[HN Gopher] Boyfriend-alert - A light based alert system
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Boyfriend-alert - A light based alert system
        
       Author : rgun
       Score  : 212 points
       Date   : 2022-01-31 09:04 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | lillesvin wrote:
       | Remember the dude whose garage port opened and closed seemingly
       | at random because his /toggle endpoint ended up in his browser's
       | "most visited" list:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16964907 ?
       | 
       | I have a feeling the same thing could happen here.
        
         | dokem wrote:
         | That's why you have to use a POST request. GET should be read-
         | only and a browser will not re-issue a POST for things like
         | most-visited, tab restore, pre-fetch, etc.
        
           | lillesvin wrote:
           | Yeah, that's what the guy in the linked post is talking
           | about. Various services (Skype/Teams, Slack, Twitter, etc.)
           | will also send a GET if the URL is shared there. I once saw
           | an accidental hotel booking triggered by Skype because the
           | booking was performed through a GET request with a brazillion
           | parameters.
        
       | jstanley wrote:
       | Interestingly the TLDR is longer than the rest of the README.
        
       | Someone1234 wrote:
       | Apple Watches have a cool Walkie-Talkie concept that could have
       | worked well for this scenario.
       | 
       | I call it a concept though because the app as-implemented is
       | unreliable and gets stuck in "Checking availability," "Trying to
       | reconnect" every time you launch it. If you lower your wrist
       | while it is trying to reconnect the app gets suspended and starts
       | again.
       | 
       | So imagine standing there for sometimes up to a minute with your
       | wrist extended while the Walkie-Talkie app tries to reconnect,
       | all to hypothetically save time. It isn't workable. Which is a
       | real shame because great concept on paper.
        
         | mikestew wrote:
         | It's a feature used once and then disabled. It seemed cool back
         | when we got our Watch 4s, but as pointed out, it seemed like
         | someone's side project that somehow made it into production.
         | Turns out, you could have just called in less time.
        
         | britches11 wrote:
         | It's also a major battery drain -- probably thanks to the
         | issues you mentioned.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | berkes wrote:
       | Brings back memories! I've had several such hacky things for my
       | GF (now wife) and vice-versa.
       | 
       | `eject` + a post-it on the CD-rom tray 'Hey, look behind you!'
       | 
       | `ssh my-machine.local espeak 'dinner is ready'` or `ssh her-
       | machine.home espeak "please pick up the phone! important!"`.
       | 
       | With a simple button exposed via a .desktop file.
        
       | charcircuit wrote:
       | This seems to be worse than just having your girlfriend send you
       | a DM on Discord. Discord will make a noise and show you a
       | notification. Discord will also show you that you have an unread
       | message where with this it's easy to miss (what's probably a LED)
       | flash 6 times in 5.7 seconds.
       | 
       | Being able to attach a message also lets you get some context on
       | what she may need. It might not be that urgent.
        
         | hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
         | Building something to show her you care: priceless
        
           | hackandtrip wrote:
           | +1.
           | 
           | As software engineers I think we should explore more the part
           | of our skills that can create things that are not useful per-
           | se, but creative and funny, such as the best gifts (at least
           | for me) are
        
             | hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
             | I plan on giving my mother a prison tattoo gun for
             | Christmas this year as a joke gift (she's really not happy
             | I got a tattoo, despite living 3000km away). Does that
             | count?
        
             | ncarroll wrote:
             | My boyfriend once presented me with a 3-doors game for my
             | birthday. I was to click one door for my present. I
             | wandered around all day trying to decide which one to
             | choose and when I did, the other two doors disappeared and
             | my warm and snugly new bathrobe was revealed. I married
             | that guy about as fast as I could and twenty-six years
             | later he's still good for a digital surprise. :-)
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | What a lovely story!
        
         | pikzel wrote:
         | Yeah, forcing her to use Discord just to get his attention.
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | Pretty much everyone uses Discord now. It's not about forcing
           | her, it's about using a chat program you use already. If you
           | two happen to not use Discord to talk to each other surely
           | there is some other app which you use to communicate with
           | each other.
        
             | cxr wrote:
             | > Pretty much everyone uses Discord now
             | 
             | This statement is indicative of living in a bubble but
             | being unaware that it exists.
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | It's likely that someone's girlfriend is in the same
               | bubble as themself.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | This is yet another generalization that doesn't hold true
               | for the vast majority of the couples that I am aware of.
               | 
               | (scope = me) != (scope = the world)
               | 
               | Your bubble is unique to you, even if it seems like
               | that's the whole world because you haven't seen much
               | outside of your bubble (almost by definition) that does
               | not mean that you are going to be able to generalize
               | outside of your bubble from data collected inside of it
               | except for the most obvious of cases.
        
             | jacquesm wrote:
             | > Pretty much everyone uses Discord now.
             | 
             | Errm. No. Not everyone uses Discord now. When making
             | general statements like that it always helps to keep a bit
             | of perspective: am I or am I not involved in a crowd that
             | on average is more likely than other such crowds to be
             | using piece of software 'x'?
             | 
             | At any one point in time 'everybody uses IRC', 'everbody
             | uses ICQ', 'everybody uses Messenger' and so on would have
             | all been equally false.
             | 
             | Almost everybody who is not a child in the developed world
             | has a mobile phone. But not all of those are smartphones
             | and there are still large numbers of people in the world
             | who don't have any of this, nor do they have internet
             | access (about 40% of the people, some because they are too
             | young, some too old and some for other reasons), which is a
             | pre-requisite for using something like discord.
             | 
             | By the time you're done with taking all this into account
             | you end up with a paltry 140M MAU, a far cry from 'pretty
             | much everyone'.
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | friends: all my friends use discord
               | 
               | school: there were various discord groups most people
               | joined
               | 
               | work: Most of my communication with coworkers is over
               | discord
               | 
               | fun: all online communities I'm a part of have a discord
               | server
               | 
               | >But not all of those are smartphones and there are still
               | large numbers of people in the world who don't have any
               | of this, nor do they have internet access
               | 
               | Everyone I know IRL has access to the internet and except
               | for some kids everyone has a cellphone.
               | 
               | By everyone I didn't mean literally everyone. I meant
               | that if I want to chat to someone or about something 99%
               | of the time discord is the place where that happens
               | because that person uses discord or a discord server
               | exists for that topic.
        
               | bbarnett wrote:
               | This is just your social circle.
               | 
               | For work it is IRC, zoom, slack. Never been asked, or
               | know a single person using discord.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | And here it's email first, phone second, sms if I can't
               | be reached immediately. And I guess there are as many
               | variations on that as there are people, with the number
               | of comms options comfortably exceeding 33.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | > By everyone I didn't mean literally everyone.
               | 
               | ok
               | 
               | > I meant that if I want to chat to someone or about
               | something 99% of the time discord is the place where that
               | happens because that person uses discord or a discord
               | server exists for that topic.
               | 
               | But that's a completely different thing than what you
               | originally said ("Pretty much everyone uses Discord
               | now.").
               | 
               |  _I_ is the operative part here. Personally I 've never
               | used discord, and I don't know anybody IRL that has to
               | the point that they have asked me to join and if they did
               | I would probably refuse. I have enough comms channels as
               | it is.
               | 
               | It is important to realize that when you speak in
               | generalized terms you are usually just speaking for
               | yourself, so better to phrase things that way.
        
         | roel_v wrote:
         | LOL.
         | 
         | GF: "Hey, can you come have a look at this shirt I bought?"
         | 
         | Parent: "Yeah can you please file a JIRA ticket for that, and
         | appropriately tag its priority? I'll get notifications through
         | my regular workflow channels and this will enable me to respond
         | to your requests in a more timely manner! Thanks!"
        
           | Bad_CRC wrote:
           | There is a software for running a house [1] in which you can
           | do meal plan, etc.. (which is nice) but it has also repeating
           | tasks like clean the windows, do the dishes and it was too
           | Work-like for my liking.
           | 
           | [1] https://grocy.info/
        
         | posedge wrote:
         | Fortunately, having discord running in the background will
         | interrupt you another 1927329 times that day for equally
         | important things
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | He said he was a gamer, so there is a very good chance he
           | already has Discord open.
        
             | syshum wrote:
             | TIL that people that prefer single player games are no
             | longer considered gamers...
             | 
             | I hate multiplayer gaming, and believe that is the single
             | biggest problem in gaming today
             | 
             | //I dont use Discord either
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | The first discord server I ever joined was for a solo
               | hobby of mine. Discord servers aren't just for
               | multiplayer things.
        
             | dual_dingo wrote:
             | Not everyone plays online.
        
               | k8sToGo wrote:
               | Discord isn't about online playing only. It is also about
               | just being part of some community.
        
         | Cthulhu_ wrote:
         | You're already assuming that A: they use Discord, B: that while
         | he's focused on whatever it is he's doing, he'll pay attention
         | to Discord pings, and C: that someone asked for you to come up
         | with alternative solutions.
        
         | AussieWog93 wrote:
         | The point of this project isn't necessarily to make a useful
         | tool but for the author to demonstrate to his girlfriend that
         | he cares about her and is willing to stop what he's doing to
         | listen.
        
           | bbarnett wrote:
           | Which is important overall, but not important when engrossed
           | at work unless suitable urgert.
           | 
           | I think that was the point of joke/parent. A GF may abuse
           | this.
           | 
           | I've seen couples break up, because significant others can't
           | understand being present, doesn't mean available.
        
             | AussieWog93 wrote:
             | > A GF may abuse this.
             | 
             | Then he's dodged a bullet by discovering this before he
             | marries her. Either way, it's a no-lose situation.
        
       | whalesalad wrote:
       | I need to teach my German Shepherd how to use curl so she can
       | also use this method.
        
         | hokumguru wrote:
         | GSD owner here, but her and all of our dogs in the past we've
         | taught to ring a bell hanging from the back door whenever they
         | need to go outside. Great alternative if you don't need/want a
         | dog door.
        
           | joshschreuder wrote:
           | It's super easy to teach too!
           | 
           | We also have voice recorder buttons they can use to ask for
           | certain things like brushes, treats, play time etc. but those
           | get much more annoying :)
        
         | glenneroo wrote:
         | The run.py script indicates this is running on a Raspberry Pi
         | to read GPIO pins i.e. you could literally just hook up a
         | button to a GPIO pin and train your dog to stomp on the button.
        
           | whalesalad wrote:
           | It was meant purely as a joke. Even if I built the most
           | elaborate notification system in the world - she basically
           | runs the show. I did a doggy version of 23andme, she is 30%
           | Siberian Husky and 6% Belgian Malinois so the line is blurred
           | between sweet loving companion and psychotic girlfriend.
        
             | avh02 wrote:
             | Any chance you could share the name of the doggy 23andme
             | service? I looked and there are quite a few, but wouldn't
             | know where to start.
             | 
             | We've been meaning to find out what one of our dogs
             | actually is since we've been asked so many times and we
             | have no idea.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | Wisdom is the name of the service that I used.
        
             | samatman wrote:
             | Was this meant to be cute, or are you actually just telling
             | the world you have a large, therefore dangerous, sled dog,
             | and you haven't trained her? She "runs the show"?
             | 
             | The "psychotic girlfriend" side of untrained large dogs has
             | been known to maul children.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | That is quite a conclusion you've leapt to. Meant to be
               | cute here. Obviously I run the show, I'm the one who pays
               | the bills and feeds her. But she's surely not afraid to
               | let you know when she wants something, and doesn't
               | particularly care if you're busy with something else.
               | 
               | For the record, most sled dogs are not very large and not
               | particularly aggressive.
        
               | crtasm wrote:
               | I dislike seeing this trope about women being brought
               | into, of all things, a discussion about a dog.
        
             | glenneroo wrote:
             | Don't worry, I didn't take you too seriously. But seeing as
             | this is HackerNews, IMO half the fun is coming up with
             | solutions to 1st world "problems" ;)
        
       | jraph wrote:
       | Someone just moving by 1 centimeter in the corridor next to me or
       | coughing in any bedroom (if I don't wear my headset) will do.
       | 
       | OH, a bird at the window!!
       | 
       | I'm still able to concentrate. By the way, what was I doing
       | already? (more seriously, I can progress and I am able to get
       | things done and recover from interruptions quite easily, but
       | almost never focused at a point I can't notice what is going on
       | around me. Which suits me well actually)
        
         | bryanrasmussen wrote:
         | I have the same thing, I can easily break out of code and get
         | right back in to where I was, I can even pretty much do it with
         | hours break, unless things are going very badly with the code
         | in which case I cannot handle being interrupted.
         | 
         | I wonder if it's my ADHD that does it actually, I can handle
         | quick changes of attention because after all that is what I do,
         | but if things are a problem I need all effort to not switch
         | attention and lose what I am doing.
        
       | imnoscar wrote:
       | Ryan invented WUPFH because Kelly couldn't reach him. [1]
       | 
       | [1] https://theoffice.fandom.com/wiki/WUPHF.com_(Website)
        
       | eric4smith wrote:
        
         | Cthulhu_ wrote:
         | Bruh, this is a four year old repository with a pretty basic
         | script and you're giving unsolicited relationship advice to
         | someone you don't even know.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | chasd00 wrote:
         | Haha yeah because one thing a gf (or wife) really appreciates
         | is being ignored ;)
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | This seems like a nightmare. If I'm focused on something I don't
       | really want anyone distracting me, especially not a girlfriend.
        
       | oh_sigh wrote:
       | This code looks like it was written in 2004. Why aren't you using
       | react and nodejs?
        
         | iqanq wrote:
        
           | conqueso wrote:
           | One can never be completely sure through text alone, hence
           | such things as the closing sarcasm tag: </s>
        
           | sundarurfriend wrote:
           | There could be other reasons that it's downvoted, even if
           | it's not taken "seriously". The fact that it's a low effort
           | comment that has barely anything to do with the OP, that it's
           | a rehashing of the same old "unpopular opinion" that's not
           | really unpopular here, the fact that it takes a nice little
           | post of a small utility and shifts the tone to something
           | negative just because they have an axe to grind - all of
           | these are other possible options people might downvote this
           | oh-so-ironic comment.
        
           | Cthulhu_ wrote:
           | Because, as this thread demonstrates, there's a lot of people
           | with Opinions who will unironically push $language on any
           | post that is not about $language, <_<.
        
           | zinekeller wrote:
           | I don't know, it seems that most here have been burnt-out of
           | humour. To be fair to them, the burn-out is mainly caused by
           | ignorant managers hearing "Node! React!" and forcing on the
           | developers whether it makes sense or not.
        
           | pjc50 wrote:
           | Poe's law: there's nothing so ironic or sarcastic that
           | someone hasn't actually argued for real somewhere. You just
           | can't tell any more.
           | 
           | Besides being in text, HN has an international audience. It's
           | _really_ hard to make jokes land, and you usually need to
           | include an explanation to avoid being downvoted.
        
             | LilBytes wrote:
             | SarCasM CaSE AnD EmoJis HaVE thEre PlACE.
        
           | Zababa wrote:
           | Poe's law, ironic content can be hard to differentiate from
           | non-ironic content, and a proliferation of ironic content
           | will bring the quality of HN down.
        
         | Cthulhu_ wrote:
         | NodeJS is last decade; Deno is the one to go for now. But why
         | JS based? Rust is the future, accept no substitutes. It is the
         | perfect language for everything, forever.
        
         | ricardobayes wrote:
         | Simple is beautiful. Some people don't use frameworks for
         | simple stuff. I sometimes create low-tech websites just using
         | html+css with a minimal jquery. The speed is insane compared to
         | usual web 2.0 sites.
        
           | fabioborellini wrote:
           | I could make it simpler by using 1 scripting language instead
           | of 2. There are almost as many languages as LoC there.
        
             | nkozyra wrote:
             | I think that's my only point of contention.
             | 
             | It's clearly a for fun project but you've already got
             | python there to run the raspi gpio pins why not move the
             | server stuff in there? I'm assuming they learned bare
             | minimum python to get the pi stuff going but that's enough
             | python to run a web server too.
        
         | louissan wrote:
         | not sure this is a joke or not ... :-) 30MB of dependencies vs
         | a few tens of lines of code? :-)
        
           | politelemon wrote:
           | It's a joke, they're just referencing modern trends in web
           | development and a dose of /r/programmerhumor
        
             | LilBytes wrote:
             | Shame no one picked up on the sarcasm.
        
               | louissan wrote:
               | well phew! relieved. I'll try and instantly pick up on
               | those in the future.. :-)
        
       | noobermin wrote:
       | I'm happy to see something (anything) in python that doesn't
       | encapsulate everything in a class when it doesn't need to be,
       | even this basic thing.
        
       | laurent123456 wrote:
       | It somehow bothers me that the TLDR is much longer than the
       | actual text, but nice little tool anyway.
        
         | 300bps wrote:
         | Not only is the TLDR longer than the actual text, it repeats it
         | almost verbatim before adding additional information.
        
         | baxtr wrote:
         | I am glad we found something to complain about on this post.
         | Good job!
        
       | fareesh wrote:
       | On Android I just star the contact and turn on DND mode. Works
       | flawlessly with one exception - WhatsApp calls.
        
       | itronitron wrote:
       | The no-code implementation of this is to plug your workstation
       | into an outlet that is controlled by a wall switch.
        
       | jcims wrote:
       | Those little / _ducks_ / Amazon iot buttons are fun for this. I
       | wired one up to their connect service to make a voice call. I
       | would let my kids troll me with it or take it to work to
       | clandestinely make calls to myself when it was advantageous to
       | receive one.
        
         | Jaruzel wrote:
         | I would love to see open source copies of those. Apparently
         | they use NO power unless you press their buttons which means
         | they can last for years.
        
           | jcims wrote:
           | 100%. Plus they could be way cheaper (i think).
        
           | twicetwice wrote:
           | I got some Aqara buttons and switches from cloudfree.shop,
           | they're closed-source but local network (Zigbee) only--
           | combined with Home Assistant, which is open source, I think
           | this is what you want!
        
       | jgrahamc wrote:
       | Advanced version: https://blog.jgc.org/2018/12/turning-cheap-
       | police-light-into...
        
       | teekert wrote:
       | I use a wife alert: She Never picks up her phone, that is until I
       | use Home Assistant to flash the lights and have the Sonos say
       | (via HA's tts): "Pick up the Phone!". Very handy.
       | 
       | I know a family where the kitchen table lights turn green when
       | their (temporarily) disabled son needs something and he is
       | upstairs. My mom used to hit the radiator pipes with her wedding
       | ring for that (in the opposite situation).
        
       | jvanderbot wrote:
       | I love that technology has become so accessible and powerful that
       | everyone can become that crazy father/inventor of contraptions
       | from 80s movies.
       | 
       | Or maybe the art motivated the real. I'd believe that.
        
       | sdfjkl wrote:
       | Wife just sits opposite me and waves her arm.
        
       | eb0la wrote:
       | Sincerely, get an RPi or an Arduino and build a Batsignal with
       | this.
       | 
       | You already did the hard part ;-).
        
         | nanna wrote:
         | Batsignal?
        
           | WelcomeShorty wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat-Signal
        
         | alias_neo wrote:
         | Judging by the contents of run.py, it's already running on a
         | Pi.
        
       | susam wrote:
       | Here is a rudimentary alerting system I could write quickly in
       | shell and execute on my laptop:                 while true; do
       | echo ok | nc -l 8000; for i in 1 2 3 4; do printf '\a'; sleep 1;
       | done; done
       | 
       | While the above command worked fine on macOS with the default
       | /usr/bin/nc, on Debian 11.2, I had to modify the above command as
       | follows to make it work:                 while true; do echo ok |
       | nc -q 1 -l -p 8000; for i in 1 2 3 4; do printf '\a'; sleep 1;
       | done; done
       | 
       | Now anytime someone connects to port 8000 of my system by _any
       | means_ , I will hear 4 beeps! The other party can use _whatever
       | client_ they have to connect to port 8000 of my system, e.g., a
       | web browser, nc HOST 8000, curl HOST:8000, or even, ssh HOST -p
       | 8000, irssi -c HOST -p 8000, etc.
       | 
       | If your port 8000 is already occupied, I recommend port 41327 as
       | an alternative for this alerting service. After all, 41327 reads
       | "ALERT" in leetspeak.
       | 
       | By the way, visit http://susam.net:8000/ right now to send me
       | some beeps! :)
        
         | nirse wrote:
         | Thank you, sending you 4 beeps and seeing that 'ok' was the
         | most web-based fun I had in a very long while!
        
         | TonyTrapp wrote:
         | It's essentially the Hacker News Hug of Deaf.
        
         | CraneWorm wrote:
         | neat! here's mine:                 while true; do curl -q
         | --http0.9  http://susam.net:8000/; sleep $(( $RANDOM % 10 ));
         | done
        
           | ddalex wrote:
           | > This site can't be reached - REDACTED refused to connect.
           | 
           | Am disappointed and my day is ruined
        
             | Wojakmeme wrote:
             | In the written command you can see that nothing serves a
             | HTTP server, so the peep works even though you dont get a
             | response.
        
               | ddalex wrote:
               | The error is that it doesn't connect, not that it doesn't
               | serve an HTTP response.
               | 
               | But now it connects, correctly.
        
         | wwwasdfthrone wrote:
         | This sound like a great way to prank someone's laptop you have
         | access to!
        
         | Villodre wrote:
         | I bet you're having a fun morning with the beeps :-)
        
           | susam wrote:
           | Indeed I am! HN readers are a fun group. I am receiving beeps
           | almost every second, so I updated my previous shell script to
           | keep a record of the connections netcat receives. Also,
           | converted the beeping loop to a background job, so that the
           | outer netcat loop does not have to wait for the inner beeping
           | loop to complete before handling the next connection. Notice
           | the '&' before the last 'done' in the improved alerting
           | service below:                 while true; do (echo ok | nc
           | -q 1 -vlp 8000 2>&1; echo; date -u) | tee -a beeper.log; for
           | i in 1 2 3 4; do printf '\a'; sleep 1; done & done
           | 
           | Here is a log of the timestamps of the connections received
           | so far: https://gist.github.com/susam/159c7d92659b3185eb0b0d6
           | 83998a3...
        
             | cl3misch wrote:
             | Now I know you can programmatically push to Github gists,
             | thanks!
        
             | LilBytes wrote:
             | DDoSaS.
             | 
             | Distributed denial of service and sleep. Nice work.
        
         | i2shar wrote:
         | On macOS you can replace printf '\a' with something nicer like
         | 'say Lunch time!', or accept a query param and 'say $msg'
         | 
         | while true; do echo Coming! | nc -l 8000; for i in 1 2 3 4; do
         | say "Lunch time!"; sleep 1; done; done
         | 
         | If you are on the client end of the equation and have ssh
         | access to their mac: ssh user@host say "get your ** here right
         | now"
        
           | samatman wrote:
           | Almost anything is less nice than BEL for me, since I've had
           | terminals set to flash-on-BEL for decades.
        
       | viggity wrote:
       | I gave my wife a flashlight and she shines it at my screen
        
       | Brajeshwar wrote:
       | This is sweet. Now, my wife uses Apple's Find My's "Play Sound"
       | as I'm perpetually on Silent DND and I sometimes do not see her
       | calls (she is in the whitelist and is allowed to use voice
       | calls).
       | 
       | I would like to narrate a personal story from the late 80s. I
       | grew up in a multi-family where my uncles own a lot of vehicles,
       | including the left-handed drive Jeeps from the World War era
       | (India uses Right-Hand Drive). Our siblings were raised by our
       | grandmother. After she finishes cooking lunch, she always have
       | the problem of gathering us around to eat. We would have all gone
       | to the locality and the neighbors to play. She was always
       | frustrated and furious about our lack of timing.
       | 
       | So, I repurposed a truck's horn so she can just press a switch
       | and blow the horn loud enough for us to hear across the
       | neighbors. I had it on the roof-top for quite a while, even after
       | she passed away the next year. Thinking about it now, I know it
       | was pretty reckless. It was so loud, that other families would
       | remind their kids that -- that is the Food-Time-Horn.
        
         | schleck8 wrote:
         | > Now, my wife uses Apple's Find My's "Play Sound" as I'm
         | perpetually on Silent DND and I sometimes do not see her calls
         | 
         | I had this exact problem until I scheduled my DND to
         | automatically turn on during work hours and off afterwards.
         | That has helped immensely
        
           | tata71 wrote:
           | It does not sound like a problem for GP.
           | 
           | Your recommendation, depending on apps installed, could lower
           | their quality of life. Proceed with caution, here.
        
         | uptown wrote:
         | My parents had huge a train bell that they'd ring.
        
         | 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
         | My mom used a referee's whistle. There were 5 of us and the
         | number of toots indicated which of the 5 she wanted (two toots
         | for me). If we were outside playing in the neighborhood, we'd
         | get alerted directly or indirectly from someone who was tired
         | of hearing the whistle.
         | 
         | If it was dinner time and she needed us all, she'd blow 'Shave-
         | and-a-haircut-two-bits'.
        
           | toss1 wrote:
           | My mom used a cowbell... hadn't thought of that in years
        
             | youngbullind wrote:
             | My stepmum used to use a rape alarm to call us back from
             | across the fields back in the 1980s
        
           | metabagel wrote:
           | My dad whistled between his teeth. He was a prodigious
           | whistler. As I recall, it was two tones alternating. Too bad
           | we never measured how far away we could hear him whistling,
           | because now I'm wondering. I'd guess half a mile though.
        
           | Steltek wrote:
           | Was your Dad an Austrian naval captain by any chance?
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | We had a 6" bell hung next to the back door. The same type as
           | in churches where a rope pulls to get the bongs. It could be
           | heard from a looooong way off. If it rang and we couldn't
           | hear it, we were too far away from what was allowed.
        
         | wdb wrote:
         | I got called by full name when my mother wanted me.
        
         | yread wrote:
         | We had a metal tube/pillar supporting the top floor of our
         | self-made summer house and a piece of metal to strike it with.
         | You could hear that for miles!
        
         | scott_s wrote:
         | This may be the same thing as what you call the whitelist, but
         | in case it isn't: on iPhones, you can mark some contacts as
         | "Emergency Bypass On." Even in silent mode, you will always
         | hear calls and texts from them. You can also choose sounds
         | unique to that person. I have the bypass on for my fiancee, and
         | I chose a pleasant, unobtrusive sound for her texts. I have
         | found this works quite well.
        
           | Brajeshwar wrote:
           | This is brilliant. I was today years old learning this trick.
           | I will still maintain a whitelist for in-laws, business
           | partners, and others (limit of 20). However, I will add this
           | to the core family (wife, daughters, and home).
           | 
           | For those looking, check this out
           | https://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-turn-on-emergency-
           | bypass-o...
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Great, now you've gone and ruined it for those looking for
             | excuses! Sorry honey, my phone was on silent!
        
             | fossuser wrote:
             | iOS also has a contacts only whitelist, you can set
             | "Silence Unknown Callers" to On.
             | 
             | It's great - my only feature request would be to allow an
             | API for app access so things like door dash, uber, amazon,
             | etc. could be optionally allowed through.
        
           | samatman wrote:
           | Something I've found is that, in particular for calls, Apple
           | isn't able to retain object permanence around contacts.
           | 
           | If I assign a contact a custom ringtone, I expect all devices
           | to know that, especially if they're going to do the insane
           | Apple thing where every.single.device.I.own rings at the same
           | time.
           | 
           | I swear Apple thinks any call which hasn't been pre-selected
           | for voicemail has world changing importance.
        
             | metabagel wrote:
             | Great suggestion. Surprising Apple hasn't implemented that.
             | 
             | It's alarming when both your phone and your computer start
             | ringing. I freeze. I do the same thing when I'm on a call
             | and the options pop up - "hold and accept", "decline", or
             | "end and accept". My brain locks up.
        
               | dmart wrote:
               | The best is when you try to pause your music on the
               | computer before picking up your phone. Nope, while
               | ringing this either does nothing (for phone calls) or
               | picks up the call on the computer (FaceTime).
        
           | caioariede wrote:
           | Oh my, this is a really great suggestion. I never heard about
           | the emergency bypass before. I'll check it out. Thank you
        
         | bigjimmyk3 wrote:
         | My mother had a heart-shaped "triangle" (about a foot across,
         | so much larger than an orchestral triangle) that she used to
         | call us in when dinner was ready. As a kid who did not enjoy
         | hauling wood, my hearing was exquisitely tuned to hear that
         | bell.
        
         | foxtrottbravo wrote:
         | We to this day have a cowbell mounted below the stairs to call
         | everyone when dinner is ready
        
           | Isamu wrote:
           | Yeah we used a cowbell- farm living.
        
           | wrp wrote:
           | My grandmother had a kind of wall-mounted metal xylophone at
           | the foot of the stairs to call the family for meals.
        
           | Loic wrote:
           | In the French countryside where my father is coming from,
           | every house had an external bell for the diner/lunch whatever
           | important call. You quickly learnt to recognize the different
           | tones and ways to ring the bell.
           | 
           | My parents had also the bell at the bottom of the stairs...
           | and as a father of 3, I understand all the parents having
           | one!
        
       | d0gsg0w00f wrote:
       | When I don't answer my wife just calls me through the Alexa which
       | is the creepiest ring ever. The sound is so foreign and my
       | hackles rise whenever Alexa does anything on its own so it gets
       | my attention instantly.
        
         | erwincoumans wrote:
         | Indeed, Alexa make an announcement: dinner is ready!
        
         | bjord wrote:
         | if you think THAT is creepy, you should tell her to try out the
         | drop-in feature
        
         | openknot wrote:
         | For those curious about what the ring sounds like, it's
         | captured in this video (2017, skipped to 1:07):
         | https://youtu.be/h5wmJbhyhC4?t=67
        
       | mcv wrote:
       | My son always has his headphones on these days, which often makes
       | it hard for us to reach him. I wouldn't mind being able to talk
       | directly into his headphones.
        
         | f1refly wrote:
         | For headphones to work there has to be a communication
         | platform. I reckon it wouldn't be too hard to pick up a
         | computer yourself, join his channel and talk to him. Wildly
         | depends on your sons age though, I guess I wouldn't have been
         | too keen on my mum having access to my teamspeak when I was 15.
        
           | mcv wrote:
           | I don't need to hear who he's talking to. I just want an
           | interrupt button to say it's dinnertime, or something like
           | that.
        
         | dom96 wrote:
         | That does sound like a cool app idea.
        
           | jraph wrote:
           | The child might refuse to install it though.
        
             | BurningPenguin wrote:
             | I'd say it depends on the parents. If the relationship is
             | somewhat healthy, there might be a chance. But those who
             | require their kids to be on constant alert may have a
             | problem.
             | 
             | Source: I grew up with a parent who got multiple times
             | diagnosed with HPD. I would have never installed something
             | like that. Installing and showing how Discord works was
             | already a major mistake.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disord
             | e...
        
         | invalidusernam3 wrote:
         | Apple watch has a Walkie-Talkie feature
        
       | BeefWellington wrote:
       | Back in the mid-2000s or so before 2FA was really a thing, I
       | built a small perl script to have my server do audio beeps using
       | the PC speaker based on some activity in the system. The idea was
       | I sat in my office near enough to my servers at home that I could
       | hear audio beeps. I also had patterns of sounds so that each type
       | of activity was a different noise, e.g.: SSH logins would produce
       | one pattern, local login a different set, etc.
       | 
       | I've long since lost the script but I've seen a few similar ideas
       | kicking around over the years. Really only applicable to
       | homelabbers I imagine and probably easy enough to throw together
       | again.
        
       | 00000000005 wrote:
       | Batman made exactly the same thing for Commissioner Gordon to
       | use... the Bat Signal.
        
         | g5095 wrote:
         | Are you saying Batman and Commissioner Gordon were a thing?
        
           | mellavora wrote:
           | Robin isn't going to like where this is going
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | oefrha wrote:
       | I have something like this for myself: a server listens for POSTs
       | on LAN, plays a loud customizable sound on speaker, macOS pops up
       | a persistent alert through a Shortcut, and all iOS devices
       | receive an urgent push notification through Pushover. I can hook
       | arbitrary high priority jobs and watchers to it since it only
       | takes an HTTP request to activate.
        
       | smoyer wrote:
       | If it dings occasionally, it means your girlfriend is trying to
       | reach you. If it dings continuously, it means she's breaking up
       | with you.
       | 
       | Yes, I'm trying to be a little funny but the point is that
       | (outside perhaps work?), you should probably be a bit more
       | engaged with the people that mean something to you.
        
         | kayodelycaon wrote:
         | > you should probably be a bit more engaged with the people
         | that mean something to you
         | 
         | If someone is neurotypical and fully functional... maybe? For
         | someone who isn't, this is basically "try harder to be normal",
         | with all of the guilt and judgement that implies.
         | 
         | For example: Telling a person with chronic clinical depression
         | they have no reason to be depressed and are being ungrateful
         | for having a successful career.
        
         | teekert wrote:
         | I'm very happy that the people I care about don't require me to
         | engage with them constantly. Engaging with them in chats are
         | not the right type of engagement if you ask me. Maybe I'm old.
        
           | kayodelycaon wrote:
           | Or... people who require constant engagement go elsewhere
           | because you'd not giving them constant engagement. ;)
        
             | teekert wrote:
             | Fine with me. Is this an age thing (I'm 39)? Most of my
             | friend always have their phones on DND, answering usually
             | in a couple of seconds to minutes but sometimes hours,
             | sometimes days... There is not real expectation to answer
             | fast. If you call they do call back soon, usually, or they
             | pick up. Somehow I also find chat apps to have low priority
             | compared to a call. Still I can't imaging a call being high
             | priority, never really been in that situation... At least,
             | unless we are about to meet and didn't pick a date or exact
             | time yet.
             | 
             | Anyway, if any of my friends would be offended by being
             | ignored for some hours, they're going to have bad time in
             | our group.
        
         | azeirah wrote:
         | I really wouldn't assume too much about his situation.
         | 
         | My girlfriend has autism and when I want her attention I need
         | to ask for it like 5 times over a space of 20 seconds, if I
         | don't ask multiple times she will literally forget I even asked
         | in the first place. Sometimes it literally takes a minute. This
         | isn't because she doesn't care about me, it's just how her
         | brain works.
         | 
         | Maybe this is just a better form of communication for him while
         | he's focused on work. Please don't assume ill-intent, it just
         | seems unnecessarily rude.
        
           | beefield wrote:
           | Out of curiosity, how does your girlfriend react if you just
           | start talking to her without asking attention? (Reason I ask,
           | occasionally I think I might be on the spectrum, and my SO
           | has a habit of just starting to talk to me. Most of the time
           | I miss the beginning, which annoys to no end my SO...)
        
             | azeirah wrote:
             | It's just not processed whatsoever sometimes I catch her
             | attention halfway through but I usually just have to start
             | over again...
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | jacobmartin wrote:
             | Different from the person you replied to, but my wife is
             | also autistic, and she does the exact same thing (both
             | needing for me to ask for her attention multiple times and
             | not hearing anything for the first little bit if I don't
             | get it). It used to annoy me but then I realized that was a
             | silly thing to be annoyed about, and I just had to change
             | my mode of talking to her.
        
               | jraph wrote:
               | I think it's a nice thing to do, in any occasion (except
               | when it's urgent) (friends, coworkers, family,...), to
               | call someone (by saying their name or with a gesture, or
               | something), let them take time to focus on you (and
               | possibly write some note so they can come back to
               | whatever they were doing easily), and then speak.
               | 
               | I know multiple people who need some time to switch to
               | you when they are focused (either they can't listen
               | before, or they can but would lose their track). And
               | that's fine. And they are probably not autistic. They
               | usually don't need to be called multiple times though,
               | that would be a bit annoying but hey, what can one do.
               | I'd probably get used to it.
               | 
               | I don't usually need time to switch to someone
               | interrupting me but certainly don't like it when the
               | other one assumes I'm listening before I showed I'm
               | listening.
        
       | unexistential wrote:
       | I built something similar for my girlfriend's birthday a few
       | months ago. A buzzer and a lightbulb connected through a relay to
       | an RPi, which hosts a basic HTTP server. The server is exposed to
       | the Internet through a reverse ssh tunnel to a VPS in the cloud.
       | 
       | What has taken me aback is how it regularly receives malicious
       | traffic that I suspect is from bots scanning for vulnerable
       | servers. The hostname is not shared anywhere public. The client
       | app that knows the URL has only been shared to her as an APK.
       | Made me realize there's no such thing as security through
       | obscurity.
        
       | wiredfool wrote:
       | Remember Growl?
        
       | findalex wrote:
       | I get the living day lights scared out of me at least twice a day
       | (by my gf) while working with headphones on. Light is perfect.
        
       | zriha wrote:
       | This is amazing hahahaha :) you can also put an upgrade - Wife
       | Alert for us older. :D
        
       | diogenesjunior wrote:
       | Are people seriously this tied in to their computers? I'd hate to
       | see myself get to the point where I don't have time for women and
       | need to be beeped in order to pay attention.
        
         | whalesalad wrote:
         | Are you familiar with the concept of deep work? Sometimes you
         | need a solid block of completely uninterrupted time to keep
         | your cache/working memory hot so that you can see the whole
         | task through. My wife used to interrupt me _all the time_ -
         | even in the middle of a wim hof breath hold. I 'm looking at
         | her like, this is the 10,000th time I have done this, and we do
         | it together sometimes, why do you think I can respond to you in
         | this moment?
        
           | diogenesjunior wrote:
           | I work for a large tech company 10-12 hours a day + 2-4 hours
           | at home and I could never see my girlfriend needing a SOS
           | light to get my attention.
        
             | okokwhatever wrote:
             | agree
        
         | BurningPenguin wrote:
         | Doesn't mean he's completely tied to it. He may be only focused
         | on his hobby. That can happen with anything. Woodworking,
         | drawing, reading, whatever. Being on constant alert isn't
         | healthy. Everyone needs some time for themselves to power down
         | a bit.
        
         | joshmanders wrote:
         | Or maybe people just want to have something special for their
         | loved ones to help THEM feel special to them.
         | 
         | I had considered making something for my girlfriend also,
         | because she loves that I'm a nerd and I wanted to use my
         | nerdiness to make her something special, even if it is just a
         | button for her to press that lights up a light on my desk, just
         | so she can tell me she's thinking of me.
        
       | cgufus wrote:
       | Many many years ago I played a browser-based online game and I
       | used curl and php for scripting the game. I eventually programmed
       | an alert feature that woke me up (OS X: 'say "Warning you are
       | under attack"') during the night when I was being attacked.
       | 
       | good old times :)
        
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