
Show HN: I'll e-mail you in the morning if it's going to be a beautiful day. - dustball
http://www.beautifuldaybrian.com/
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mattdeboard
I like this. What I really like is that you don't take it so seriously. Now we
need a competing service, "God Dammit, Brian" that highlights when you're
wrong.

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16s
Use a weather rock. It's the most accurate weather prediction device. If it's
wet, it's raining. If it's white, it's snowing. If it's not there, there's
been a tornado. here's a photo of one:
[http://www.cookislands.org.uk/image/Tais%20weather%20rock.jp...](http://www.cookislands.org.uk/image/Tais%20weather%20rock.jpg)

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toast76
We don't get tornados in Australia. If your rock is missing, some bastard
stole it.

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huhtenberg
I thought there were no thieves in Australia either.

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daniel_iversen
forgot that they were all thieves once upon a time did we? ;)

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bromley
Perhaps I'm unusual but I think it would be more useful if it emailed early
evening* before the beautiful day. By the time the beautiful day has come I'll
be able to see it out the window.

Either way I do love the idea. Nice one!

* I'll expand on that to say that I'd ideally want it early enough that I'd be awake and could call a friend to plan something without worrying about waking them up. But for building excitement I think it would be best to send it after it got dark (the timing of which you could determine from the date and location). I think that would be the way to maximize utility and experience.

~~~
charlieok
“But for building excitement I think it would be best to send it after it got
dark (the timing of which you could determine from the date and location).”

On a somewhat related note, I recently went hunting for phone apps to help me
better sync up with times as determined by the sun, rather than numbers on a
clock. I like the feeling of getting enough sleep and of being up before the
Sun, and I'd like to be relatively unaffected by jumps to and from daylight
savings time.

I learned to think of a day in terms of...

Astronomical Twilight: The Sun is between 18 and 12 degrees below the horizon.
Dark according to everybody except astronomers.

Nautical Twilight: The Sun is between 12 and 6 degrees below the horizon. You
can easily distinguish the sky from the ground, so sailors can use the horizon
to navigate.

Civil Twilight: The Sun is between 6 and 0 degrees below the horizon. Light
enough to play outside without artificial lighting.

Sunrise/Sunset: The instant the upper edge of the sun appears or disappears on
the horizon.

Golden Hour: The Sun is between 0 and 10-12 degrees above the horizon. No
exact definition, but photographers consider this a time for great lighting
conditions.

Solar Noon/Midnight: The Sun is at its highest/lowest point above/below the
horizon.

I was interested in easily visualizing these times, and in setting alarms
based on these times (possibly with fixed offsets).

I decided Nautical Dawn makes a good snooze alarm if you want to get a head
start on the day, and Civil Dawn is a good backup if you didn't feel like
getting up at Nautical Dawn. It helps psychologically that these times are
attached to real events, and that the sky is starting to lighten at Civil
Dawn.

I bought and tried a bunch of iPhone and Android apps. Below are my favorites.

iOS

Sol: Displays all the above times on a moving wheel, and can set alarms by
them.

Android

Nothing I liked as much as Sol on iOS, but the widget capability allows an
immediacy and combination possibilities that iPhone doesn't.

Sundroid: Widget shows pairs of times and can set alarms.

Daytime: Widget lists civl dawn/dusk, sunrise/sunset, and a prominent message
such as "3:29 to sunset".

LunaSolCal: Lists all the times mentioned above (except golden hours) in a
compact widget

AstroClock: Cool widget visualization with three concentric wheels: day/night,
then lunar phases, then seasons

Sorry for the length of this, but I just dove into this a few days ago and I'm
happy with what I ended up with, so I thought I'd share.

~~~
cowpewter
Perhaps a little offtopic, but I just went and bought Sol for my iPhone based
on your post here, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to have it
set alarms from within the app. It seems to only have two screens: the main
screen that displays the wheel, and if you click the _i_ it takes you to the
screen where you can add cities and change the type of dawn you want
displayed.

Do you mean that you can use the displayed times to set your alarm yourself?
Because it does not seem to be a feature of the app.

EDIT: Wow. I'm sorry. Apparently my search found the app called "Sol: Daylight
Clock", that appeared on first glance to be the app you were talking about. I
went googling after this post to see if I could find the dev's website for
instructions or something and discovered there is another app called "Sol: Sun
Clock" that appears to be the _actual_ app you were describing.

So that was a waste of $.99. Anyone who is interested in this app after
reading the parent comment, make sure you get the right one. The first one I
bought has minimal functionality in comparison.

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charlieok
Sorry, I didn't know about the other one. Was going by the name displayed
underneath the icon.

~~~
cowpewter
No worries. They both displayed only Sol under the icon. I just wish the app
store search didn't suck so hard. Searching 'sol' mostly found solitaire games
and I had to scroll a bit to even find the wrong clock app. Google found the
correct one with minimal searching.

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ForrestN
The idea is cute and it seems nicely executed, but I'm a bit turned off by
the, err, narcissistic aspect. Me and Brian haven't met yet, I'm not sure I
want to invite him into my daily life. Could just be me.

Edit: if the feedback isn't straightforward enough, I'll say it more plainly.
I feel like the use of your image and name throughout adds a somewhat strange
flavor to the tool that some people, like me, won't respond positively to.

I end up wondering why putting yourself everywhere improves the service, I
fail to come up with an answer, and assume its vanity. Not saying that's
necessarily true in this case. Rather that in passing that would be my thought
process and that at best it distracts from the charm of the service.

~~~
intenex
I think Brian's better than a large impersonal nothing, and I assume that was
Brian's reasoning as well. On that note though, I agree that it would be cuter
if Brian was a personified animal like a groundhog, or something along those
lines. Removes the possibility of vanity perception.

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notatoad
Okay. Or I can look out the window. By the morning of, it's already pretty
clear whether it's going to be a nice day or not.

What is the advantage of this service over a regular weather forecast that I
don't have to give my email address to?

~~~
kmfrk
Do you live in California or something? Where I live, the weather is as shifty
as the politicians, and the temperature dances around what's comfortable.

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dustball
Yup ;)

Well, the service should be especially nice for you, since the beautiful days
are more special? :)

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charlieok
For people living in California, that's going to add up to a lot of email...

Edit: _southern_ California :)

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dmix
Those living in the pacific northwest will balance it out.

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finnh
beautiful day in seattle right now. One of the rare perfect spring days here.
Normally we just skip this season.

~~~
xxpor
I'm typing this on a porch in Fremont right now. Can't say I have this
opportunity

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personlurking
I had a somewhat 'similar' idea last year. Pick a place in the world and every
morning (or once a week) receive a picture of the sunrise there. The time of
day can be altered and the location within the city can be altered. Would be
cool for people who miss home or who wonder what it'd be like to wake up
elsewhere.

On a side note, not sure if this exists but what about a desktop picture app
that changes your desktop daily based on your settings/preferences?

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dustball
Check out the "Magic Window" Mac App :)

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personlurking
Very interesting, I literally had the idea a year ago and Magic Window (looks
awesome) was first revealed 355 days ago.

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AshleysBrain
Does it work with a UK postcode? Put one in and it seemed to accept it, but
sometimes UK postcodes don't work with US sites. Maybe a little map showing
where the site thinks you are will help increase confidence.

Also, nice idea!

~~~
muyuu
You'd never hear from Brian anyway ;)

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pbhjpbhj
_Note this is a real hole in the ToS AFAICT but I'm not claiming the operator
is using it with prejudice._

>" _Beautiful Day Brian may revise these terms of use for its web site at any
time without notice._ " //

So despite assurances that "we will not sell, trade, or give away your e-mail
address to anyone for any reason" they can change those terms "at any time
without notice".

In case you missed it that time could be when 'selling, trading, or giving
away your email address [or any data they have on you] for any reason [within
the law in the jurisdiction of their choice]' and they wouldn't even need to
make a note of that instantaneous alteration on their website. Of course they
can, if they please, change the ToS right back afterwards the following nano-
second so as not to put off new punters.

Now, I'm not saying they will but just that the power of that one line in the
ToS obviates any assurances that the ToS give - it's basically worthless. All
you've got is your trust of the current owner and all their associates.

Also it's worth noting that they could offer a with notice and acceptance [eg
via a link click] alteration as, of course, they have your contact details.
"But it's just a simple little notification site" someone might say, "they're
never going to alter those terms to your detriment". In which case why not
just promise to have you opt in again for any new ToS.

Storm in a tea-cup? Most likely.

~~~
dustball
If you can point me to some other boilerplate TOS I can copy (freely, without
stealing), I'd be happy to change it.

When building a site, I like to focus on features and usability. The TOS is
usually just copied from another of my own projects.

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awad
Cool stuff! I've wanted to do something similar like this for a while that
would email me what I should wear (I always pick the wrong jacket/sweater
after simply checking temperature and not wind etc). Where are you getting
your weather information from?

Just a small issue: My browser takes up most of my screen on 1920x1080 and the
background image starts to repeat, making it look somewhat awkward.

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Alex3917
Awesome, I just signed up. Now all you have to do is figure out when I need to
get my snow tires on and you have a business.

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bavardage
Centigrade would be nice. Converting Fahrenheit is a faff.

~~~
dustball
Will do.

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steve8918
If someone is developing a web site in this day and age, do we really need to
have all that legalese, including Terms of Service such as the one on this
website? I get the importances of the Privacy statement, but are the whole
"Use License" and "Limitations", etc really necessary? It's fairly obvious
that the web site is just for fun.

I'm not ragging on the OP, I'm wondering if we are deciding on creating our
own web site or blog that offers some non-monetary service, are these legal
disclosures something that is necessary these days?

I was thinking of starting a fun little web site that offered some mundane and
trivial little services, but if it opens me up to legal issues because some
jackass wants to sue me because of a bug, then that just might kill my
motivation.

~~~
shantanubala
I'm not a lawyer, so take all this with a very very large grain of salt.

I did some reading about this because I had some mild concern about a couple
side projects, and basically, if you're not charging money and there isn't
anything intentionally malicious about your web site, people will have a hard
time winning in court. If you're giving away an _opt-in_ service for _free_ ,
even if someone tries to sue you, it will be very difficult for them to win.

If they were paying you, and their business relies on your service, then they
may have grounds for a lawsuit (assuming you didn't do anything to remedy the
situation or didn't react appropriately). But if you're giving something away,
it's viewed as _their_ fault for relying on your service when it didn't have
any type of guarantee associated with it. Web sites have bugs and downtime --
that's an inherent problem with computers -- so unless you make a guarantee
that you're providing a bug-free 100% uptime solution, you don't have any
obligation to provide a service that exceeds the reliability of even the most
advanced multi-billion dollar companies (does anyone have 100% uptime and no
bugs?).

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jayzee
This is too narrow a need. ifttt does that and more.

~~~
dustball
See previous comparison to ifttt in comments :)

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navs
I don't know why but I was expecting a service emailing me some positive
message to help me get out of bed and dismiss the cobwebs of depression and
anxiety I usually feel every morning I wake up.

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Bootvis
The only feature missing from this site is a 'Like on Facebook' button.

~~~
dustball
Thanks for the idea. I've now implemented this suggestion.

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Bootvis
Great!

~~~
dustball
Whoa, and now it has 65 likes since adding the button 53 minutes ago. Heh, so
I guess that was a good idea ;)

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kylemaxwell
Curious how this compares to ifttt with its Weather channel?

<http://ifttt.com/weather>

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dustball
Great question. ifttt is far more powerful -- and complicated.

Also, it seems to only support ONE criteria, such as "Sunny" condition OR
temperature above a certain range. Maybe I'm missing it, but I can't find a
way to replicate BDB.

Another perspective: There is something special about the packaging of meeting
this niche use case. The e-mail notifications are super upbeat, have
inspirational quotes, etc.

Also, BDB is easy enough my Mom has figured out how to sign up.

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botolo
Nice idea. Can you tell us something more about technical details? How does it
work, do you have to run a script every day? Does it use any API from weather
forecast websites? Do you personally travel all around the world to check the
weather ;-) ?

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Raphael
Nice job on the advanced options.

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amykhar
Had many beautiful days here since I signed up. Never got a single email.
Sadness :(

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dubcanada
"Brian loves Canadians, and everyone else that uses °C.Give me a day or two to
add that option!"

That kinda made me laugh a lot. Does he mean the entire world pretty much?

Also what does Frogs mean?

And his site is messed up in any browser larger then 1600.

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dustball
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! The site now has 400+ users.

I've implemented MANY of the suggestions and bugfixes posted to this HN
thread, so I really appreciate the comments.

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calibwam
Nice, I usually check the emails I got during the night on my phone before I
look out, so if I see a message saying it is a nice day, I'm sure I'll be fast
to get up!

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julioc
Great job. Can you add support for foreign cities with special characters? I
tried "São Paulo, Brazil" and the encoding on the "success message" was wrong.

~~~
dustball
Yes! I have just fixed this bug. Give it another try?

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julioc
Works fine. Thanks for the email notification too.

Does it send the notification based on my local time?

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nja
This is pretty cool.

I'm curious--what are you using as a weather source? I've been looking into
them recently and haven't found a decent one that I liked.

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Zolomon
I thought it was up to each person to decide whether it would be a beautiful
day or not, but maybe that's just me?

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder?

~~~
dustball
Yup. You can set what parameters you consider beautiful.

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rcavezza
half glass full vs half glass empty: I'm curious to see how adoption of this
product compares with adoption of umbrellatoday.com.

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davisourus
Really cool idea. I look forward to using it.

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josscrowcroft
This is absolutely fantastic.

I want to do rainydayjoss.com !!

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pacifi30
This won't work in Seattle :)

