365 sats \ 1 reply \ @rheedi0 22 Apr \ on: An app can be a home-cooked meal -- Robin Sloan on coding for yourself mostly_harmless
I love this idea.
I've made a few programs like this for just myself or my family. One was an app that would remind me when a Bulls game was going to be on regular TV (never had cable). Another would generate and send weather updates to be displayed on the digital photo frame in my kitchen (too cheap to get a tablet).
My favorite, though, was for an office prank. It was at my first job as a dev and there were just a half-dozen or so of us in a relatively small space. We listened to music a lot in the main room and one of the guys complained about a particular artist all the time. I want to say it was Taylor Swift or Katy Perry, but I can't recall exactly who.
Anyway, another dev and I started monitoring the office router to figure out the mac ID to his phone. Then we set up a script to watch the router for that mac ID and start playing this music he hated every time he entered the office.
He thought it was a coincidence for a couple weeks. Good times. :)
Brilliant.
I worked in telecom a long time ago, and was in a position to route an ISDN-worth of toll free 1-800 numbers to my friend's home line. Still one of the programming projects I feel the most satisfaction about.
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