

Show HN: send letters from beyond the grave - PedroCandeias
http://absenceletters.com

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mistrQ
I'm not sure what to think of this.

I can appreciate why you think this is a problem that needs to be solved. But
I can't help feel a bit wrong about it.

From a technical standpoint also, I feel it is heavily flawed: So I write some
sentimental notes, forget to check in one day or change my email address or
some other very trivial reason not to get the notifications and boom, it
thinks I'm dead and sends out messages that should not yet surface.

I think it's one of these things that is a 'good idea', but should never
actually be followed through.

~~~
PedroCandeias
Thanks for the feedback.

I know what you mean. It's not quite what you'd expect from a web product
these days. I actually had doubts about making this available to the public,
at first. It was just a tool I wanted for myself, and a grim one at that.

Still, when it was done, there was no reason to keep it locked away. You never
know. Writing all the copy took me longer than the actual coding, but I saw it
as good training.

Anyway, this doesn't have to be as grim as the title suggests. It can be
simply a kind of insurance: if you go on a trip and get lost, for instance,
this thing can shoot important information to friends and family that helps
bring you back. I could see this being relevant to people who live alone and
travel a lot.

On the technical side, yes, the email warning system is weak by itself. That's
why my first order of business was having it check your twitter feed. I just
uploaded the feature.

In the future, it'll also check your facebook and foursquare activity. And
send SMSes if you get really close to the timeout. Between social media
monitoring, email and sms, it should actually be quite reliable at knowing
whether or not you've disappeared.

------
PedroCandeias
5am. Slowly, I woke up. There was an idea in my head. The room was dark, even
though the shutters were open. Dawn wouldn't break for another hour. I crept
out of bed, out of the warmth of Her presence, and tentatively stepped away.
My idea needed to be made manifest quickly, lest it be forgotten. Treading
lightly on the cold wooden floor, I made my way to the living room, sat on a
couch by the window and picked up the laptop.

As dawn came, the preliminary work was done. It was nothing but a sketch made
of computer code, but it was enough. My idea had taken root. As I went back to
the bedroom, my thoughts traveled a year into the past. In that same house my
grandmother still dwelt. In another city, one of my dearest friends still
lived. How could we possibly have known.

Less than a week has passed since that chilly Saturday morning. Work has
progressed swiftly. I just uploaded a little website, in fact, and created an
account for myself in it. Every once in a while, a program will run on its
server and send me an email. I'll click a link in it and nothing will happen.
One day, though, I won't click on that link. I don't know when or why. Surely
it'll be in the distant future. But it will come. And when it does, another
little program will take the letters I've stored in its database and send them
one by one.

And hopefully the people I love will find some comfort in them.

