Threads for bink
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singpolyma
1 month ago
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I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people
The real question is: why am I messaging someone who didn’t message me first?
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Why wouldn’t you message your friends first?
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I mean, if I have something to say to them I would.
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bink
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1 month ago
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I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people
Hello again fellow lobsters. I created this app and I expect it can help others like me, those with ADHD and those who’ve resolved to be better at reaching out to friends and family this new year.
I’m not very good at keeping in touch with people. So “there’s an app for that,” right? No, there actually wasn’t one—at least not one that did what I wanted simply. So I made one.
I define the app as a smart communications assistant/tool for text messages, calls and email that helps making staying in touch as effortless as it can be.
How is this app different from other personal CRM and automation tools?
Well, it’s purposely simple and combines some functionality from both areas. Most personal CRM apps are unable to easily make informed decisions as it relates to texts and calls because they have limited access to information—and most device automation apps, while they have access to more information, do not have a CRM focus. CommuniqAI blends these two and cleverly keeps you in touch with the people who matter the most with minimal interruption and distraction, zero requirements to manually log previous communications and actual conversation histories so you can quickly recall what you last touched upon. By default, the app will not take any action and largely act as a helpful reminder, and I recommend this type of use.
When I first made the app available, I posted a story on how the app got started, my eureka moments, repeated failures and a little technical detail at https://medium.com/@mtc.dev/my-first-android-app-story-331c98270ec4?source=friends_link&sk=d01250707057ed71f2c7af8ed4ac9eea.
The last time I submitted to Lobste.rs, the app was only available as a limited beta, but this is no longer the case—and the app has no ads or logins.
I’d love some feedback.
Cheers.
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I’m glad to hear that the tool you designed is helping you. I have concerns similar to some of the other commenters here: do you think that the text messages sent by your app are authentic? Are your friends and family aware that you are using this app, and if so, are they comfortable with it? I understand that reminders to keep up with friends can be useful, but pre-selecting a message to send to them (as shown in the screenshots) seems like it would leave a lot of room for error. Personally, I read texts like “miss you” and “love you” to mean two distinct things, and just randomly selecting one would lose some information.
I’m also not certain what is significantly different now from the last time you posted this. Other than leaving beta, how has your app improved?
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…do you think that the text messages sent by your app are authentic?
Of course—I wrote and sent them all. By default, the app will not take any action, and largely act as a helpful reminder, and this is how I use it.
Are your friends and family aware that you are using this app, and if so, are they comfortable with it?
Please see the Medium story I wrote.
Other than leaving beta, how has your app improved?
Well, for one, far fewer bugs ;) ! Most of the changes are Android-related and address numerous changes desired and required by newer versions of Android, but there are also improvements to the notifications, scheduler and related heuristics. I also plan to release an update soon that will support quarterly communications and more smarts.
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kghose
1 month ago
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I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people
My preference would be something that reminds me every day to set aside some time to write to people I’d like to keep in touch with. These will be people who are acquaintances and old friends who I don’t interact with every day. In case I am at a loss of what to write to them, since this time will likely be at the end of the day, 10 minutes before bed, when I can eke out a moment, I would like the software to offer me prompts based on my previous correspondence with them, and my notes about them, such as their birthday, anniversary, perhaps pull up some photos of us together etc. etc. so my creative juices get flowing.
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snej
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1 month ago
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I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people
I 100% identify with the problem this app is aimed at! It’s so hard for me to reach out to friends regularly. But the idea of sending automated messages turns me off completely. It’s the polar opposite of genuine connection. If I learned that someone was messaging me this way, frankly I’d feel insulted. It’s degrading a personal relationship to CRM.
(Edit: To be clear, this is just my personal reaction. I’m not saying this app is Bad or Wrong. I hope you’ll just take this as a bit of market research.)
I’d be down with an app that popped up reminders, esp. combined with some context about our last interaction. Something where I personally end up writing and sending a message.
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mk12
1 month ago
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I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people
I personally would be weirded out if I received automated messages like these. If you really want to stay in touch with me, why not have a recurring calendar event? If I had an SO who used this to say “Miss you” at random times, it would feel meaningless to me. It would feel a lot more meaningful if there was a typo and I knew it was written deliberately—until the bot gets smarter and inserts random typos.
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Oftentimes, when the app reminds me to reach out, I’ll write whatever I’m feeling at that moment and not use one of the templates. Other times I’ll be busy with something and one of the templates is spot on with how I’m feeling. I tried using recurring calendar entries in the past, but there wasn’t enough there to keep me consistent.
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Based on the feedback here, which I agree with, it might be better to have suggestions for topics to message about or prompts that could remind you about something about that person rather than a full on prepopulated message. E.g. “Ask them about their latest travels” or “Message Bob Smith about his favorite hobby “.
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For what it’s worth, it appears the author of the original blog post might have removed it. Since nothing on the Internet ever easily disappears, an archived copy is at https://web.archive.org/web/20230206215930/https://laanwj.github.io/2023/02/06/regrets.html.
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I’m having a hard time seeing what is driving this part of the piece:
The no-warranty clause apparently doesn’t hold up in court (at least in the UK).
Is it the comment about the crypto fraud case you included in the story text? That seems unsupported, to my eye.
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So they’re saying that the no-warranty clause doesn’t hold up because they could be sued? Did they lose? I’d think the test would be whether it lets them fight off the suit, not whether someone can raise the suit in the first place. At least in the US, you can sue someone for any reason at all. “Being sued” does not really suggest that a license doesn’t work, here.
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Conversely, merely saying you’re not liable shouldn’t necessarily be enough to avoid liability. For example, VSCode is MIT licensed. If Microsoft, by their negligence, commits code that causes auto-updated VSCode installations to delete disk encryption keys, should the MIT license prevent anyone from suing them? I think no. Whether the bitcoin case warrants similar treatment I’m not sure – I haven’t read the judgement yet – but I think it’s a valid question for a court to resolve.
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should the MIT license prevent anyone from suing them? I think no.
I think the legal fiction of a reasonable man should expect a user to have critical data backed up. Yes, the license should protect against a reasonable degree of negligence. Steam on Linux was wiping root partitions not too long ago.
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I think the legal fiction of a reasonable man should expect a user to have critical data backed up.
That’s an argument about the standard of care you owe in negligence, not an argument that you should be prohibited from suing in negligence because someone put a “I’m not liable” sticker on their work.
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“If you lie down with dogs, don’t be surprised if you get fleas”.
Bitcoin isn’t just any open source project. It’s ideologically inclined towards upending the entire current financial system, thus risking upsetting some very wealthy people.
I wouldn’t have expected the challenge to come from an Aussie fraudster bankrolled by a Canadian gambling mogul but that’s why Bitcoin is still after 14 years the best source of comedy gold in this space.
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For me, this was the most interesting part of the article:
The installation process is very fast in both cases, it took around 29 seconds for the Core and around 76 for the Full one.
While there are major differences, that’s a very far cry from Windows.
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SQL Server on Linux containers continue to be supported for production environment.
I found this interesting. Does anyone know why Linux is first class here?
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Easy, windows containers are basically VMs with none of the security benefits, and their size alone prohibits their serious use. Windows containers in general are just poorly supported and really just not taking off as quickly as Microsoft would like. This is probably a glimpse into the future of other Windows container based projects.
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WilhelmVonWeiner
1 year ago
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GF likes texts. I'm not a good texter. "App for that?" Nope. My first app story
This just reads like a press release for the app, where is the code, or the technical description of how something cool happens?
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Are you the author? I’m curious why someone would bother with the Play Store for a free app if it’s hard to get accepted. Distributing it via F-Droid is trivial in comparison and if the primary audience is you with other users as an added bonus, it’s a much easier process.
For the root cause of the underlying problem, I’d thoroughly recommend Signal. The desktop app makes it trivial to context switch to sending a message to family and back again in a 30-second break from working.
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Yes. The app has in-app purchases and, as I understood it, this is not supported by F-Droid. As for messaging from the desktop, to be honest, for me a 30-second context switch is likely too much. Also, being prompted to send a message is helpful for me and the app also takes advantage of historic messaging and call information when making these prompts.
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stephenr
1 year ago
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GF likes texts. I'm not a good texter. "App for that?" Nope. My first app story
Am I missing something from this story?
She told me she knew I was busy with work and the app helped make certain she was on my mind and continued to keep communication high between us.
I thought the whole point of this is that you’re busy/distracted/mentally engaged/what have you with work, and thus she isnt on your mind?
I’m also still not even sure what it’s supposed to do. What does “automate your text messages” even mean?
Does it just send random non committal messages to people? Or canned responses to messages?
For anything outside of the “I’m driving and will see this when I stop” type auto responses I don’t see how “automation” is actually useful?
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This starts conversations with people by sending the starting text, it doesn’t have the full conversation.
Some people, especially those that grew up with ubiquitous phones in school, see texting frequently as how you show you care about someone. This ensures that if you haven’t sent a text or called in a while, you start something automated to jump start the conversation.
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Perhaps it’s not clear enough from the story, but, for my use case, it allows me to provide my significant other with a quick “bid for affection” without breaking my focus; a notification pops up and I simply swipe it away and the automation happens. In other cases where I want more of a connection or dialog, I will configure the app to remind me at more convenient times and ask more open-ended questions.
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In a nutshell, yes. Depending on how you configure it, its behavior changes and It also handles other communication methods. The story purposefully focuses on my experience with indie app development and not the details of the app itself. The app is currently in beta, so it’s limited to 47 countries/regions to better support this, but feel free to let me know what country you are in or send me a message.
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cos
1 year ago
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GF likes texts. I'm not a good texter. "App for that?" Nope. My first app story
Could you please reupload this somewhere that doesn’t require logging in? Like Substack or, better yet, your own website?
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I’m sorry. I specifically posted Medium’s Friend Link, which should not require a log in, but also because I like Medium’s formatting, simplicity and other things. That said, with a little more effort, I put the story at http://firstappstory.mtc.dev.
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av
1 year ago
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GF likes texts. I'm not a good texter. "App for that?" Nope. My first app story
Why it was getting rejected so many times, what were the troublesome permissions?
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Google, basically, took a hatchet to apps with SMS or Call Log permissions a couple of years ago, and these were the permissions the app required. Google has, rightly so, deemed these permissions to be sensitive, so access to these permissions are limited. As for how I got this sorted, the truth is the changes I made were many and it really is difficult for me to tell you which few, or dozen, were specifically related to the rejections. Unfortunately, it’s likely a whole bunch of changes helped move the ball forward.
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Not surprised. Oracle’s Java copyright lawsuit going the way it is, Google is going to be license price extorted if they stick to Java so they pretty much need to kill Android if the lawsuit succeeds. Working their own version also gives them the copyrights so the ruling will be helpful in maintaining a tight grip on the new platform.
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As I understand it (and as noted by alva above), Fuschia competes with Linux, not Java. It’s a microkernel, not a language VM or a language. The article was technically confused – the Oracle line was just a throwaway and not terribly accurate.
Java is going to be in Android forever, simply because there are hundreds of thousands of apps written in Java. Kotlin was a logical move because it’s very compatible with Java.
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There are PoW-less cryptocurrencies being developed. If these gain traction and turn out to be secure, then we can leave behind the first generation of cryptos based on PoW.
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These are the two I know of, which also seem to have serious teams backing them up.
Nano: https://nano.org/en Iota: https://www.iota.org/
They’re based on new architectures that enable to dispense with the concept of miner, providing the services that these gave in different manners. For example, Nano uses proof of stake. When there are two conflicting transactions i.e. a double spend, the network votes to resolve the conflict and each node has a voting stake proportional to the the amount of currency it holds, or the amount of accounts that delegate their vote to that particular node. Thus conflicts are resolved through vote. Iota uses a DAG architecture where the cost of making a transaction is doing PoW in the form of “confirmations”. The transactions that are more robust are those with the larger number of confirmations. Both currencies have a set supply so no new coins will be produced ever, this means that all the coins that will exist were generated in the first block.
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The problem with proof of stake is that once an entity has 51% they own the currency forever. With proof of work, it is a continual effort to own 51% (this is covered in the linked to article).
A quick look at IOTA (not knowing anything about it), and it does not involve a blockchain and it’s not on Wikipedia.
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I see both PoW and PoS as protocols depending on the rationality assumption. Those that hold the power will act rationally, thus will want to preserve the value of their investment and as a consequence protect the network. Without the rationality assumption, we could have the top N miners combining their hashing power to destroy the network. What stops them from doing this?
Whether IOTA or Nano are blockchain or not isn’t important I think, what matters is that they satisfy (theoretically, and Nano somewhat practically) certain properties that allow them to function as decentralized cryptocurrencies.
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…especially one that works from version to version of OpenBSD…
This is unlikely. While OpenBSD tends to be evolutionary, the developers are unafraid to make changes where it makes sense.
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This seems like spam to me?
They’ve copy pasted the advisory and put a very stupid title on it. “Ugly, perfect ten-rated bug”, “patch before they’re utterly p0wned”, “btw it’s a denial of service attack”.
No thanks.
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This vulnerability can “allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code and obtain full control of the system,” it’s not just a DoS.
https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20180129-asa1
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IPv6 is so 1998!
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TL;DR:
- OBSD clear winner (they have massively reduced their attack surface over the years)
- NBSD clear loser
- FBSD is somewhere in between
I like the idea of being reminded when I’m not putting out enough effort to keep in touch with a friend. I don’t like the idea of automatic text messages at all — it’s practically the opposite of what I want to achieve.
A while ago, I installed the Monica CRM to use for reminding me to contact people I care about, and for storing basic information about people I’ve met but don’t really know. But I ended up never forming the habits needed to use it, and after a while deleted it, largely unused.
By default, the app will not take any action, and largely act as a helpful reminder, and this is how I use it.
As for Monica, and related personal CRM tools, I found that the more complex these tools are the less likely I am to use them. For storing basic information about someone, I simply use the built-in Contacts app on my phone.
I think the app tries to do one thing really well, and that thing is getting you to reach out with a minimal amount of effort. Once that initial connection is made, the conversation tends to flow more easily between both parties.