Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family(help.delduca.org)

40 points by delduca 4 hours ago | 49 comments

I have a bad memory and can't memorize some important numbers, so I created this project.

I've always been concerned about being without my phone (getting robbed - which is common in Brazil - running out of battery, having it break, etc.), so I decided to create a page that sends SMS messages (LLM-summarized) and emails with more detailed information such as geolocation, IP address, and the full message.

It’s a simple page that allows sending one or more messages, with recipients being myself and other people - for example, in case I or they need help or need to communicate something important.

The source code is available at https://github.com/skhaz/dokku/tree/main/apps/help

ventana 2 hours ago |

I would probably suggest switching the link to the GitHub source code and listing the actual page URL in the description; otherwise, I click the link in the article and get a location sharing request and a Send button; after a few seconds I matched that with the title, but I still had my WTF moment.

ge96 1 hour ago |

When I was really bad at speeding all the time I had this fear I'd go to jail and my cat would die alone in my apt. So I started working on my own dead man switch, I actually have not finished it but I at least bought him like a self-feeding thing that would last a month or more and he unfortunately drinks out of the toilet too so I leave the top cover off.

I've recently stopped or working on stopping the triple digits driving.

The topic at hand this would be a Twilio thing sending a message like "so and so might be in jail take care of the cat" which is messed up/funny but I do tell them in advance can you be on this list. But at least this phase of my life is over/I have something to look forward to/behave for.

rsyring 1 hour ago | |

The right thing to do is stop speeding like that. Needlessly endangering others. It's good you are trying to stop. To help you continue in that effort...

Check out HPDE events to get your speed fix and keep it off public roads.

I've ran with Chin Track Days and 10/10ths and can recommend both orgs (USA based because that's what I know).

toast0 8 minutes ago | | |

I recently purchased my mid-life crisis car; it's rear-engined, manual transmission, air-cooled, same engine block as a Porsche 914 ... but it's a VW Vanagon.

Anyway, my super sweet high performance sports car can really only get up to highway speeds, and it takes a long time to get there. Getting on the highway means at least 20 seconds of full throttle driving, and staying at highway speeds is pretty darn close to full throttle too. It's kind of fun having your foot down the whole time you're driving without endangering others. :)

One of these days, I'm going to take it to the drag strip for fun. I'll get a better value, since I'll be on the strip for at 2-3 times as long as someone in a fast car :)

Really, I got it because I thought it'd be fun to get it running and hopefully keep it running, and it would probably be an easy manual to refresh my skills and teach the kiddo and maybe the spouse on. That and bugs and cuter VW vans were spendy, so I got the Vanagon instead.

ge96 1 hour ago | | |

I am past it but unless it's Nurburging track doesn't interest me although I am trying to buy a track car eg. Lotus Exige but I have time

I don't do the squeeze benz shit, if it's day time I see a gap in traffic that's when I floor it but yeah, even with a radar detector a lot of cops/troopers don't use their radar so not even helpful... and the tickets which I was dumb and paid... like I said I'm done with it as I want to stay out of jail

It's almost a curse discovering fast cars the thrill of the acceleration... I used to drive like mundane just part of life... and with the RD now I'm just on edge looking for the cops so yeah... I'm glad not speeding now

mikeocool 10 minutes ago | |

Not sure jail is the outcome you need to be worrying about.

chaidhat 1 hour ago | |

please don’t drive that fast (I’m assuming you mean triple digits MPH). It endangers both yourself and others.

blitzar 1 hour ago | |

The right thing to do is to use your one call to phone your cat and make sure they are ok - or take them with you when you drive.

ge96 1 hour ago | | |

Yeah I hope I don't find out but the one time I was arrested (too drunk at a bar) I was released ROR or something no bond. That was a scary experience like you just disappear.

zamadatix 2 hours ago |

Before MFA was mandated on every service this was an easy problem to solve. Now when you lose your phone while out and about you lose your ability to log in to even Dave's Speed Cow Milker's Enthusiast Forum unless you're at home with another computer already logged in to various things.

petesergeant 1 hour ago | |

Learning my 1Password recovery key took quite a while, but should allow me to do a cold reboot of my digital life.

hod6654 39 minutes ago | | |

It's something that you never use on a daily basis. Very easily forgotten...

et-al 1 hour ago | | |

Yubikeys could be cheaper. In addition to the two I have, I bought two more to store offsite with friends and family for redundancy (with access to my password manager + important email accounts).

cbracketdash 2 hours ago |

Why is it more likely you'll have internet access when you don't have a phone? If you happen to find a computer, what's insufficient about writing an email?

SoftTalker 2 hours ago | |

How will you log into your email from a strange computer without your phone. Gmail has required 2-factor auth for a long time.

306bobby 1 hour ago | | |

I get your point, but believe it or not there's more email services than just Gmail

delduca 2 hours ago | |

My wife doesn't check email frequently, so SMS (or even better, WhatsApp) would be more reliable.

Maybe an alternative is to store the WhatsApp contact information of people who could help behind a password.

Then, if I need help, I can ask to borrow someone's phone on the street. If they don't have WhatsApp, I can just make a regular phone call instead.

fn-mote 2 hours ago | | |

> If they don't have WhatsApp

Is this really likely? I would guess only 70 year olds don't have WhatsApp.

Seems more likely you forget the impoprtant phone numbers because you never enter them manually.

Diti 1 hour ago |

I thought the unlabeled `<textarea>` was part of the prominent Cloudflare captcha that’s on the page. I sent intense swearing as a result. I’m sorry. But your UI could be made slightly better (by adding a label)!

ahmedfromtunis 1 hour ago |

I built life-link almost a year ago for the same purpose: https://github.com/ahmedsaoudi/life_link

I even created a generator so people can configure it with their Telegram/Pushover settings and have it generate a static app easy to host on Netlify or Clouflare Pages/Workers.

hod6654 33 minutes ago | |

This is so simple and yet so useful!

sixhobbits 2 hours ago |

I did something similar, just a photo of handwritten phone mumbers and an easy to remember URL that's not indexed.

Anyone will hopefully lend you a phone if you're in a pinch but I realized that I don't know very numbers to actually call and it's kinda weird to start using email/Whatsapp whatever on a strangers phone compared to asking to visit one site and make one call

FractalParadigm 27 minutes ago | |

> Anyone will hopefully lend you a phone if you're in a pinch

I honestly wouldn't count on it, at least not where I'm from, not anymore anyways. IME, having been in that situation (and knowing the numbers I need to call) it's rare for someone to let a stranger use their personal device for something as mundane as a phone call due to risk of theft, scams, or other criminal behaviour, not just on the part of the person borrowing the phone, but the person on the other end being contacted from an unknown number. While the chances of something like that realistically happening are incredibly low, it's a surprisingly easy social engineering method that's got people wary of trusting others to handle effectively their entire life in one device. A lot of businesses don't even let customers make personal phone calls from their landline for the same reason.

hk1337 1 hour ago |

I was trying to figure out if the bad gateway page was the page or an error

delduca 1 hour ago | |

I was deploying a new version. For some reason sometimes I do not get zero down deployments with Dokku, probably missing the healthcheck.

josegonzalez 18 minutes ago | | |

Dokku maintainer here. Happy to help you debug why this is happening on our discord/slack. Links here: https://dokku.com/docs/getting-started/where-to-get-help/

NewEntryHN 1 hour ago |

Hmm I'm not sure why in an emergency situation accessing a webpage would be easier than making a phone call.

tracker1 1 hour ago | |

You remember the URL but not a phone number.

delduca 1 hour ago | |

The problem is to remember numbers.

philipwhiuk 1 hour ago |

I... I would not trust my emergency page to an LLM.

delduca 1 hour ago | |

The LLM is just to make the message short for the SMS. The entire message is sent by mail without any AI.

autoexec 1 hour ago |

This isn't a terrible idea, but I'd password protect it and share the password with the people you want to be able to contact you. That'll help avoid spam/scams. "I'm your family member in trouble please send money now to X immediately no time to explain further" is a very common scam and a page like this would make it very easy.

mrdw 2 hours ago |

"LLM-summarized" lmao

cdot2 1 hour ago | |

I'm not especially anti-LLM but emergency messages seems like a terrible use case. If you're typing out a detailed emergency message then I would think you would need all of your details to be sent or you could simply type a shorter message.

delduca 2 hours ago | |

Do you know another way to fit a 3000 long message into a 160ish SMS?

MSFT_Edging 1 hour ago | | |

19 SMS messages.

Does anyone still pay per text?

philipwhiuk 1 hour ago | | |

Why 3000 ? Set a character limit. If the detail is important they can just send 2.. or 10.

TZubiri 2 hours ago | | |

Ok I understand the usecase now.

I would have used two textboxes, Title and description, but this works as well.

ForHackernews 2 hours ago | | |

write a shorter emergency message?

"I was in a car accident, come to general hospital downtown"

comrade1234 2 hours ago |

Did you get my request for help?

delduca 1 hour ago | |

I got ~300 requests :)

So far...