If I specify “Shuffle playlist _____ in Apple Music” somehow that works right, even though it’s still using Apple Music in the first example when it plays the wrong music.

We’ll see if they managed to unfuck it with the new Siri update, or knowing LLMs perhaps they’ll make it non-deterministic so sometimes it works and sometimes it plays music you didn’t ask for.

Pretty bad if simple one-word commands to system APIs don't work, we had better voice control capability with "Speakable Items" on classic Mac OS.

With Google Assistant (old assistant) I could say "Hey Google, play daft punk" and it would start playing Daft Punk on Spotify.

With Gemini (new assistant) it says "sorry I cannot play music, but here are links to services where you can find Daft Punk albums".

Fortunately at the moment you can still toggle between them. I guess not for long though.

So now I just use the Google home app and it works as expected.

"Siri, start a stopwatch" - runs the App "Stopwatch" without starting it

Such errors happen maybe 50% of the time. You can never just ask something without double-checking afterwards.

Set a timer for 50 minutes…always get a timer for 15.

100% of the time turns of all the lights in children's bedroom. Alexa has no problem with this.

Disappointing to say the least. Completely useless, I was going to get an Android this year on upgrade cycle. Will check this out first.

I'm in the middle of remodeling a new apartment and all my switches are smart. I won't even have physical switches for some fixtures like window rollers.

idk if most of my home assistant automations have actually saved me time since i def had to debug them, but the level of satisfaction when they do work is def worth it for me, since i created (and debugged) them haha

This is a fascinating example. You would initially assume it's just inconvenient versus flipping a switch--this can't be labour-saving by default.

The only way it makes sense is if you're doing it remotely; from another room, you're putting your children to bed. That's even weirder though, because you're taking what should be a moment of connection/care and trying to automate it. I guarantee your children would value you taking the time.

It's a use-case that is either inefficient or inhuman, and I find it really odd that it's one that you value.

I also have a "go to bed" scene that turns on a couple lights so I can see the stairs and turns off most lights around the house.

I don't really need AI to do it, I can just use the app, but Alexa usually gets the job done and I don't need to look at my phone.

In any case, OPs reasons for wanting to turn off any light in any of their rooms are unknown to us.

Maybe they took their kids out to breakfast and realized they forgot to turn the lights off while they were driving. Good thing they bought those smart lights that can be controlled with siri! Oh no! It doesn't work the way it was advertised!

There's no reason to imply OP is a bad parent just because they want to turn off a light remotely.

There's no reason to hunt for a poor parallel to shut down discussion.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So you tell me, what are we discussing?

BTW, the very HN guidelines you link to say that if you think something violates the guidelines, flag and move on without engaging.

I would have preferred Siri because one less provider but it's just unbelievably bad for this day and age.

Why waste time and effort just picking apart what someone else does with their free time? I can only assume becasue they disagree with the issues relevance, but that only goes to show the intent of the person replying. They dont care about the tech issue and just want to show why they think they are better than the person with the problem.

Human condition i guess!

Considering the uses and impact of tech is part of talking about it; you can't limit discussion just to the wires.

You could have simply asked without denigrating the commenter.

> That's even weirder though, because you're taking what should be a moment of connection/care and trying to automate it.

"weirder" has a pretty negative connotation, hard not to see its usage as denigrating.

"what should be a moment or connection" is an assumption on what the moment actually is. All OP mentioned is that they want to turn off one light in one bedroom. Your comment invented a narrative about what that must mean and then made statements on the narrative that exists only in your mind.

I don't think anyone is trying to "tone-police" you I think people just disagree with your take.

It's difficult to have a discussion if a bunch of unrelated people jump in not to add but to quibble about phrasing. If you don't want to discuss anything, just don't involve yourself.

Orders of magnitude less than the literal trillions that others have?

Huge call if so, given that missing the bus on AGI (if AGI happened) is a universal existential risk, but it turned out to be the right one.

I'm not sure it is, if your primary business is selling hardware. People are still going to need a 5" wide screen and battery in their pocket in order to do things.

ref: https://www.evehome.com/en/eve-blinds-collection

There's never going to be a situation where a heavy Google Assistant user switches over to Apple for Siri. Anyone who would have switched from Apple to Google for their assistant likely would have done so by now. Siri just isn't a very important feature. It doesn't bring people to Apple's platform nor does it steer them away. It might bother users that it sucks, but it doesn't bother anyone enough that it hurts Apple's bottom line. Frankly, continuing to pour money into that bottomless pit does more damage. I wonder why they do it.

The argument that important knowledge is best acquired through incidental office interactions sounds more like nostalgia for office culture than an effective approach to knowledge sharing.

> Ritter filed a lawsuit in November that alleged Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, “forcibly raped” her while on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021.

> She also claimed they had sex without her consent during the 2023 Burning Man festival in Nevada.

ref: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-goo...

Almost every women I am close to has been raped or assaulted.

What part of this do you specifically not understand?

I have cut multiple toxic people out of my life, even very close relationships and family, and it was easy as farting for me. It’s alien to me to not be able to do that. However it’s easy to recognize different people have different capacities in this regard.

Every abuser in my personal life whom I've learned about--most of whom I'd also met and spent time with before learning of their deeds--are extremely charismatic people who make active efforts to both isolate their partner from their social circle as well as do things externally that increase their reputation amongst both their peers and the peers of their partner. The people who batter, violate, and terrorize their partners are, with unusual frequency (in my experience), the same people who pick up the tab for everyone at the bar, who reliably buy people gifts, and who offer trusted advice and counsel in trying times.

Now, as to why these abusers are like this, that's a more complex thing. I'm not qualified to speak on it, but in the examples I've seen in my life, they're often people who have narcissistic personality disorder, where they're extremely attached to being seen in favorable lights by those around them, and as a result, react viciously to those who challenge that (oft fictitious) image. (This isn't always a conscious process--to put yourself into their shoes, imagine you're inextricably convinced that everyone is trying to defame you, abuse you, and tarnish your reputation at all times (which is probably true for the abuser, because in trying to prevent such fiction, they do monstrous things that fulfill that exact prophecy), so you need to constantly prevent it from happening by becoming trusted and loved by every means necessary, or else.) However, in an effort to maintain this image, they become very well-regarded by those around them, which makes the victim of their abuse sound insane when they try to call them out.

These people also frequently attach high-value people (such as the children they have with the abused) to them so that they are more difficult to harm, hold accountable, or separate from. I have never, ever heard of an abuser who didn't actively maintain an external factor that made them incredibly difficult to prosecute ("but he has kids, and the kids adore him" / "but he donates so much of his time and money to local charities" / "but he's putting X through college", etc). Putting the abused OR people the abused cares about in financial dependence with them (paying for school / rent / resources for them or their lives ones, isolating the abused from avenues to financial independence, etc) is also very common, if the abuser has such resources. Then, the abused trying to get help is made to become someone who's trying to "defame" the abuser, "rob" their loved ones of financial assistance that they depend on, "steal" the children from their father "whom the kids so love". In the abuser's mind, if their being imprisoned means someone is immediately put in harm's way by their absence, they are safe.

The opportunities for the abused to be made to feel completely insane by the world the abuser has created around them are innumerable; the goal of the abuser is to make the victim sound like a monster for trying to challenge the abuser's authority, and usually, by the time the abused catches on to the situation they're now in (during which time the abuser has been nothing but sweet and caring), the abuser has already completed the process, and that world now has extreme consequences if the abused tries to escape it. They're no longer leaving their partner--they're leaving their entire family, their friends, their finances, their entire support network, because the abuser has ingrained themselves into all of it, and done all they can to make their authority unchallengeable (or, at least, convinced the abused of such).

Combine that with the abuser very often making a habit of encouraging the abused to doubt their own judgment, telling them they're stupid or worthless (in words subtle enough that you or I would believe them), or finding people from the get go who already lack such confidence (which the abuser may not even realize is what they're doing--they're just looking for someone who doesn't seem like a threat to them, while simultaneously being incapable of believing that they, themselves, might be that threat, as a result of being blinded by their own narcissism. Which is another factor--how do you convince someone they're being harmful when they're incapable of believing that they have the capacity to harm? The abusers often believe the same lies they tell their victims, and tell them with unwavering conviction.)

Do you have anyone in your life who you hold in very high esteem, whom you are very close to, who you've also heard ill of? When has your gut response been to believe the person speaking ill of them, instead of your trusted, caring, friend, who you've known for years, who would "never do such a thing"? It might be someone so close to you that believing their victim would feel like buying into a conspiracy theory--which is exactly the circumstance that the abuser is trying to maintain.

That's a big part of why.

You seem to be mind-reading and assuming everyone who doesn't already understand things the way you do is acting in bad faith.

The first part of your response is informative, and I thought "interesting response." The second part is just nasty and I thought "wow, what a **." Do you want the poster to understand or do you just want to score points?

81% of women have been sexually harassed, at least 20% have been raped. Yet, weirdly, that hasn't changed the allocation of capital in the United States in their collective favor.

But let's see what kind of person you actually are. Do you have a problem with suing, post-rape? What kind of society would you consider ideal?

Keep in mind that the current criminal case closure rate of rape cases is 25% and has been dropping for the last 10 years.

I don't even understand what you're trying to claim here. As best I can figure out, it sounds like you're saying that Trump made his money from suing people for sexual assault, but that's so absurd I can't even imagine someone trying to claim that as a troll.

Even ignoring that, your argument seems to be "people in general are motivated by money, therefore this specific instance of a person acting where money could plausibly be a motivation is the only possible explanation". It informs quite a bit about how you view the world, but it's not a particularly compelling explanation.

People with a lot of money often get away with things for several reasons, including;

1) people sometimes attack/slander/harass others for arbitrary reasons hoping to get some of it (even if they never have to actually pay them!)

2) ability to hire people to professionally defend them (lawyers, PR people, etc.)

3) their often extensive networks among people in power (often in groups #1 and #2!), which can result in decisions going ‘their way’ even without having to take explicit action - but if they want, allowing them to take explicit action.

4) their ability to absorb extensive financial penalties without actual harm to their style of living, allowing them to be more risk tolerant.

5) they often own things (like newspapers, media outlets, companies), which can make most peoples lives hard if power is applied.

This means most people are hesitant to cross them, as normal folks can likely be crushed. This includes many people like police, public prosecutors, journalists, civil servants, etc. It’s ‘leverage’, and ‘power’.

So for most people, especially if they keep getting what they need, it’s not worth rocking the boat. You’re more likely to just get steamrolled/destroyed if you try. some people will even actively encourage it, as long as it seems like it will pay out. most people caught in this situation will ‘grin and bear it’, hoping to get out ‘alive’ and avoid further contact.

If you’re already being pushed out/fired, you’re already more in the direction of being ‘destroyed’, so the additional consequences of trying to fight are less. And at that point, it’s clear it won’t pay out as much going the other direction.

It’s sex realpolitik + money - and I’m sure anyone in that circle is quite familiar with it. Both the complaintant, and the defendant. Why make a scene if it’s in your financial/safety interest not too, after all? Especially if you’ll likely lose.

If you have not as much to lose, why not make a scene?

If you are a victim of an actual crime or not is a lot less tangential to this calculus than anyone wants to think about, but it’s true.

Notably, a LOT of people will also retroactively cast consensual behavior into non-consensual later, if it is also in their financial or social interest, which further muddies the waters.

After all, were you there when this event potentially happened? Was it rape? Sexual harassment? Was it a half sprung trap?

Good luck knowing for sure if you weren’t, or sometimes even if you were!

> ...

> Both the complaintant, and the defendant. Why make a scene if it’s in your financial/safety interest not too, after all? Especially if you’ll likely lose.

This is what I'm still stuck on. You're making a strong claim about of what a specific individual's mindset was about a traumatic event based on broad generalizations of social dynamics. It's hard to imagine how you could have such high confidence that someone you've never met has an exact combination of motivation from money and self-preservation to end up acting in ways you'd predict, rather than any number of other plausible explanations.

I’m just giving her the benefit of the doubt and assuming she isn’t a fool.

But hey, maybe I’m wrong and money plays no part in this action between a hundred-billionaire and an ex employee.

quote: "She further alleged that Schmidt had built a “backdoor” to Google servers with a team of company engineers that allowed him to spy on her and anyone with a Google account."

For some, it's an increasingly worrisome amount (and type of) drugs, for others, it's women, and for a select few it's children.

But with a society that empowers men more than women, and relative power disparities of all types lending themselves to behavior like this (plenty of people who don't have everything still have enough power to exploit those they have power over). In the abstract, sure, it might not be something inherent to men, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that in practice women are victimized by behavior like this at a system level that men are not.

To any men who are dubious about this, I'd genuinely suggest asking the women who you have close enough relationships with to be comfortable having tough discussions if they'd be willing to tell you about experiences they've had where men have behaved poorly towards them in ways that wouldn't have likely happened to a man in their circumstances; I'm guessing that pretty much all of them will have experienced far more than you'd imagine. As a man, I'm relatively certain I can't recall any instance of ever experiencing the reverse of this though, and that's my point: going out of your way to try to frame this as a gender-neutral issue basically emphasizes theoretical concerns at the expense of the actual distribution of problems that people face in real life. When things are so slanted that in practice almost everyone in one group has experienced it but relatively few from another group has had the same experience, framing it in terms of that is important.

A valid and important point, yes. But then there's Ghislaine Maxwell. By all accounts, she is just as guilty as he was, some say even worse because she actively recruited victims for him.

The fact that society gives less women that kind of power reduces the absolute number of women that abuse their power - but the level of depravity they can sink to those that do rise to power is just as bad as men's.

I'm sure all the above happened back in the day too, but: rich people of previous centuries would go to the arts to find meaning. Being part of an orchestra or theatre troupe or artist alley was a peak achievement. Now we just have boring dystopia where rich guys literally build bunkers for the end of days they are personally bringing about. What the hell happend?

You have link to the blog series?

I was expecting something more practical, like doing an interview every six months or something along those lines.

Supervisors and HR just smile and nod.

Maybe if he had a better relationship with his manager, he would’ve realised sooner that he was just wasting his time.

Documentation is like an untested disaster recovery plan.

When a major issue happens, you’ll be the one called.

You should delegate or automate the task and remove it from your workload, especially if it carries high risk.

I’d actually love to read the dark arts equivalent of this article.

Incidentally, I hear advice like that (especially a variation, of "practice" interviews) on HN, but I really wish people wouldn't do that.

Actually, please don't do this resource burning with startups or other SMBs, unless it's clear they want to burn resources.

But feel free to burn the resources of FAANGs, who mostly created the idea that interviews should be a series of performance rituals that you have to practice and refresh on.

(Though the related phenomenon, of techbro frequent job-hopping, wasn't the fault of FAANGs. It seemed to start during the dotcom boom, pre-Google, especially in the Bay Area, AFAICT, where a lot of people were chasing the most promising rapid IPO. At the time, the rumors/grumbling I was hearing from the Bay Area made me want to do a startup in Cambridge/Boston instead, just to avoid that culture. After the dotcom IPO gold rush ended, it seemed that job-hopping for big pay boosts and promotions became a thing, and that job-hopping culture never went away. But I don't think we'll find much team loyalty anywhere anymore, not from companies nor from colleagues, so that's no longer a reason I'd avoid the Bay Area specifically.)

Startups are fine scheduling candidates for 5-6 rounds of interviews, they should be fine with the occasional tire-kicker

Not all startups are like that, and you might not know in advance.

Though, incidentally, I did find one about a month ago, and I will take this moment of inspiration to complain about it, constructively.

I bowed out of an imminent offer, because I thought that the CTO's gauntlet of evaluation steps was a sign of the day-to-day I should expect: that I would only be valued like an untrusted junior commodity worker.

(I have a lot of experience, my detailed resume shows that, and I'd been patient and met more than halfway with the process.)

Meanwhile, the initial pitch about why I might want to work there had worn off, after 5+ calls and a takehome. I wasn't going to invest any more time+energy+soul, submitting to the final grilling/hazing step, of a job I no longer wanted.

ProTip: Unless you are a FAANG, or are paying FAANG-like money, don't act like one towards prospective hires/colleagues. Otherwise, you should expect to hire only people who are moderately good at interviewing (good enough to pass your nonsense, but not the nonsense of the people who pay more). And you should expect them to hop without loyalty, because you do FAANG arrogance and nonsense, without paying for the privilege.

Not sure when the job-hopping culture--especially on the west coast--really came in. I do associate it with post-dot com but I'd really have to look at the data. Certainly wasn't really true pre dot-com at large tech employers.

And this was exclusively at SMBs and startups. At least, the FAANG companies have structure and you know what to expect.

They are job hopping because they want high level compensation and maybe a position on an high-impact team, instead of being sidelined and powerless against the disrespect of their manager.

Your company can make those work together.

I’m not saying every job hopper is the right hire. I am offering a reason they get hired anyway (availability!) and leave anyway (respect and $$).

(And it didn't fit any rational objection I could think of, if they'd actually looked at the resume, beyond triggering on a keyword.)

I think a root problem is that many companies are bad at hiring, and many of those get confidently bad at it. In institutional emergent behavior terms, as well as individual actor terms.

Precisely. And who are we kidding? I know a lot of people that have performance objectives to grow $ or cut $. I don't know anyone who has a comp clawback for making bad hires.

Spending too long (vague) consulting for one company doesn't measure your competencies or value you bring to the team. I bet they just needed a reason to knock you out and shortlist the hiring manager's preferred candidate who they don't know personally, but know via close friend referral.

This can also dovetail with illegal hiring discrimination: when there's an exec/manager who doesn't want to hire women, people with kids, people likely to feel pressure to have kids soon, military veterans, ethnic groups, religious groups, etc... it's really easy for those resumes to be among the ones quickly discarded, with or without pretext. It's plausibly deniable, because of all the random declines of good resumes.

They're screening job-hoppers as a "rule of thumb" that shrinks the candidate funnel at the cost of losing out on 100x programmers or 1-10x programmers that can commit to 2y.

I don't get the cost-benefit other than time and a lack of need for 100x programmers.

The talent view is that this candidate is in demand by peers, and it's the candidate's choice to put in a full 2y and leave early before vesting.

Scratching someone out for being an alleged job hopper on the surface is pre-mature optimization for hiring talent. What is your concern that you can't mitigate? e.g., call their referrals, backload their comp, etc.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45830434

the best analogy I can give is that at work I (and many companies) are looking for a marriage, not a one-night stand. no matter what your technical provess is, it takes a while for you to learn the domain and get gelled with the team. While this is happening, we are all putting a significant effort to make this happen. if you then turn around and leave the entire has wasted a whole bunch time/effort and even if you are some “rock star” SWE we lose

Why can't you address this with mitigants I mentioned? It sounds like you do some of that with "other non-$ comp" (mandatory PTO, parental leave,...) that's use it or lose it, but those are table stakes these days.

I love the idea of thinking about a long term marriage and contracting accordingly, but at some point it's a leap of faith.

Your bias has a presumably unforced handicap. Losing that 100x programmer may not matter to your business/personal goals to make GOOD wealth accumulation, but it will hurt your changes to go from GOOD to GREAT outcomes.

How do you handle retention, once you "marry" an employee?

If the manager retired, would the company keep nurturing that?

- great team

- competitive compensation

- maternity / paternity leave

- mandatory pto

The compensation one is the one that most companies get wrong for retention. It seems most companies say they're "competitive" (within some unspecified tier). And they may be at hiring time, but a frequent complaint is that companies don't keep the compensation competitive. (Netflix famously being an exception.)

It's not really "assigning blame", it's more like "acknowledging limitations of the tools."

Giving an LLM or "agent" access to your production servers or database is unwise, to say the least.

he's not going to be happy with all this publicity