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Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

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Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

#151

Post by TheRealSteel »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #61
feross wrote: post #2

Hey folks! I built Virus Cafe to help you make a friend in 2 minutes! My goal is to help people stuck indoors because of COVID-19 (or police curfews) to make meaningful connections with strangers. Here's how it works: 1. You are matched with a random partner for a video chat 2. You're given a deep question to discuss. You have 2 minutes! 3. The only rule is: no small talk! Small talk is the worst and I'm on a mission…

> Small talk is the worst and I'm on a mission to eradicate it. To me small talk is the lubricant that makes conversations flow smooth with strangers. You can hear inflections and humor and irony all in a relatively safe, unemotional topic. Also, since your philosophical side is not needed, your emotional intelligence can be more engaged. For example, just by seeing how someone responds to a comment on the weather, y…

I have a theory that smalltalk functions like a proof-of-work for social relationships. It's not strictly achieving anything directly, but it's proving a certain amount of effort.

I hate it too but I'm trying to learn to be okay with it and get good at it - it's never going away.

Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

#152

Post by iamnotcorrect »

aframe wrote: post #118

Don’t want to sully the conversation here, but I want to raise an important point - so @feross, please stick with it. I gave my daughter (6) my iPad for ten minutes this morning and put her on a site to draw minecraft skins. I took a call and took my eyes off the device (but not daughter) for about five minutes while I paced around the room. When I sat back next to her, she somehow ended up on virus Café and was in a…

I am 40, my first access to a computer was when i was about 4 maybe? I wrote my first program (10 print "hello", 20 goto 10) at 6.. IMHO this early introduction massively impacted my ability to understand tech and assimilate information around me.

While i think that monitoring usage of devices is important, the idea of not giving a 6yo an ipad or similar when in all likelihood their familiarity with these concepts will benefit them greatly is a bit naive.

So while i don't know the answer, i 100% agree that the solution is not to leave it all to parent.. I would expect a cashier to question my 15yo buying booze, even if i had said it was okay - this is basically the same thing imho.

or a bit like the high voltage warning signs behind barbed wire and locked gates in electricity sub-stations.. or weak roof signs that only burglars will ever see - ultimately we want to minimise the harm.

Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

#153

Post by chadwittman »

AlexMuir wrote: post #106
feross wrote: post #2

Hey folks! I built Virus Cafe to help you make a friend in 2 minutes! My goal is to help people stuck indoors because of COVID-19 (or police curfews) to make meaningful connections with strangers. Here's how it works: 1. You are matched with a random partner for a video chat 2. You're given a deep question to discuss. You have 2 minutes! 3. The only rule is: no small talk! Small talk is the worst and I'm on a mission…

This is awesome. I ignored all the questions. Just make it a clean chatroulette to have a coffee with random developers. Secure it with a programming question.

This is a great idea.

Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

#155

Post by iamnotcorrect »

feross wrote: post #2

Hey folks! I built Virus Cafe to help you make a friend in 2 minutes! My goal is to help people stuck indoors because of COVID-19 (or police curfews) to make meaningful connections with strangers. Here's how it works: 1. You are matched with a random partner for a video chat 2. You're given a deep question to discuss. You have 2 minutes! 3. The only rule is: no small talk! Small talk is the worst and I'm on a mission…

funny.. all these questions are small talk to me :)

not a criticism at all by the way! i like the concept and interested to see how it works out (plus thanks in general for thinking of thing people may like and putting the effort into creating them!).

Just that i would describe it as small talk with interesting queues :) - note IMHO small talk is very important and is a great way of learning about people and the world without getting into a fight :D.. this is just small talk that is less likely to be boring :D

*edit: the assumption being that as there is no trust between participants - they will answer these questions in a certain surface only way. the only thing that would make these questions not small talk is if they were part of a wider conversation.

Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

#156

Post by gk1 »

superhuzza wrote: post #139
Closi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Most smalltalk topics actually get people to give an almost pre-rehearsed response. For example if someone asks “What do you do for a living?” I will give the same answer I have given 1000 times. Ill ask them and they will do the same. There is nothing unique here. Each to their own though.

>I will give the same answer I have given 1000 times. If I'm just meeting you, it's new information to me, regardless of how many times you've said it! And that opens the door to more interesting conversation. Maybe I do something very related, or are interested something about that job, or whatever. Or maybe it leads nowhere. But that's how smalltalk goes, you dance around until you find a mutually interesting topic…

> ...it's new information to me, regardless of how many times you've said it!

Reminds me of a joke:

— "What's your name?"

— "Damien."

— "Oh, you don't hear that name every day!"

— "Actually, I do."

Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

#158

Post by jjice »

feross wrote: post #16
swyx wrote: post #15

tried matching with 3 people, all took one look at my face and peaced lol nice app though! love the small touches with the emojis and sounds!

That's a bummer! I think I'll implement a penalty for leaving in the middle of a chat. Will auto-ban folks who do that too much. Thoughts?

What about the case were someone leaves because the opposite user is trolling? I've thought about it for a minute now, but I really can't think of a great way to implement it without it being abused.

Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

#159

Post by throwaway876786 »

I had some very interesting conversations here. I don't remember the exact questions and dailogue but I'll note some here for users to know what they can expect. It was addictive. I got to a couple participants that covered their camera and decided to disconnect after seeing me (Internet strangers do that).

#1 What is the social and economics structure (theoritical or fictious) that you tend to agree with. We spent a minute or so discussing how we are new to the platform and it is our first session. The participant was from Europe and immediately opted for Capitalism. I sort of agreed and waved good bye at end of 2 mins.

#2 Do you believe in after life? The participant was a cheerful African women. I disclosed that would prefer not to have a after life and belong the void. That is the only way to achieve peace for me. She immediately exclaimed that she prefers to have an after life as she believes that there is more to experience than the chaos we experience in life.

#3 What is it that you would change in your past? It was a North American man. We shared some personal experiences. We ended up extending the time multiple times and it was fun talking. I think we both took something away from the chat.

#4 You use a public toilet and notice there is no toilet paper. You are inside the stall. What do you do? An Indian origin participant from Africa shared some witty advice here. We ended up in small talk, and realized he has visited places in my city in India. We had an interesting conversation about how intellectuals can study spirituality and ignore the illogical and derive value.

I had some very interesting conversations here. And I might use this platform again. Good job!

Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes

#160

Post by soneca »

feross wrote: post #2

Hey folks! I built Virus Cafe to help you make a friend in 2 minutes! My goal is to help people stuck indoors because of COVID-19 (or police curfews) to make meaningful connections with strangers. Here's how it works: 1. You are matched with a random partner for a video chat 2. You're given a deep question to discuss. You have 2 minutes! 3. The only rule is: no small talk! Small talk is the worst and I'm on a mission…

I like “small talk” a lot as a great way to know people. I disagree that these questions will make more meaningful conversations.

Every time I see one of these lists of ”meaningful” questions, from people who ”hate” small talk, they fit in one of these categories: it is virtue signaling, to show they are supposed to be more profound human beings than the average person; or it signalizes intelligence, show they can think of smarter things than the regular person; or they are intrusive questions, very personal questions that I would like to answer only to real friends, not strangers, and I would hate being asked that.

I would much rather engage with a simple person that asks those regular questions to start a conversation and it is there to actually talk to you, not put up a show to impress you on how profound and cool they are.

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