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I wrote a program that sends cats to my phone when I'm sad at the computer
- xiphias2 5y agoI was first thinking that the author has a real cat and uses a remotely controlled laser pointer...well, it may be version 2
- cutemonster 5y agoVersion 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
- teekert 5y agoNow this sounds like fun, when Peter Isherwell [0] proposed it, it was a bit more scary. [0]: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/characters/nm0753314 https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/characters/nm0753314
- sdoering 5y agoSince working from home I have between 3 and 6 coworkers. The stress relief tends to depend on the fact that some are better behaved/trained than others. My SO and me are a foster home for stray cats that were found to need special care during neutering campaigns for stray cats. While most strays in these campaigns return to their spots after being neutered some (like kittens found in trash bins or cats with injuries that need longer treatment) are being put up for adoption. Especially with newly arrived foster cats they need to be taught what the are allowed and especially what not (let the plants live, not jumping onto the table). After that they are the most lovely coworkers lying on the chairs next to me.
- p0larboy 5y agoHow do you train cats? I thought they are the king of the house!
- jackallis 5y agoCurioulsy, how does one go from BA in creating writing to Msc in computer science?
- numeromancer 5y agoCats. Lots and lots of cats.
- swagcombinator 5y agoBy 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.
- clement12 5y ago[flagged]
- duxup 5y agoSometimes I wonder if I might buy into The Matrix / Colossus: The Forbin Project / our AI overlords if I felt it actually cared about me / was whimsical enough ...
- beardedetim 5y agoIt sure feels like I'm eating steak...
- sneak 5y agoColossus/Guardian did exactly the thing it was built to do, and that humans claim to want: prevent war. I think that's a pretty good track record and Forbin overreacted a bit.
- duxup 5y agoThat was an amusing ending in that way. It is presented as a terrible outcome but ... really Forbin seems upset he isn't in control.
- butwhywhyoh 5y agoDoes 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!"
- sdb0 5y agoPeople trying to make themselves happy isn't something new or dystopian. A better description if you don't mind being slightly rude is that it's a bit pathetic.
- xfitm3 5y agoAfter the protests in Canada I started seeing a bunch of recommended videos on YT themed around random acts of kindness. I mainly watch technical videos, nothing else. I am convinced that someone did something to pump those videos up and get eyeballs on them. If my hypothesis is correct I would find it to be creepy and insulting. I do not want to be manipulated. Sometimes the truth is hard, and that's ok. Pain is healthy in the right doses.
- ikurei 5y agoTo 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.
- throwawayninja 5y agoMy 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~!)
- ivraatiems 5y agoI solved this problem in a lower-tech way by simply configuring the area behind my workstation as a cat bed. Now, I can turn around and enjoy looking at my cat at any time, as she loves her bed and rarely leaves it. Stress eliminated! Yes, she is taking Series A funding in the form of wet food, if anyone is interested.
- ineedasername 5y agoIf you can get some to give you $1 for 0.000000000001% of your cat then you can upgrade your cat to a unicorn.
- actually_a_dog 5y agoIsn't any warm spot essentially pre-configured as a cat bed?
- mschuster91 5y agoAny place is pre-configured as a cat bed. "If I fits, I sits" does not just apply to boxes... cats will, in my experience, sit wherever the f..k they want whenever the f..k they want.
- martin_a 5y agoPreferably on your chest at 5 am. At least that's what mine like to do, because they feel a little bit hungry or have seen a bird and want to get out on the balcony for further inspection.
- ivraatiems 5y agoThat's what makes it so easy!
- spike021 5y agoDid the same with a dog (shiba inu) this past year. I think we're all the way at Series C funding at this point with the biweekly trips to the store for goodies.
- 5y ago
- bombcar 5y agoI feel that `thecatapi` and `placekitten` should get together and save the planet whilst providing various cats at a consistent size.
- hunterb123 5y agoAre people always smiling at the computer? My face rests with a frown. The more intent I'm thinking, the more likely I'm frowning, then CAT! Which is realistic at least. Inverse it and you can tell when you're probably not working, for task reminders, upcoming meetings.
- alea_iacta_est 5y ago
- zem 5y agoi've seen a fair number of HN posts with grown people sending spam (sorry, marketing emails to improve your conversion funnel!!!!) to other people and bragging about it on social media. i'll take sending cats to yourself any day.
- reaperducer 5y ago
- dcminter 5y agoIt's also stitching several interesting APIs together in an unusual and whimsical way. Better yet, the article itself is well written. If you've done something better with your day that then feel free to tell us about it.
- Animats 5y agoThat should go into one of the virtual girlfriend apps in Japan.
- sebow 5y agoI remember trying somewhat similar a long time ago(I think it was around 2016).I once paused for a bit and realized the long-term effects might be the opposite of the intended one, then I stopped.There are a lot of ways people can learn to both control and embrace their emotions, having a computer in this loop is not one of them. And from what I recall, the actual thing that 'made me happy' (it was actually more like shortly lifting up the mood) was the fact that the thing worked for a bit, at least superficially.Sentiment analysis is very tricky and easily fooled especially if your (involuntarily) facial expressions are akin of smiling.[Which I believe I 'got' from my father, it's not that uncommon, something related to the need of oxygen] Tl;dr: Try it but don't rely on it, humans are one of the things AI won't beat nor understand nowhere near the future when it comes to inter-personal relations.
- kevincox 5y agoJust being aware of the expression on your face might be very interesting.
- reaperducer 5y agoWould love to see a macOS program version of this from the people who did the Christmas lights for the M1 screen notch.
- simlevesque 5y agoShoutout to the Human library and it's creator vladmandic. The library is growing fast.
- bjt2n3904 5y agoAll at once, it fills up my feed More bad news that I didn't need I can't stop reading but I wish that I didn't know Still too soon, there's not much to say They don't know, but talk anyway All of the pieces, and none of the places they go So I am looking at pictures of cats https://youtu.be/4JO-KRT0Vf0 https://youtu.be/4JO-KRT0Vf0
- air7 5y agoWhat would be the advantage of using Pushover vs using notifications from a website via the browser app?
- eh9 5y agoIt’s rumored that it might be supported soon, but iOS still doesn’t support web notifications.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- VoodooJuJu 5y agoThis exact thing was a dystopian little vignette in the movie Don't Look Up. Funny and scary that it's real now.
- stanislavb 5y agoFor the record - the author considered these two libraries for face detection: https://github.com/vladmandic/human https://github.com/vladmandic/human & https://github.com/justadudewhohacks/face-api.js https://github.com/justadudewhohacks/face-api.js, he chose "vladmandic/human".
- theonething 5y agoWould be interesting to use this to track your facial emotion in relation to what you are doing at your computer; e.g. facebooking, reading news, working, etc. If you're a developer, what kind of programming you're doing, language, platform, etc. Could scientifically prove once and for all whether or not Ruby is optimized for programmer happiness.
- danuker 5y agoYou can use ActivityWatch to gather the data.
- wanderingstan 5y agoIn the quantified self heyday I created an app that takes a webcam pic every half hour which was popular in the Bay Area QS community. I’ve had it running almost 10 years now. Bottom line: people don’t show much emotion while looking at screens. The only exception was video calls. Project site: http://wanderingstan.github.io/Lifeslice/ http://wanderingstan.github.io/Lifeslice/ Early talk: https://vimeo.com/42239564 https://vimeo.com/42239564
- adenforshaw 5y agoMaker of the Cat API the author uses here - love his use-case, and a wonderfully useful & concise write-up to boot.
- Loeffelmann 5y agoHow do you moderate what is uploaded and check for copyright for example. I am always confused how solo developers make sure that nothing malicious is uploaded. Surely you don't have time to moderate everything yourself.
- adenforshaw 5y agoWe layer AWS Rekognition and GCP Vision to check if it's safe, does not contain a human, and actually contains a Cat. The ones that make it through are then manually reviewed to be included in the public results. We also make the results available for each safe image via the API so anyone can create their own ML model on top. Both theCatAPI.com and its sister theDogAPI.com are used in a lot of schools, colleges, bootcamps, and even coding interviews so we try and make them as clean as possible.
- waffle_maniac 5y agoI really like the idea of a native OSX app that takes your emotions into account and either plays music you like or shows your favorite photos that fade in and out. Something to snap you out of the crap zone.
- kgarten 5y agoIt‘s important to make the distinction between facial expressions and emotions … A while back we made some glasses with photoreflective sensors to detect facial expressions, got so many requests about using it for emotion detection. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9PMzpsDg518 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9PMzpsDg518 Yet, that’s not what it does … maybe I was just naive and it didn’t help we called it affectiveWear.
- throwaway984393 5y agoBut why are we okay with being sad at the computer?
- jwithington 5y agoThat’s awesome! Thanks for sharing. Makes me want to play around with these libraries.
- xivzgrev 5y agoThis is fine for when you are a little down. It’s important though to honor real sadness vs trying to cover it up / distract.