
Show HN: Letter from You – Handwritten letter, mailed for you - anthonylee
https://letterfromyou.com/
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zzo38computer
Maybe some people with bad handwriting might find such service useful, or
other reasons (what dugluak mentions is also a possibility; another
possibility may be if you do not want to get all of the envelopes and stuff
yourself). Sometimes people used to hire scribes to write stuff, so if that is
what you want, then this service could do such thing, although it seem less
being needing these days. Still, if anyone wants this service, now you have
it; just because I don't like it doesn't mean that it is no good for anyone
else either.

However, I think I do not need this; if I want a handwritten letter (for
various reasons, including I am composing it while not at the computer, to
include hand-written diagrams, or because I have the postal address to send it
to, etc), I will do it by myself (I will still generally type the address on
the envelope with a typewriter, though). If I wanted a copy of text from a
computer I would probably use the printer (except that it seems to sometimes
doesn't work on my computer, but sometimes it does work).

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nasmorn
What everyone is really waiting for is when the Microsoft research voice
changer is finally production ready and there will be a service to call
whoever you want(parents/significant other) and just pretend to be interested
in what they tell you. If scheduling comes up pretend to need to sync the
calendar and if anything really hard surfaces feign a work call/ cell phone
trouble. People will feels much more loved and suddenly nobody will get enough
of your favorite stories. As not to denigrate anyone I will provide examples
of these calls made to myself. I can already picture how good it would work on
me.

Yes nasmorn, Tell me more about how increasing your weekly running mileage has
made you feel sluggish. So you are using soy yogurt in your shakes now, how
interesting.

~~~
xori
and then emails you a summary.

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yashbmewada
This reminded of the movie "Her"(2013) where the actor worked at a company
with a similar use case. The difference being they wrote the letter for you
(by dictating it to the computer) and then mailed it to the person. Wish they
could do that!!

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adnanazadsg
Reminds me of the movie "Her". Not sure I would use this but its a fun idea to
experiment with.

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throwaway13000
I don't understand one thing. The customers know that companies are here just
to make money. Then why do they think the letter is coming from the heart? Why
don't they think it is some marketing guy's ploy to extract little more
value/money?

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anthonylee
I see your point, I think from a different angel— it depends on your use cases
and how much time you want to save.

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throwaway13000
Mind elaborating some of those use cases?

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anthonylee
I can't answer if the receiver should feel as if the letter should be written
from the heart or not... but I think some businesses are interested in sending
nice handwritten letters. I see people in jewelry and fashion industries
interested in sending these crafted handwritten letters to their clients as a
thank you note, etc. It seems like they value their packaging. I am still
learning why some of my clients are interested in this product myself
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ . My conclusion is that they want to stand out.

~~~
throwaway13000
I agree with the final conclusion. Thanks for answering

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dugluak
Reminds me of stories about "letter writers" sitting outside post offices in
rural India. Only difference is that some customers couldn't write and some
couldn't even read. One feature you guys can pull from that is allow users to
provide a gist of what needs to be in the message and you guys come up with
actual message. Some people like me lack the skill of coming up with beautiful
words ;)

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anthonylee
That's a great idea! We can definitely implement that.

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asdkhadsj
This is neat! I'm not sure I have a real use for it - but if it was cheaper
I'd use it a few times just for fun.

I wonder if they would send me a letter of a long, encoded string? Imagine
~300 characters of hand written hex encoded bytes, framed on your wall. ..
man, I kind of want that.

The question is, would they write that?

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robofanatic
I am sure they'd do, if you ask nicely next time.

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pojntfx
This is ... so creepy. Humans as a Service, basically.

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dinkleberg
As opposed to monkeys as a service? All service businesses up until recently
(and still most today) are literally selling the time of a human being to do
something.

You want a toilet fixed, you call a plumbing service, which is a human as a
service. Why is this creepier than the old-school scribes that would write
what someone dictates?

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xori
So is the custom handwriter an AxiDraw Pen Plotter?

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yitchelle
Could Amazon's mechanical turk be used for this?

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neo2020
reminds me of violet evergrand

