Show HN: I made a script that gives me fake calls to escape boring moments

31 points by madinmo 2 days ago

I built a little script that gives me a fake phone call to escape boring and awkward situations. I bought a virtual number from twilio and saved it as one of my relatives.

Whenever I feel stuck, I just tap a button called “ESCAPE” on my phone. It sends a request to my remote server. The server runs a small Python script which schedules an actual call. After a minute, my phone rings and plays a pre-recorded audio.

I simply say “sorry, I’m getting a call” and walk away. A tiny project, but it has saved me so many times.

Script - https://x.com/the2ndfloorguy/status/1965624429146165251

inanutshellus 2 days ago

Hilarious, I love it. I'm a cheaparse so if I paid for an extra phone number for something like this, I think I'd "everything-looks-like-a-hammer" it.

I'd have it...

    * give me wakeup calls, 
    * call to remind me of all meetings with an exclamation in the title, 
    * call my wife whenever my phone detects i'm entering a casino, 
    * call me whenever my wife's within 3 miles of her ex's house,
    * answer when I call and it'd give me uplifting life advice platitudes like "Hey, you're doing alright. Also, you look /fabulous/ today!"
    * ... :ponder_emoji_here: ;-)
  • neondude a day ago

    There is an app called pushover. It's just meant to receive notification. You can set the notification type to emergency and simulate a call

kaeruct 2 days ago

How can you be sharing a link to twitter? And it has a screenshot of code! Does it need to be so hard to share some text?

petemc_ 2 days ago

Linking to a screenshot posted on twitter is a terrible way to share code.

hungmung 2 days ago

I had this on an old brick phone, but I forgot which brand. You'd triple click the power button and it'd start ringing a few seconds later so you had time to move your hands away from it and not look like you triggered it. You could even have it display a custom contact.

kmoser 2 days ago

I have a simpler way: keep your phone on the ringtone settings page, and just tap one of the ringtones when you want it to "call" you.

TurkishPoptart 2 days ago

How much does it cost for the virtual numbers from Twilio?