I don't think this applies for this comment, I mean, the title suggests teaching something to an AI, which in the case of Siri would open a lot of very interesting options, I'm sure I'm not the only one who expected something along those lines and was disappointed. "RTM Siri setup instructions" is a less attractive title though.

I've seen the word "teach" used to talk about setting up or programming a computer on many occasions before. It's completely appropriate. I can see why you'd be disappointed but that's not a reason to complain.

The headline would be fine in a magazine article or a tech-light site like Lifehacker.

But, because of Siri's architecture, telling a forum of hackers that you've "taught it" to do something is a wildly different thing.

Hackers click that headline because they're interested in the possibility space where you can integrate arbitrary third party apps.

And when they discover that your headline is a semantic game --that the implicit promise of the headline is a lie-- I don't know how you could expect anything other than complaints.

I upvoted because I completely agree.

But then I thought about it, and isn't this also an example of a hack in it's purest sense?

When I saw the headline my first reaction was: What? Unbelievable, this sounds too good to be true, but maybe the guys from RTM really found a way to do that.

When I clicked on the link I realized it has not much to do with Siri and is just about synching other iPhone apps.

Last time I checked, there was nothing sticking up my ass, but I do come to HN because it is different from Lifehacker, BusinessInsider or HuffPo. Nevertheless I do have to admit that it is a brilliant marketing move. They even started a heated discussion on HN :-)

So to extend my comment from a hacker perspective I felt tricked.

From the perspective of an online marketer I have to admit it is a brilliant move.

Maybe you just need to be more cynical. :) I saw the headline, thought, yeah, they figured out some way to connect it, and got pretty much what I expected.

Now, see, what a much more human and interesting way to express that. Contrast that with the wearisome hauteur of

> the have taught Siri nothing.

Not that having some jackass (me) be the arbiter of what's a nice way to say things is any improvement either, but I'm just saying.

This is what I love about HN. A little heat to a discussion creates more insight instead of a flame war.

I agree with you about a lot of things, but this isn't one of them.

That title implies a number of things. Personally, I read it and thought "RTM managed to jailbreak Siri and teach it how to interact with a third-party API!!"

That was a very disappointing click-through because that's one misleading title, dude.

I think the problem is sometimes people try to find a way to comment. Generally unless someone is outright wrong or lying I tend to just not upvote something that wasn't very interesting. Starting an argument in a comment thread can be a great place for Karmawhores to get some action.

"but the only place with a bigger stick up its collective ass is Wikipedia."

Slashdot

Score: 5, Insightful