from Hacker News

Perfect prevention vs. perfect detection

by anteloper on 9/23/24, 9:38 PM with 7 comments

  • by wereHamster on 9/24/24, 10:54 AM

    I once was using an iPhone alarm clock which would only stop ringing when I took a picture of a specific item that I registered before (I chose an eraser that was on my desk at that time). When the alarm triggered, the app persistently increased the volume to the max, put itself into the foreground, and did a bunch of other tricks to force me to take the picture of that item.

    I then went on a vacation and guess what I did not bring. Took me a while and a few tries to uninstall the app. That was the only way how to stop it. Because the app always put itself to the front, I only had a small window to switch to the sprinboard and delete the app. It was not easy, and if the app had a slightly better timing it would've been impossible.

    I understand that any officially sanctioned means to circumvent a block may be misused, but perhaps there's a good reason why the person may want to get around the block. Such as, I do not want to wake up the whole airplane that I'm on with the obnoxiously loud alarm clock because I forgot my eraser at home.

  • by TommasoBendi on 9/24/24, 9:10 AM

    What I’ve found most effective for reducing screen time is using two separate devices: one with all the addictive apps, and another with only essential apps for communication. I keep the phone with the addictive apps in a less accessible place (like the basement) and only take it out when I consciously decide to spend some downtime. This method has worked wonders for me.

  • by Etheryte on 9/24/24, 8:11 AM

    This is just an ad for their product, I don't really see how this is an improvement. For one, you have to share your private information with both this company and other people using their platform, and for two, why would I care if other people think I'm e.g. using social media too much?

  • by atorodius on 9/24/24, 6:48 AM

    Nice ad :)

    Anyone here using this app and wants to comment on it? looks cool

  • by binary132 on 9/24/24, 3:23 PM

    The whole time I was reading this I couldn’t stop thinking about optional vs static typechecking and how I really try to design my invariants to avoid the possibility of failures that need runtime checking. Once you’re alerting, it’s too late, the cat’s out of the bag — robust systems really need to avoid designs that lead to cats getting out of bags in the first place.

  • by stevage on 9/24/24, 5:15 AM

    Hard to fault this analysis.

  • by n2d4 on 9/24/24, 6:33 AM

    Just wait until the Duolingo owl catches wind of this!