16 comments

  • Shank 55 minutes ago
    This is an area of planning known as "business continuity planning" and as part of this process, you should have a document and written procedures that are executed by humans, not computers, and tested as part of this. For example, your BCP should include people who are already trusted and know how your infrastructure works, and you should do a dress rehearsal on a yearly basis at least. A notification tool is one thing, but realistically this should be just one of your tools.
    • romeo19361 46 minutes ago
      Agreed.
      • romeo19361 42 minutes ago
        The readme goes through rehearsals and contacts reconfirm yearly, and I confirm each still has what they need. Thanks, mate.
  • y42 12 minutes ago
    From my experience, there is no everlasting digital system, no matter how many fallbacks you add. So I wonder, how can you ensure, this still works after e. g. 1 year?
    • romeo19361 7 minutes ago
      The system checks with contacts after one year to reconfirm. If I don't receive my weekly check-in email I check the server. This is a best effort attempt to ensure business continuity for me if I'm dead. It's better than not having a plan for me. There's a health address you can point to that checks the system is working from an outside monitor. :)
  • mrheosuper 54 minutes ago
    Nice, i have similar idea for a while, with some additional features:

    - Easy to use, my idea is just have a telegram/facebook chatbot, people talk to it in plain English, what is their message, the receiver and the watch time.

    - Multi reminder: For example, you can set 3 days to send message 1, 10 days to send message 2 and so on. The idea is the message 1 can be "You are receiving this message because XXX has something to talk, please contact them if you can ASAP". So that if you forgot to "kick the dog" 1 day, your deep personal message won't be sent immediately.

  • yieldcrv 3 minutes ago
    > and it passed 42 unit tests

    wowww 42 unit tests that Claude made up

    I was into it until you considered this a level of assurance

    feels like you’ve been out of the software industry for a decade or two

  • jen729w 17 minutes ago
    Hi Peter. This is advice I give to every AI product now, not just yours. Nothing personal.

    It's fine to use AI to create the product – but please, for the love of god, write your own copy. When someone can't be bothered writing their own landing page, I assume they're just not that bothered about the product.

    • romeo19361 11 minutes ago
      Fair call on the copy, I may tweak it. The product came from a brief I spent two days on, so the thinking is mine even where home page's words aren't entirely. This is a free product. I'm happy to have my Switch in place because my clients are loving the plans.
  • N_Lens 1 hour ago
    Nice, although it seems likely that I would overlook replying to the email and everyone will panic when they get notified.
    • romeo19361 1 hour ago
      Also, if you miss the first email two more reminders are sent to you before emailing your next of kin. It's only when your next of kin says there's a problem, or doesn't answer, your lawyer and/or 2IC are informed. It's a great point you've raised.
    • romeo19361 1 hour ago
      It's designed to send one email to check on you per week. Currently for me this is 9am Monday. I can't miss it because I'm selling my clients the death plan in my contracts. You can change the timing of the email to suit your needs. Thanks for the great feedback :))
  • iugtmkbdfil834 1 hour ago
    Love it. Will test. Initial feedback: consider configurable timetable threshold ( not everyone will want the same ).
    • romeo19361 42 minutes ago
      Would love the feedback and test, thankyou.
  • mococa 45 minutes ago
    You’d use temporal workflows, this operation should never fail
  • bmoathn 46 minutes ago
    interesting concept. feels high gain at 1/wk. like, can it subscribe to my garmin connect or something?
    • romeo19361 37 minutes ago
      It's only one button to press each week. I don't have a Garmin, that would be interesting to connect it in that way for your use case.
  • AndrewKemendo 1 hour ago
    I would make it monthly or quarterly not weekly

    By the way Google has had this for a while and I signed up for it back in 2018 or so.

    they check in it feels like quarterly at most

    https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en

    • romeo19361 1 hour ago
      For version 1 we decided for the check-in to be weekly because it can still take 13 days for the Switch to tell the lawyer and/or the 2IC where our master keys are held. Thanks for the link, this isn't locked to google accounts, it's more so for the 2IC to ensure business continuity with servers domains Dropbox etc.
  • altmanaltman 28 minutes ago
    > What if I go missing or die? The right people are told and my business can continue to operate for *my clients*... I was hospitalised in 2012 and lost my business back then and I couldn't get the data to my technical 2IC in time without frustrating *my clients*... *My clients* are telling me this is a strong sales feature when they trust me with their hosting and technology accounts.

    I am not sure why this focus on clients in a context like this feels unsettling to me, but it does.

    • romeo19361 2 minutes ago
      I'm building a business for the long term and those clients are investing money into me. My next of kin is notified first. It just seems sensible to give my clients long term security if I have another health issue or die.
    • bayarearefugee 18 minutes ago
      I can see some decent reasons for a dead man's switch, like notifying people in the situation where you live alone and have pets (though you'd want it to be much shorter than a week) or to send a goodbye or legal documents to a loved one, but I'll be honest, I don't feel the least bit of obligation to anyone who is just a business contact after I'm dead. They can figure it out, or not. Not my fuckin' problem anymore.
  • aabhay 56 minutes ago
    > I’ve been testing it for one week

    So, you haven’t had enough time to even encounter most edge cases :)

  • matt3210 59 minutes ago
    > Happy to answer any questions

    Are you OK bro?

    • romeo19361 50 minutes ago
      Yes — healthy and fine. I checked in with my Switch yesterday:))
  • georgestones 41 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • vasco 55 minutes ago
    Why do people share projects that can be made in 10 prompts?
    • jubilee33 36 minutes ago
      I'm always too embarrassed to show the things I make on here. Some voice keeps telling me "they aren't really outstanding or novel qnd nobody will care"

      But seeing the front page the past few months, maybe i should. Or not, I honestly don't know how to feel. İ like people sharing and having the courage to put their work out, but if this place gets cluttered with "i installed Linux on my AI laptop" Where then to go to find any interesting info. There is arvix? No frivolous things there right? :p

      I liked the project by the way, even if it's a bit trivial.

      • romeo19361 31 minutes ago
        <3
      • altmanaltman 25 minutes ago
        most posts do not show up in the front page at all, the ones you're seeing are the ones that are actually good (in an ideal world, in reality a lot of this is controlled anyway). But yeah even if you make the best thing you've ever dreamed of, do not think posting it on HN = automatic front page. Most content never makes it and gets like 1-2 upvotes. I've hit #1 only once even though i post regularly. Just as long as you're not spamming or breaking any general rules it's alright to take a chance with anything you deem interesting or worth tinkering with.
    • romeo19361 47 minutes ago
      I shared it because my business had the need and to inspire others to think about succession. It's dead simple to build with or without AI for a seasoned coder:))
  • egamirorrim 38 minutes ago
    People still write things in PHP?
    • romeo19361 33 minutes ago
      PHP by Larry Ullman happened to be the first programming book I read in 2002. I love PHP and I can understand what Claude is doing with it.