Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I wrote a program that sends cats to my phone when I'm sad at the computer

healeycodes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–87 of 87 posts

Re: I wrote a program that sends cats to my phone when I'm sad at the computer

#81

Post by ikurei »

butwhywhyoh wrote: post #3

Does anyone else find this mildly dystopian? I mean, it's a cool and really fun project, but it doesn't take much imagination to envision a service like this actually taking off. "We monitor your mood 24/7 and automatically send you 'happy thoughts' on demand! Contemplating your feelings? Why bother! Here's a cute cat video! Never feel uncomfortable, pensive, or existential again!"

To me, it only sounds dystopian if a distant, all-powerful big brother is running it. Not everything has to be like that.

If it's under your control, like it is here, it doesn't sound dystopian at all.

This person has noticed something in their life that they don't like, they get too sucked in into work and need to snap out of it a bit.

In the future, they could notice themselves watching too many memes, and they could add a new feature that sends them a though-provoking quote when their face is very relaxed for a long time in front of the computer.

Re: I wrote a program that sends cats to my phone when I'm sad at the computer

#82

Post by throwawayninja »

butwhywhyoh wrote: post #3

Does anyone else find this mildly dystopian? I mean, it's a cool and really fun project, but it doesn't take much imagination to envision a service like this actually taking off. "We monitor your mood 24/7 and automatically send you 'happy thoughts' on demand! Contemplating your feelings? Why bother! Here's a cute cat video! Never feel uncomfortable, pensive, or existential again!"

My personal machine has a python script in the bacground and in addition to a host of other things (un-tarring downloaded files etc) it tries to take a photo of my face once an hour. I use some CV to detect the face & take 10 frames of video, throwing them out if there is noticeable jitter. The closest 6 face fragment frames then get merged together and saved with a timestamp, for my future use doing dumb projects (face authentication, I've created fun timelapses by sorting ~6 months of photos by similarity).

If I were doing this to someone else without their knowledge it would be dystopian, if I'm doing it to myself or with a group of friends also interested in it then it becomes no wierder than taking your temperature every hour for dumb project reasons (biological clock fourier nonsense? whee~!)

Re: I wrote a program that sends cats to my phone when I'm sad at the computer

#84

Post by swagcombinator »

jackallis wrote: post #80

Curioulsy, how does one go from BA in creating writing to Msc in computer science?

By taking minors and extra courses in computer science. Ultimately grad schools care more on the courses you take plus recommendation letters and use GRE/GMAT as filters.

Re: I wrote a program that sends cats to my phone when I'm sad at the computer

#85

Post by cutemonster »

xiphias2 wrote: post #12

I was first thinking that the author has a real cat and uses a remotely controlled laser pointer...well, it may be version 2

Version 1: software cat, v2: real cat, v3: tiger

---

I also thought it was a real cat, already (not only in v2). They aren't too impossible to attract with some nice sounds of food for example? At least not the ones I've known

Re: I wrote a program that sends cats to my phone when I'm sad at the computer

#86

Post by autoexec »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #53
butwhywhyoh wrote: post #3

Does anyone else find this mildly dystopian? I mean, it's a cool and really fun project, but it doesn't take much imagination to envision a service like this actually taking off. "We monitor your mood 24/7 and automatically send you 'happy thoughts' on demand! Contemplating your feelings? Why bother! Here's a cute cat video! Never feel uncomfortable, pensive, or existential again!"

I don't know... on one hand... it will probably just be used to sell ads... but what if it actually worked ? like, maybe some small dent in the rate of suicide?

Assuming that it works (and I don't think I'm emotive enough that it would) I don't think cat pictures (no mater how efficiently they're distributed) can put a meaningful dent in the kind of depression that would lead to an act of suicide or even genuine sadness.
Post reply on HN