmful

    @PJH said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @English Man said:
    Ah yes, the American inability to understand "quarter past" or"quarter to" or "twenty to".
    Yeah and can you believe our monetary system only has multiples of 100? While the far superior British system was perfect, what with its 20 shillings to a pound, 12 pennies to a shilling.
    Ah, but one of those things was fixed 40 years ago, so it's no longer relevant to bring it up in what, at first blush, appears to be your attempt at an argument.

    If using decimal was such an American thing to do, we'd have embraced the metric system by now.



  • @PJH said:

    Ah, but one of those things was fixed 40 years ago, so it's no longer relevant to bring it up in what, at first blush, appears to be your attempt at an argument.

    You could have posted that. Or you could have read literally the next sentence.

    @joe.edwards said:

    If using decimal was such an American thing to do, we'd have embraced the metric system by now.

    We've already embraced it to the exact same extent the UK has. (Just watch British TV; they're constantly measuring distances in miles, weight in "stone", pints naturally, etc.)



  • @PJH said:

    Ah, but one of those things was fixed 40 years ago, so it's no longer relevant to bring it up in what, at first blush, appears to be your attempt at an argument.
     

    Stop mocking a country that uses quarders, bits of nickel and dime bars as currency.



  • @English Man said:

    @configurator said:
    @Severity One said:
    What's wrong with "quater past six", by the way?
    Or "six fifteen", as some would say it.

    Ah yes, the American inability to understand "quarter past" or"quarter to" or "twenty to". It's a pretty complicated part of the English language, sensible to leave it out.

    We've been using "quarter past", "quarter to", and the like for as long as I can remember, and I can remember when My Favorite Martian premiered on TV.  We've also been using "quarter of", which has never made sense to me (through long exposure, I eventually worked out that it means the same as "quarter to", but I can't explain why it means that any more than I can explain why "larger-scale map" means the map is larger rather than the area it covers is larger).

    As for the metric system and decimal measures, why would we want to follow the example of a country who decided that a "hundredweight" was not a hundred pounds, but a hundred and twelve?

     





  • @da Doctah said:

    "larger-scale map" means the map is larger rather than the area it covers is larger
     

    but but it doesn't

    It means a map that covers a greater area.

    Or that's how I've been using it always and ever.



  • @da Doctah said:

    As for the metric system and decimal measures, why would we want to follow the example of a country who decided that a "hundredweight" was not a hundred pounds, but a hundred and twelve?

    Who said that a "weight" is one pound? It could be 1.12lb and it would be perfect.

    How is the £sd system any different to the miles/feet/inches still in use by a small minority today?



  • @Zemm said:

    miles/feet/inches still in use by a small minority today?

    A small minority being everyone in the United States.

    Minority, yes.

    Small? You're calling Americans small? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhas a heart attack



  • @Ben L. said:

    A small minority being everyone in the United States.

    Population of USA: 313,914,040.

    Population of World: 6,973,738,433.


    Yes I call 4.5% small.


    Edit: on reflection though you have a point, on body weight you probably win by a clear margin!



  • @Zemm said:

    Edit: on reflection though you have a point, on body weight you probably win by a clear margin!
     

    "never mind the quantity, feel the width"



  •  Dammit, you mentioned Cadbury's, now I want some mini-eggs.

     



  • @English Man said:

    @configurator said:
    @Severity One said:
    What's wrong with "quater past six", by the way?

    Or "six fifteen", as some would say it.

    Ah yes, the American inability to understand "quarter past" or"quarter to" or "twenty to". It's a pretty complicated part of the English language, sensible to leave it out.

    There are plenty of things Americans don't understand, but that's not one of them. I hear "quarter to six," etc. frequently here. I do not hear anyone here saying crap like "half six," and I'm glad for that.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @PJH said:
    Ah, but one of those things was fixed 40 years ago, so it's no longer relevant to bring it up in what, at first blush, appears to be your attempt at an argument.

    You could have posted that. Or you could have read literally the next sentence.

    @joe.edwards said:

    If using decimal was such an American thing to do, we'd have embraced the metric system by now.

    We've already embraced it to the exact same extent the UK has. (Just watch British TV; they're constantly measuring distances in miles, weight in "stone", pints naturally, etc.)

    The speed limits were posted in MPH the last time I was in England. In my observation, there is a lot of skepticism about the Metric system that goes unarticulated. If the whole world suddenly had to use American English and Imperial measures, I think we'd adapt to it in a matter of weeks. Some things are just right.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    @PJH said:
    Ah, but one of those things was fixed 40 years ago, so it's no longer relevant to bring it up in what, at first blush, appears to be your attempt at an argument.

    You could have posted that. Or you could have read literally the next sentence.

    What on earth for? That's not the sort of thing you normally do, so why do you expect others to do so?



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @joe.edwards said:

    I suppose you could recite the lyrics of the song known on YouTube as "Benny Lava" and not tell it you're speaking Tamil; see if it comes up with the same English "translation". 

    Or this?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOgALTFzFbQ

    Incidentally, I used to work with the creator of that video ("Translator"?).  He works with JAVA now (we were a .Net shop) and he and I had laughs about a lot of our WTF code that was at the place... including some that each of us created.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Or this?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOgALTFzFbQ

     

    *snort*

    Reminds me of "Ken Lee"

    And a more NSFW one...

     


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