
Fakecall: helping polite introverts stay productive - llambda
http://www.fakecall.net/
======
LiveTheDream
This

> DELETE <http://api.fakecall.net/v1/account/(your> number)

does this

> This really deletes your account and leaves no trace. We use "rm -rf
> /path/to/1234567890" (really).

Really hope they don't allow a number like "../*"

~~~
scottw
(I'm the author). The number is put through a regex first and only digits are
allowed.

~~~
burgerbrain
Any chance of seeing some of the source, or maybe just a quick technical blurb
on what kind of things you've used and how?

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headsclouds
Sorry to sound harsh, but this seems really silly to me (the concept, not the
code which I'm not competent to comment on).

Be human, tell other people to fuck off when they are bothering you. End of
story.

I find the lack of verbal communication skills among programmers/techies their
biggest disability. Learn to talk to other people, you might notice the world
will become a much easier place to function in.

Disclaimer: I was super-shy when I was younger, so I know what I'm talking
about. I never went to these kinds of lengths to avoid talking to people
though, this is crazy.

~~~
keiferski
Yes, thank you. Hiding behind silly web apps doesn't help anyone.

BUT, "telling people to fuck off" isn't much better. A polite "hey, I'm trying
to get some stuff done, I'll be with you soon" is sufficient.

~~~
headsclouds
I thought it was clear that it was an exaggeration, perhaps it would be
clearer if I had used quotes. A polite ”sorry man, I have things to do” will
suffice.

~~~
brider
I think you're all missing the point. Its purpose is not to be a commentary
on/solution for programmer archetypes, it's just a technological proof of
concept. A concept which uses said archetype as an example use case.

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r00fus
The cow-orkers bit is somewhat off-putting, but this service looks very
useful.

15 years ago, I used a service like this (PC->modem programmed to call my
pager) when I was dating... if the date was going well, I would tell my date
"Oh, that was work, but I'm going to ignore them" and if it wasn't, it was my
"exit call" and I aborted the date.

I imagine this kind of service can be useful in many situations, combine with
a fake contact detail on your smartphone and it can seem like your
CEO/Wife/etc is calling and you get an option to cut short meetings.

However, these days an SMS or email can provide almost as much excuse so it's
not as critical to get a call for interruption purposes.

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adityakothadiya
This is cool. I developed a Voice Call reminder iPhone app -
<http://JustRemindIt.com>. When I developed it, its soul purpose was to send
Voice Call reminders to anyone. I didn't think too much at that time for what
else people can use this app.

Couple customers sent me feedback email saying that this app is really cool as
it helps them to get out of a boring meeting. They simply schedule a Voice
Call reminder to themselves. And my app does the reliable job of calling them.
When phone rings, they just walk out of a meeting without faking much :).

Couple of people said they use it as a "Future Voice Mail" service. Send real
message to someone, not just "reminding" specific.

I guess use case mentioned in this article could be another use case for my
app :).

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psychotik
Neat.

"Use at your own risk. I can't afford a lawyer, so don't do anything stupid
with this, please." is a nice touch.

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iliis
Nice idea. I may have use for that. Does it work internationally? I'm in
Europe :/

Another important thing:

 _> All passwords are hashed with SHA256 before storage_

SHA256 is NOT suitable to hash passwords. In this case it's rather
unimportant, because only phone numbers are stored, but SHA/MD5 et al. are
often used when security matters too. So, use bcrypt:
<http://codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/>

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drumdance
Actually, a better use case is probably hot girls at bars who don't want to be
hit on. They could have an app on their phone that tells this script to call
them in 1,5 or 10 minutes.

~~~
robterrell
There's an app in the App Store called "Fake Call" that does exactly that. It
shows a perfectly mocked-up phone call animation, complete with contact photo
and custom ringtone.

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paulasmuth
This could be really useful one day and I love the idea of providing a REST
api instead of a UI! Are you going to add support for european numbers (or
would you open-source the code)?

~~~
scottw
Twilio just launched in Europe a couple of weeks ago I think; I need to get
myself a Euro number and make a few code adjustments. Gimme a week or so.

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kaiuhl
This is incredible.

I created an account for myself and my non-technical office mate and created a
page hosted internally we've bookmarked. Now if someone walks in to chat about
something trivial and one of us wants to keep working, we have a little button
to push that sends the request and redirects back to the previous page.

Thanks for this!

~~~
scottw
If you run OS X, look for my little applescript on the main page that you can
bind to a keystroke. _Very_ handy! :)

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achompas
Brilliant. I don't work with cow-orkers, but I'll keep this for friends who
do. Congrats on a nice app. :D

~~~
scottw
Thanks. I submitted this to hn earlier this summer, but must have hit the
wrong time of day or something because it just languished. I don't think I got
more than one karma point from it. The irony is that this coverage has only
given me real karma points, and no hn karma (pg's URL de-duplication tester
doesn't go back in time far enough) :)

~~~
achompas
To be honest, I went digging through the "New" tab and found your app. There's
a nonzero chance I helped you get to the front page. :P

Anyway, good luck!

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pavel_lishin
What sorts of things does Steve say? It would be nice if I could pass a string
for him to pronounce.

~~~
scottw
Steve is pretty boring, but I have Big Plans to make his conversation a little
more... customizable.

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nandemo
I had the idea to do something like this a while ago. I then googled it and
turns out there were already a number of services doing this, though none here
in Japan. Unfortunately Twilio is not available here yet. I wonder if there's
another way of doing it cheap.

I never thought of using with coworkers though. In that case I'd simply tell
them I'm busy with something important. My idea was for dates and other social
situations where you need an excuse to "escape".

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NIL8
I like it. I can think of many situations where this would be a handy tool.
Part of me wishes it was a simple app that would allow me to simply type a
couple of numbers in and begin using it. However, I can also see that if it
became too easy to use and too widely available, people might get wise to it.
Then, you'd have those "cow-orkers" stopping by your office to show you this
cool new app that fakes calls.

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GigabyteCoin
Would a polite introvert pick up their cell phone whilst talking to another
individual?

~~~
cjfont
If it's supposedly a work-related phone call, yes.

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geon
Since when is it polite to lie? I think that's _very_ impolite.

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shalmanese
I use <http://www.phonemyphone.com/> . It doesn't have an API but it does what
I need.

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logjam
Nice. I once developed an ad-hoc version of something like this (it had "call
at time X" functionality) to page me out of meetings...the next logical step
would have been to tie into my appointment calendar, so that scheduled
meetings automatically triggered the page request.

