6 ms·

Feed some real fish via this web app

80 points by aram 13y ago

aestra 13y ago
Many many years ago my brother found a site where you could operate real claw crane games remotely. These: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claw_crane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claw_crane They had a bunch in like a warehouse and you'd control the claw to see if you could get the toys. Once and a while you'd see someone slightly off camera walking around the warehouse throwing the toys back in. My brother and I got good at those games from that site. They also had an address where you could send in toys to be put in the games. I remember there was a roll of toilet paper in one of the games, and sometimes other weird things too but I don't recall anything else specifically. Way better than feeding fish.
donquichotte 13y ago
Nice! I recently thought of doing something similar, where you can shoot different kinds of real guns over the web and observe the effects over a webcam. Payment per shot would be in Dogecoin, naturally.
- 1337biz 13y ago
  You are coming almost 10 years to late for that idea: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/07/AR2005050701270.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05...
  - philtar 13y ago
    Maybe they were 10 years too early? Maybe there's room for two? Maybe negative feedback just isn't the right thing to provide.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      Maybe it's not an original idea, and if someone wants to try it again, they could learn from studying the last time its been tried. Maybe? Maybe?
- urethra 13y ago
  yay Dogecoin
rohanprabhu 13y ago
I am not trying to be dismissive, but I don't see how this "Solves the problem of remembering to feed the fish". If it is entirely automated, it can just as easily be automated and the fish be fed automatically. I do understand the aesthetic value of this, but I believe that that is the only value proposition that this setup has. Am I missing something over here?
- Schweigi 13y ago
  Yes its fun to press the button :)
- Dirlewanger 13y ago
  Yes, you're missing netting fake Internet points to show off your visually stunning but ultimately pointless web application.
dTal 13y ago
TheNextWeb damn near killed my browser, and it's just an ad-laden article about the fish-food thing instead of the fish-food thing itself, which can be found at https://www.aquard.io/ https://www.aquard.io/ I'm not at all certain the fish are real either.
- dm2 13y ago
  The lagginess of the webcam leads me to believe that it's real, also I saw a couple of fish stop and eat algae off of a rock. A 3D simulation (which the company does do) would hopefully have better performance. Is it safe to feed fish every hour? That seems excessive. I use to have this screensaver running, it's very nice. I'm not sure if it's been updated in a while though. http://www.dreamaquarium.com/ http://www.dreamaquarium.com/
  - _quasimodo 13y ago
    Maybe its just recordings of the fish being fed.
  - Filligree 13y ago
    Fish normally (=in the wild) graze all day. So long as they aren't being overfed, feeding them every hour is perfectly fine. I haven't looked at the feeding yet, so I can't comment on whether the amount of food is small enough.
    - stan_rogers 13y ago
      "Never feed him a lot. Never more than a spot! Or something may happen. You never know what." (Childhood memory successfully recalled. That's from A Fish out of Water, a Dr. Suess "I can read it all by myself" series book almost precisely as old as I am, penned by Suess's wife, Helen.)
- jerf 13y ago
  "I'm not at all certain the fish are real either." This is 2014. Assuming a decent level of development skills, it is not like this is so amazing that it just has to be faked. Hooking up webcams to the internet and hooking up a few web buttons to some real equipment via an Arduino is so easy I can't help but think it's actually easier to set this up for real than convincingly fake it in front of an Internet audience! Seriously, folks, turn the cynicism knob down a bit. And I'm a cynic myself.
miahi 13y ago
The messages on the right are really annoying. Too fast to actually read them and no visible way to stop them.
bhousel 13y ago
Seriously, please don't waste your time this way. If you are really bored, create something lasting by editing Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap instead.
- brador 13y ago
  Or even just walk away from your desk for a while. If you can't because your employer is looking for an ass on a seat then start looking into more challenging, and rewarding, employment. Don't just be bored at your desk, up skill.
- codelap 13y ago
  It's unfortunate that you feel every second of your day need be used to be productive. It's also unfortunate that you feel the need to manipulate others through condescension in order to feel superior. If someone wants to feed some real fish, virtual fish, or simply play a game when bored to blow off some steam, then more power to them. How I choose to spend my time is both none of your concern, and entirely up to me.
  - bnegreve 13y ago
    > It's also unfortunate that you feel the need to manipulate others through condescension in order to feel superior. Chill out, he said please.
- NAFV_P 13y ago
  > Seriously, please don't waste your time this way. If you are really bored, create something lasting by editing Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap instead. How much time have you wasted on HN over the last few years?
  - collyw 13y ago
    I noticed the following about myself the other day. When I should be doing something productive, but can't be bothered, HN is a "compromise" for me. Basically 90% of the time is wasted, but at the same time I do learn a fair bit in the other 10% of the time. I can kid myself I am doing something productive, (when 90% of the time it isn't).
TeMPOraL 13y ago
I wonder if this is real. It'd be easy to run this system for a few days recording enough video data to be able to just play it back to people without them noticing. It also solves nicely the scaling problem (if you and 1000 other users connect to the real aquarium at the same time, what are the chances that you're going to feed the fish today?) and any potential availability/maintenance issues (you can just flush the fish down the drain and call it a day; no one will be any the wiser, and you save money on fish food).
chrisBob 13y ago
Damn it HN! I am going to have to wait for this to hit page 3 before the queue gets small enough again.
- chrisBob 13y ago
  It has calmed down slightly. I got to release bubbles just now!
Sae5waip 13y ago
Great, now I'm hungry again.
NAFV_P 13y ago
The article inspired a spin-off idea in my head: "online crocodile feeding". No machines are involved, instead a fearless human is hired to dangle those raw, bloody wildebeest steaks in front of their noses.
bluedino 13y ago
One of LifeSize's internal video streams you could use for testing their video conferencing product was a fishtank, it was pretty cool. Couldn't feed the fish though.
return0 13y ago
Aren't they going to die of overfeeding? Oh well, first world fish problems.
fisherman 13y ago
Hi everyone! I am Marios, one of the developers of www.aquard.io and just wanted to let you know that the fish are live and broadcasted real-time. And because seeing is believing in 5' stay tuned for a live message for your eyes only! :)
fisherman 13y ago
Hi everyone! I am Marios, one of the developers of www.aquard.io and just wanted to let you know that the fish are live and broadcasted real-time. And because seeing is believing in 5' stay tuned for a live message for your eyes only! :)
fisherman 13y ago
And here's the proof: https://www.aquard.io/img/ss1.png https://www.aquard.io/img/ss1.png Enjoy www.Aquard.io everybody!

80 points by aram 13y ago

Many many years ago my brother found a site where you could operate real claw crane games remotely. These: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claw_crane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claw_crane They had a bunch in like a warehouse and you'd control the claw to see if you could get the toys. Once and a while you'd see someone slightly off camera walking around the warehouse throwing the toys back in. My brother and I got good at those games from that site. They also had an address where you could send in toys to be put in the games. I remember there was a roll of toilet paper in one of the games, and sometimes other weird things too but I don't recall anything else specifically. Way better than feeding fish.

donquichotte 13y ago

Nice! I recently thought of doing something similar, where you can shoot different kinds of real guns over the web and observe the effects over a webcam. Payment per shot would be in Dogecoin, naturally.

1337biz 13y ago
You are coming almost 10 years to late for that idea: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/07/AR2005050701270.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05...
- philtar 13y ago
  Maybe they were 10 years too early? Maybe there's room for two? Maybe negative feedback just isn't the right thing to provide.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    Maybe it's not an original idea, and if someone wants to try it again, they could learn from studying the last time its been tried. Maybe? Maybe?
urethra 13y ago
yay Dogecoin

rohanprabhu 13y ago

I am not trying to be dismissive, but I don't see how this "Solves the problem of remembering to feed the fish". If it is entirely automated, it can just as easily be automated and the fish be fed automatically. I do understand the aesthetic value of this, but I believe that that is the only value proposition that this setup has. Am I missing something over here?

Schweigi 13y ago
Yes its fun to press the button :)
Dirlewanger 13y ago
Yes, you're missing netting fake Internet points to show off your visually stunning but ultimately pointless web application.

dTal 13y ago

TheNextWeb damn near killed my browser, and it's just an ad-laden article about the fish-food thing instead of the fish-food thing itself, which can be found at https://www.aquard.io/ https://www.aquard.io/ I'm not at all certain the fish are real either.

dm2 13y ago
The lagginess of the webcam leads me to believe that it's real, also I saw a couple of fish stop and eat algae off of a rock. A 3D simulation (which the company does do) would hopefully have better performance. Is it safe to feed fish every hour? That seems excessive. I use to have this screensaver running, it's very nice. I'm not sure if it's been updated in a while though. http://www.dreamaquarium.com/ http://www.dreamaquarium.com/
- _quasimodo 13y ago
  Maybe its just recordings of the fish being fed.
- Filligree 13y ago
  Fish normally (=in the wild) graze all day. So long as they aren't being overfed, feeding them every hour is perfectly fine. I haven't looked at the feeding yet, so I can't comment on whether the amount of food is small enough.
  - stan_rogers 13y ago
    "Never feed him a lot. Never more than a spot! Or something may happen. You never know what." (Childhood memory successfully recalled. That's from A Fish out of Water, a Dr. Suess "I can read it all by myself" series book almost precisely as old as I am, penned by Suess's wife, Helen.)
jerf 13y ago
"I'm not at all certain the fish are real either." This is 2014. Assuming a decent level of development skills, it is not like this is so amazing that it just has to be faked. Hooking up webcams to the internet and hooking up a few web buttons to some real equipment via an Arduino is so easy I can't help but think it's actually easier to set this up for real than convincingly fake it in front of an Internet audience! Seriously, folks, turn the cynicism knob down a bit. And I'm a cynic myself.

miahi 13y ago

The messages on the right are really annoying. Too fast to actually read them and no visible way to stop them.

bhousel 13y ago

Seriously, please don't waste your time this way. If you are really bored, create something lasting by editing Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap instead.

brador 13y ago
Or even just walk away from your desk for a while. If you can't because your employer is looking for an ass on a seat then start looking into more challenging, and rewarding, employment. Don't just be bored at your desk, up skill.
codelap 13y ago
It's unfortunate that you feel every second of your day need be used to be productive. It's also unfortunate that you feel the need to manipulate others through condescension in order to feel superior. If someone wants to feed some real fish, virtual fish, or simply play a game when bored to blow off some steam, then more power to them. How I choose to spend my time is both none of your concern, and entirely up to me.
- bnegreve 13y ago
  > It's also unfortunate that you feel the need to manipulate others through condescension in order to feel superior. Chill out, he said please.
NAFV_P 13y ago
> Seriously, please don't waste your time this way. If you are really bored, create something lasting by editing Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap instead. How much time have you wasted on HN over the last few years?
- collyw 13y ago
  I noticed the following about myself the other day. When I should be doing something productive, but can't be bothered, HN is a "compromise" for me. Basically 90% of the time is wasted, but at the same time I do learn a fair bit in the other 10% of the time. I can kid myself I am doing something productive, (when 90% of the time it isn't).

TeMPOraL 13y ago

I wonder if this is real. It'd be easy to run this system for a few days recording enough video data to be able to just play it back to people without them noticing. It also solves nicely the scaling problem (if you and 1000 other users connect to the real aquarium at the same time, what are the chances that you're going to feed the fish today?) and any potential availability/maintenance issues (you can just flush the fish down the drain and call it a day; no one will be any the wiser, and you save money on fish food).

chrisBob 13y ago

Damn it HN! I am going to have to wait for this to hit page 3 before the queue gets small enough again.

chrisBob 13y ago
It has calmed down slightly. I got to release bubbles just now!

Sae5waip 13y ago

Great, now I'm hungry again.

NAFV_P 13y ago

The article inspired a spin-off idea in my head: "online crocodile feeding". No machines are involved, instead a fearless human is hired to dangle those raw, bloody wildebeest steaks in front of their noses.

bluedino 13y ago

One of LifeSize's internal video streams you could use for testing their video conferencing product was a fishtank, it was pretty cool. Couldn't feed the fish though.

return0 13y ago

Aren't they going to die of overfeeding? Oh well, first world fish problems.

fisherman 13y ago

Hi everyone! I am Marios, one of the developers of www.aquard.io and just wanted to let you know that the fish are live and broadcasted real-time. And because seeing is believing in 5' stay tuned for a live message for your eyes only! :)

fisherman 13y ago

And here's the proof: https://www.aquard.io/img/ss1.png https://www.aquard.io/img/ss1.png Enjoy www.Aquard.io everybody!