5 ms·

"...set an alarm for tomorrow @ eighteen hundred." works just fine. At least in U. S. English, I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to 6 p. m. as "eightee

"...set an alarm for tomorrow @ eighteen hundred." works just fine. At least in U. S. English, I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to 6 p. m. as "eighteen".

shpx 6y ago
but you would still understand them if they did or take 5 seconds to ask a clarifying question.
- mikestew 6y ago
  I live in Redmond, WA. Frankly, if someone asked to meet for a meal at eighteen, I would assume they would like to get together in a Microsoft cafeteria closest to the (what I believe to be non-existent) Building 18. My backup option would be to assume that they have received a hard blow to the head at some point in their life. Again, whether I would understand them or not, no one to my knowledge speaks like that in U. S. English. It is a great example to use to show the quirks of language. It is a bad example to use to show that Siri "doesn't even support 24 hour time - at least in English".
  - nottorp 6y ago
    I'm not English. We don't say eighteen hundred for 18:00, we say just eighteen. And I don't have localized Siri. And in any case i said eighteen not eight a m.
  - justinlloyd 6y ago
    Officially building 18 does not exist. Anything you may have heard about building 18 is just rumour. If you have any questions regarding the purpose of building 18, you should direct them to Shelley in HR.
    - mikestew 6y ago
      Hey, it's been well over a decade since I worked there. :-) https://campusbuilding.com/b/microsoft-building-18/ https://campusbuilding.com/b/microsoft-building-18/
    - nottorp 6y ago
      "report to Shelley in HR for re indoctrination" would be better :)
dathinab 6y ago
But that's the problem most people don't speak U.S. English as their primary language. They use all kinds of languages with all kinds of accents and and ticks. In my experience, and from the time I did a bit of NLP the situations is often along the line of. It works for mostly accent free simple English. Fails to get anywhere usable on most other languages and or accents. Sure that is to some degree because of missing training data. But for a consumer this doesn't change that for very many consumers this features work terrible bad. Just out interest I tried out the youtube auto generated subtitle for a german video, but even at the parts where the text was super clear and well pronounced the result was hardly differentiable from randomly picking arbitrary words. It wasn't even that the algorithm choose similar sounding word. They where completely different words in many case. I think in a sentence of ~10 words in average 1 or 2 where correct. And that was at the parts where the text was unusually clear understandable. At other parts it wasn't even able to recognize that there where words...
dheera 6y ago
Except it isn't a hundred, it's sixty, and I protest that usage. >.<. I prefer eighteen o'clock.
- toyg 6y ago
  That works fine in Siri. Although it does have a problem with hours over 20 (“22 o’clock” becomes 20:02 for some reason, possibly because of my thick Italian accent).
- 205guy 6y ago
  It's standard US military terminology and part of US culture and language. Just imagine all the idioms they have to account for in these voice algorithms. I know in German they also handle "halb neun" correctly as 8:30.

"...set an alarm for tomorrow @ eighteen hundred." works just fine. At least in U. S. English, I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to 6 p. m. as "eighteen".

shpx 6y ago

but you would still understand them if they did or take 5 seconds to ask a clarifying question.

mikestew 6y ago
I live in Redmond, WA. Frankly, if someone asked to meet for a meal at eighteen, I would assume they would like to get together in a Microsoft cafeteria closest to the (what I believe to be non-existent) Building 18. My backup option would be to assume that they have received a hard blow to the head at some point in their life. Again, whether I would understand them or not, no one to my knowledge speaks like that in U. S. English. It is a great example to use to show the quirks of language. It is a bad example to use to show that Siri "doesn't even support 24 hour time - at least in English".
- nottorp 6y ago
  I'm not English. We don't say eighteen hundred for 18:00, we say just eighteen. And I don't have localized Siri. And in any case i said eighteen not eight a m.
- justinlloyd 6y ago
  Officially building 18 does not exist. Anything you may have heard about building 18 is just rumour. If you have any questions regarding the purpose of building 18, you should direct them to Shelley in HR.
  - mikestew 6y ago
    Hey, it's been well over a decade since I worked there. :-) https://campusbuilding.com/b/microsoft-building-18/ https://campusbuilding.com/b/microsoft-building-18/
  - nottorp 6y ago
    "report to Shelley in HR for re indoctrination" would be better :)

dathinab 6y ago

But that's the problem most people don't speak U.S. English as their primary language. They use all kinds of languages with all kinds of accents and and ticks. In my experience, and from the time I did a bit of NLP the situations is often along the line of. It works for mostly accent free simple English. Fails to get anywhere usable on most other languages and or accents. Sure that is to some degree because of missing training data. But for a consumer this doesn't change that for very many consumers this features work terrible bad. Just out interest I tried out the youtube auto generated subtitle for a german video, but even at the parts where the text was super clear and well pronounced the result was hardly differentiable from randomly picking arbitrary words. It wasn't even that the algorithm choose similar sounding word. They where completely different words in many case. I think in a sentence of ~10 words in average 1 or 2 where correct. And that was at the parts where the text was unusually clear understandable. At other parts it wasn't even able to recognize that there where words...

dheera 6y ago

Except it isn't a hundred, it's sixty, and I protest that usage. >.<. I prefer eighteen o'clock.

toyg 6y ago
That works fine in Siri. Although it does have a problem with hours over 20 (“22 o’clock” becomes 20:02 for some reason, possibly because of my thick Italian accent).
205guy 6y ago
It's standard US military terminology and part of US culture and language. Just imagine all the idioms they have to account for in these voice algorithms. I know in German they also handle "halb neun" correctly as 8:30.