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Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

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Re: Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

#11

Post by sixhobbits »

I did something similar, just a photo of handwritten phone mumbers and an easy to remember URL that's not indexed.

Anyone will hopefully lend you a phone if you're in a pinch but I realized that I don't know very numbers to actually call and it's kinda weird to start using email/Whatsapp whatever on a strangers phone compared to asking to visit one site and make one call

Re: Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

#12

Post by nerdsniper »

x187463 wrote: post #6
fn-mote wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they don't have WhatsApp Is this really likely? I would guess only 70 year olds don't have WhatsApp. Seems more likely you forget the impoprtant phone numbers because you never enter them manually.

With iMessage, Discord, and Signal, I can't imagine a use case for me or anyone I know to use WhatsApp.

The vast majority of the world defaults to whatsapp. But yes, other than convention, any of these could be equivalent.

I don’t see why you would care for Discord over whatsapp except that it’s what you happen to use already.

Re: Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

#15

Post by SoftTalker »

cbracketdash wrote: post #2

Why is it more likely you'll have internet access when you don't have a phone? If you happen to find a computer, what's insufficient about writing an email?

How will you log into your email from a strange computer without your phone. Gmail has required 2-factor auth for a long time.

Re: Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

#16

Post by ventana »

I would probably suggest switching the link to the GitHub source code and listing the actual page URL in the description; otherwise, I click the link in the article and get a location sharing request and a Send button; after a few seconds I matched that with the title, but I still had my WTF moment.

Re: Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

#18

Post by NDlurker »

fn-mote wrote: post #4
delduca wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife doesn't check email frequently, so SMS (or even better, WhatsApp) would be more reliable. Maybe an alternative is to store the WhatsApp contact information of people who could help behind a password. Then, if I need help, I can ask to borrow someone's phone on the street. If they don't have WhatsApp, I can just make a regular phone call instead.

> If they don't have WhatsApp Is this really likely? I would guess only 70 year olds don't have WhatsApp. Seems more likely you forget the impoprtant phone numbers because you never enter them manually.

In the US, the only people I know who use WhatsApp are immigrants who use it to talk to friends and family back home.

Re: Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

#19

Post by autoexec »

This isn't a terrible idea, but I'd password protect it and share the password with the people you want to be able to contact you. That'll help avoid spam/scams. "I'm your family member in trouble please send money now to X immediately no time to explain further" is a very common scam and a page like this would make it very easy.
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