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I have a lot of issues with dictation as well which I feel has gotten much worse as it gets "smarter." It used to take literal dictation & I could say "comma" "period" etc. to insert punctuation. Now it tries to guess when commas or full stops should be added and it's horrible. If I pause to take a breath it puts a comma or period, sometimes entirely changing the meaning of the sentence.

Recently I said "I ran into this too earlier on the project" and it wrote "I run into this tube earlier on the project." So now I'm running into a tube... because this makes more sense than "too"? And it can never write the names of immediately family members I text about every single day, and it has 5th grade vocabulary so if I said I demurred or that something was germane or any other word beyond the 500 most common words it butchers it.

What I want: 1. let me handle the punctuation manually 2. assume a broader vocabulary 3. let me specify how people's names are pronounced!! How are we this many years in and it still misinterprets my wife's name on a daily basis?


Didn't they add name pronunciation guidance a few years ago?

https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/correct-siri-pronunciation-...

I'm curious though if that affects recognition as well as audio generation.


Here's a recent conversation I had with Siri.

Me: Hey Siri, set the living room lights to 100%.

Siri: 100% = 1

This has been working for 6-7 years without any issues, and suddenly Siri is giving me math lessons. What the hell is happening in this company?


Me: Hey Siri, turn on the [such and such] light

Siri: Shows the literal text “Hey Siri, turn on the [such and such] light” on the screen and does absolutely nothing. It’s an edit box. Pressing enter has no effect.


Siri is about old enough to be getting a drivers license now, and I swear it's going through the same brain development woes.

Same thing has happened to me with Siri. It's absolutely garbage.

For years, I've said "Hey Siri, turn on Bright" because I have a "Bright" Home scene configured. About 2 months ago, the HomePod updated and now responds consistently with "Pause in the bedroom?"

Nothing is playing in the Bedroom. Nothing CAN play in the bedroom, there's just lights in the Bedroom. No speakers. What the heck is it even _trying_ to pause.

It's infuriating.


It made me remember how Siri used to turn on the lights when you say “Let there be lights”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work anymore either. It was a cool gimmick that made us chuckle.

It's extremely painful that there's are free, OSS dictation tools that can run on-device, that are so much better than Apple's dictation, and yet it's quite difficult to use them on the iPhone. I'm referring to Whispr. Microphone access is a pain for custom keyboards -- for good reason, but still.

Same frustration here. It’s somewhat painful for me to type but using dictation on the iphone is so terrible I prefer the physical pain.

As for names, I an also baffled. Most people in my family have either a Brazilian Portuguese or German name, but my work life is in English, so guess what, no getting anyone’s name right!


I still use spoken punctuation and it works ok so long as you don’t pause. E.g. “ hey siri text my wife I’m not sure when I’ll be home comma but I’ll text you when I’m leaving” if I say that without pausing, it puts the comma in the right place

I think the point is the opposite. Heaven forbid you might need to take a moment to think: now you get a comma or period

Perhaps but it was always like that so it hasn’t regressed

I struggled with family member names too until I realized I can create shortcuts for them (usually just their initials). Now I just type the shortcut and it always works. Joy!

wow it reminds me of Microsoft Access, a great piece of software in terms of rapidly building an application!

Does grist have forms?


I'm not an MS dev type, but I've often seen these forms questions. What made their forms so easy, or more in general what is so complicated about forms that this was even a tool so many liked?

MS Access was on its way out by the time I started working in software, but the simplest explanation I can give about why the "forms" question is this, let's say you're a business person and...:

  * You have a huge Excel document that's basically a DB. (What Access kinda was)
  * You want users to interact with said data document, i.e add record, find/query record(s), edit records
  * You add a "form" for users to do just that. You can also add a "login" form to give some users more permissions.
It's basically if you could turn a SQlite file into a low-coded desktop app.

Access is an FE for db — JET Red, specifically.

JET Blue aka ESE is currently used by products like Active Directory and Exchange.


With Access, a business doing data entry could -- with a business user not a software engineer -- craft a Form and voila, easy onboarding to train new employees instead of filling out sheets of paper and filing them.

Access biggest advantage by far was that you could share the file on a network drive and having multiple people accessing it: You didnt need any type of complex backup procedure.

In case of failure, just copy-over the old file from yesterday - such simple solutions are pure gold for SME without any big IT department


If you want forms try https://visualdb.com/ it is another tool that aims to be Microsoft Access

https://nocodb.com/ is an open source alternative.

It has data corruption issues, see https://visualdb.com/blog/concurrencycontrol/

Not open source though?

Right but it is cheaper than open source products if you self-host. Most open source products in this space, including grist, are only partially open source.

[grist employee here] Grist forms are open source and were used to keep the toilets clean at FOSDEM just a few days ago https://fosstodon.org/@grist/116001932837956733

Everything you see in our standard docker image is open source. Yes, you can enable and pay for enterprise features too.


It is weird that your enterprise features are not self-hostable even if a customer pays. I understand if some features are not open source, but why make it not self-hostable? Self-hosting is a requirement for confidential data.

The enterprise features are self-hostable. Look at "your servers" on the pricing page for Grist. Individuals (and orgs with < $1 million in annual income) quality for free activation keys btw.

Form support is touted on the homepage: https://www.getgrist.com/forms/

For what it's worth, which isn't much because this is probably outdated: I remember trying grist a few years ago and leaving mildly unimpressed with form support (I think because I was hoping to have image upload in the forms and that wasn't supported yet).


Grist forms support uploads since 2025 https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core/pull/1655

Since it is relevant here: support for uploads was code written by a French contributor, and reviewed by a developer working for the French gov (ANCT/DINUM) and a developer working for Grist Labs. Grist Labs has since maintained and improved on it. The forms feature itself was inspired by an integration built by Camille Legeron at ANCT.


this is so crazy. How does this accord with wikipedia's NOR & NPV stances?

This is a case of "if you abandon your convictions when it's inconvenient, you never really had convictions in the first place."


This whole affair should get much more attention. If one topic on Wikipedia can be so manipulated, any topic on Wikipedia can, and it's no longer a reliable source of knowledge.

I hope The Wikimedia Foundation can get its act together, and I admire the courage of Jimmy Wales for speaking up about this, but I've also stopped donating. I want no part of this.


I also have stopped donating. I replied to a WM Foundation email explaining why and they said they don't have editorial control over wikipedia, i.e. their hands are tied. Well OK, but I'm not giving money to fund the promulgation of Jew hatred and blood libel. Sad state of affairs! I've given for years.


I would say it absolutely violates the NPOV policy, and it's worth noting that both Wikipedia founders share this view [1] [2]. It's the only thing they've agreed on in many years.

Ultimately it's just a numbers game - Wikipedia almost always follows consensus, even when the consensus is to (effectively, without admission) throw neutrality or other rules out the window.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide/Archive_22#...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide/Archive_22#...


Some of this has to do with concerted and long-running campaigns of coordinated editing (against wikipedia rules) to push a one-sided political narrative. Most notably this happened and continues to be done by Israel-eliminationists[0]. Wikipedia eventually acknowledged the problem and banned a couple of the worst offenders[1] but that's a drop in the bucket as far as I'm concerned. I read it less and less these days and don't consult it at all for anything controversial ("controversial" meaning "topics that leftists have strong opinions about").

Sadly, a system like Wikipedia is hard to defend against persistent coordinated attacks by people who have lots of time.

0: https://aish.com/weaponizing-wikipedia-against-israel/ 1: https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/article-833180


> We want to help people, but only if and when it’s profitable for us

If s/he is running a company and not a charity, this is responsible, understandable, and predictable.


Of course, but that makes "help" a weasel word. They want to be able to sell their product, that they possibly strongly feel will help the buyers.


Yes, and that's exactly why we need regulations, and can't leave it to the market!


No one requested "highlight the ingredient names in the recipe steps"? That's a top request from me.


Thanks. I'll add this as an optional user preference


Highlighted ingredient names and inline amount/sizing so there isn't as much back-and-forth referencing!


What's the source of the particular singling out of Israel here? Is it because they're a US ally, or is there some other history between the countries?

It looks like a singular designation in their atlas that Israel is referred to not as an enemy, but as "nonexistent." Anti-Israeli sentiment certainly creates strange bedfellows.


I looked into it a bit (another commenter called it "not that complicated" which is not a phrase I usually hear in relation to Israeli/Palestinian politics!) and it's pretty interesting: https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-curious-tale-of-israels-sh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93North_Korea_rel...

Apparently at times some in Israel worked to establish relations with NK, in hopes of improving economic ties & bringing them in the fold I guess, but their efforts were thwarted by others in Israel (intelligence services) and pressure from the USA. And eventually (according to the article) it became clear that "stop selling our enemies weapons to use on us & in return we'll invest and establish ties" was a non-starter, so they gave up.

Also in an interesting reversal of tropes common in US politics, it sounds like the Isaeli government felt they were being unfairly controlled by the US, by being prevented from trying to establish friendly relations with a country the US considered off limits.

It's interesting to think of the counterfactual where Israel invested in NK, NK stopped participating in or arming attacks on Israel, and who knows what else would have happened. Oh well!


I think the Soviet Union had sided with Palestine (and also with other countries in what today is called the Global South) for most of the cold war, and this is a remnant of that.

Another effect of that is that a number of ex-soviet republics, like Poland, have recognition of Palestine "grandfathered in" even if they're part of the West and generally pro-Israel today.


Stalin sided with Israel against "those British sellouts Arabs". After his death USSR flipped for weird commie reasons, then felt betrayed by Nasser, then got disappointed by poor Arab fighting, then fell apart.


Much of the Arab World and its allies consider all of "historical Palestine" to be one nation called Palestine with a significant part of it being under occupation by a (Western) colony. This is a pretty common pattern that is not at all unique to North Korea


It's anti-imperialism. It's not that complicated.

There's many Israelis who will also claim that Palestine does not exist.

It's colonization, and war. Israelis claim the land. Palestinians also claim the land.

NK is united with Palestine via their anti-imperialist stance.

There are many other countries that also do not recognize Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_I...


To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine? Or is the idea that the US is the Empire?

There is another `anti-` that I would use here instead.


> To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine?

To be an Empire in the narrow sense they would have to have a polity that is the metropolitan power and then exert control over some external territory that is distinct from the metropole, and has different rules applied to it, either through direct administration or control of the local administration. Ignoring the disputes over what exactly the meaningful status of Gaza is, the open occupation of the West Bank would seem to qualify.

Though, yes, it is definitely true that lots of people who see Israel as a facet of imperialism hold to a view where there is a single globe-spanning Empire of which the US is the metropole and Israel is simply one of the tentacles. (These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.”)


> These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.

I think this last part does disservice to the rest of your argument. It's not "the same people", it's a subset. There are people capable of holding the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism.

Also, some of us in Latin America have a reasonable justification for animosity against the US rather than against other (also imperialist) actors: we are "America's back yard" and they have been involved in toppling, undermining, threatening or supporting our governments as they see fit. The US' relative influence far outstrips all others. Russia, China, etc, while nonzero are comparatively far lesser influence factors and therefore are downplayed in our perception of the world.


> > These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.

> I think this last part does disservice to the rest of your argument. It's not "the same people", it's a subset. There are people capable of holding the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism.

I think you need to go back and reread the sentence immediately preceding the one you excerpted which provides the reference for these people, because no, the group referenced there absolutely does not include people who hold “the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism”. For reference, that sentence is: “Though, yes, it is definitely true that lots of people who see Israel as a facet of imperialism hold to a view where there is a single globe-spanning Empire of which the US is the metropole and Israel is simply one of the tentacles.”

People who view that there are multiple imperial powers are not part of the group I am referring to in that sentence and the one you excerpted which follows it.

> Also, some of us in Latin America have a reasonable justification for animosity against the US rather than against other (also imperialist) actors

Lots of people lots of places have a reasonable justification for greater animosity toward the US, yes, but that has nothing one way or the other to do with anything I said.


> To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine?

They very openly do both those things in the West Bank.

Then you have the more extreme settler types talking about the biblical "Land of Israel" that would extend into modern Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.

But as far as I understand it, Israel is usually not the empire itself, but a bridgehead or particularly glaring example of imperialism from the West, starting with the British Empire.

> Or is the idea that the US is the Empire?

So, yes.

It were those countries that conquered those regions from the Ottoman empire and then decided among themselves to support the project of a Jewish state, against the wishes of the existing population of the region.


The whole reason Gaza (was) the most densely populated place on Earth was because its full of refugees that got pushed out by israel's violent expansion. Sometimes Palestinian's homes weren't even destroyed but simply kept by Israeli settlers. There's a common picture of a middle aged Palestinian in front of a house that just 30-50 years ago was there's but is now occupied by an israeli


anti-imperialist here refers to the American empire, which Israel is a tool of (and the U.S. serves Israel also, there is a symbiotic relationship).

> and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine?

Not related to the above point, but this is happening in the West Bank anyway.

> There is another `anti-` that I would use here instead.

I doubt North Korea is doing this from a principled position of anti-Zionism


I don't know if there's a simple solution to deploy this but JA3 fingerprinting is sometimes used to identify similar clients even if they're spread across IPs: https://engineering.salesforce.com/tls-fingerprinting-with-j...


You need to terminate the TLS connection yourself so this prevents people from using DNS proxy, e.g. Cloudflare. Then you have to run a server that has a module that computes the ja3/ja4, e.g. nginx. Even then, it's possible to set your client hello in python/curl/etc. to exactly mirror the JA4 of your chosen browser like Chrome. So ja4 stops basic bots but most seasoned scrapers already implement valid ja4s/ja3s


I thought it wasn't just a matter of valid but of identicalness. Multiple clients with identical JA4 which comprises if I'm not mistaken useragent but also other aspects of the host machine indicate that they are in fact a single user agent.


I'm sorry, I don't fully understand your question. This is what I meant by invalid: Anyone using chrome 142 has the same JA4 - I've checked across OS/devices. If you use nodeJS and set your user agent to "chrome 142" then you will have an invalid/incorrect JA4 and you'll stick out from the crowd.


In canada it's "one cluster of dots = $5, two clusters = $10, three = $20" and so on. You just feel the number of dot clusters & count, no braille involved.


Gas prices are frequently in fractions of a penny. This never matters because they round. Yep, rounding, in the real world, and the nation has not imploded. As pointed out by others Canada does this already and it's no issue.


And whenever tax is added it's usually a fraction of a penny as well. Rounding has been with us for a long time.


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