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Comment by wubbfindel | Hacker News Reader

"im ded :( plz walk doggie"

Man, that's not how I would want to find out that a friend or family member has passed away.

:-|

I don't know, getting that as a final joke from the right friend or younger family member might be my favorite way to be informed, and then I'd go walk their dog. I'd still be sad, of course, but there's really no good way to be informed of this. In all likely hood, I'd already be informed, and then I'd get this half-assed reminder and be all "oh my god, it's so like them!"

Actually when considering likelihood, they're probably on vacation and forgot to pause the program. A better message might be along the lines of: "Hi this is Sean's personal assistant script: I can't confirm that his puppy has been getting walked would you check into that for me? Spare key is..."

I agree in part, but I think that if you are setting up such a message, it's important that you inform your friends and family of the message while you are still alive, and probably you should also tell them that the message might end up getting sent while you are still alive because you forgot or for some other reason didn't get around to confirming that you are alive still in time.

Right -- the message is customizable, and after you save your contacts, it prompts you with a message you can text them to let them know about the service.

Yeah, you customize your own message -- write whatever you'd want to send, e.g. the location of a spare key.

well but it's funny enough not to cause much harm on a false alarm, while still triggering research in to the doggie/death situation :)

Also, the message is customizable. I'm kind of surprised at how many commenters didn't assume it would be, so I'll need to think about how to change the presentation.

Oh, it's all customizable. You write whatever you want, like "I haven't checked in in a day -- please make sure I'm alright."

right? How horrible...

You can set the message to whatever you want; the message in the screenshots is just in keeping with the overall tone of the site.

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