

Show HN: escape from meetings, etc with a prearranged phone call: GetOutCall.com - Roedou
http://www.getoutcall.com/

======
Roedou
This was my recent 'weekend project'. I have so may half-finished apps &
sites, that I really needed to break the seal, and ship something. This was
the simplest thing I could make, so here it is; it's definitely a relief to
have something else 'in the wild'.

It's very simple: a flat HTML page for the front end; the back-end is Python
on Google App Engine, using Twilio for the text messages and phone calls.

I'm more than open to feedback!

~~~
borplk
Excellent work. Congratulations on shipping. If I could find a good Twilio
alternative for other countries I might do something similar for another
another country.

~~~
Roedou
Which country are you looking for?

They have their international beta program:
[http://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/twilio-launches-beta-
phon...](http://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/twilio-launches-beta-phone-
numbers-in-five-new-countries.html) <http://www.twilio.com/international>

and this page seems to include a LOT of countries:
<http://www.twilio.com/voice/pricing>

~~~
borplk
Was looking for Australia in particular. I was just searching for it and from
the search results I thought they are not providing for Australia just yet but
clicked on the link you gave me and seems like they actually do.

------
toomuchcoffee
Sweet.

Now you just need to grab a few more more domains, e.g. "EscapeMyDate.com",
etc.

------
droob
Alternate app: be an adult.

~~~
Roedou
Is there an API for that?

I tried 'from adulthood import maturity' but keep getting the same error.

~~~
droob
Yeah, but it's undocumented.

------
adambard
I did the same thing with a text message instead of a call a few years back:
<http://datebreaker.heroku.com/>

It's almost ridiculous how easy twilio (and heroku) make setting up a project
like this.

Edit: That said, I really like your design, and a call is probably a stronger
social cue than a text message.

------
steve8918
I guess I'm old school, but I've always been a bit taken back these days at
how some people think it's okay to take phone calls during a meeting.

If you're being paid by your employer to attend meetings, what phone call
could possibly be so important that you can't let it go to voicemail and you
get to it after the meeting?

But I'm probably at least 10+ years older than the average person on HN, so
maybe that's why. I still remember a time when people who took out a cell
phone at a restaurant was considered rude and obnoxious, so I guess times do
change.

~~~
michaelt

      If you're being paid by your employer to attend meetings, 
      what phone call could possibly be so important that you 
      can't let it go to voicemail and you get to it after the 
      meeting?
    

Do you remember a few months ago when Amazon's EC2 had problems and took down
Quora, Pintrest, Heroku and that lot? [1] Or when Knight Capital managed to
lose $440 million in 45 minutes due to a software glitch? [2]

What meeting could possibly be so important that you can't postpone it to deal
with a critical production issue?

[1]
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/07/01/survey-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/07/01/survey-
of-effects-of-cloud-outage-shows-how-much-of-the-web-runs-on-amazon/) [2]
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/nils-pratley-on-
finance/2...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/nils-pratley-on-
finance/2012/aug/06/knight-capital-computer-glitch-trading)

~~~
steve8918
Sure, there are some people that are important enough to warrant interrupting
a meeting, but the vast majority of the people that I've seen that get up to
leave a meeting to answer the phone don't fit in that category.

~~~
akldfgj
More likely, the problem is that people are dragged into unimportant meetings
they don't need to attend.

------
dsrguru
I love the idea in concept, but I hope people wouldn't actually use it. I'm
not sure which I find worse: not being honest with your coworkers or having
them judge you for not silencing your phone before a meeting.

------
dave1010uk
Simpler: you set your alarm tone to sound like your incoming call tone, then
just set an alarm.

Even simpler: take your phone out your pocket and pretend you have a call and
it was on vibrate.

~~~
akldfgj
The call helps you perform the deception, though, by getting you "into
character" for a phone call.

------
kk3
your background image is 1.4 mb. this one is 100 kb, no noticeable pixelation
or artifacts: <http://i.imgur.com/7bcsJ.jpg>

~~~
Roedou
Fixed; thanks.

PS: you wanna be my CTO? I think this things going to blow up. Obviously
you'll have to work from my garage with no pay for a few years, but you'll get
a huge payout when we exit.

------
scottw
You can do it with an API call too: <http://www.fakecall.net/>

------
bluetidepro
This is also very easy to setup via a ifttt.com recipe. That is how I have
done it in the past.

------
Tichy
Another idea: "helpIamInAMeeting.com" (or something, didn't check domain)
where you can post a cry for help from within a meeting and other employers
can hire you away on the spot by calling you.

------
Diamons
How're you affording this?

~~~
Roedou
Also: there's a great business model here....

I sell advertising space in the outbound phone calls to someone like a dating
site. "Hi, here's your excuse to leave if you want. But next time, use
SomeOtherDatingSite.com to find a better match!"

See, it's a foolproof plan.

------
phusion
Excellent site! Very clean looking and I'm sure it will prove useful, even
though there are other methods of doing this. I love that you let us text just
"1h20m" and the like. I will be showing this to many of my friends.

------
fuzzythinker
nitpick: Background repeats in y, so footer background is the top (hair) when
window is long, which doesn't flow and makes the footer unreadable.

~~~
Roedou
Thanks, I'll fix it.

I'm not a developer; I knew there'd be mistakes creeping in all over.

(Out of interest: what's your screen resolution? The image is 1180px tall.)

~~~
fuzzythinker
2560x1440

~~~
dohertyjf
_deletes trolling comment here_

------
trusko
Good execution, I like it.

~~~
Roedou
Thanks! There were other ways of achieving this, but I went for a solution
that didn't require installing apps, learning APIs, creating accounts, etc.

------
SeerWS
Great work! I'm inspired.

