MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
jan.miksovsky.com
jan.miksovsky.com
This reminds me of a desire I've had for a long time: a simple, wall-mountable eInk device that could be configured with a URL (+wifi creds) and render a markdown file, refreshing once every hour or so. It would be so useful for so many applications – I'm a parish priest and so I could use it to let people know what events are on, if a service is cancelled, the current prayer list, ... the applications would be endless. I'd definitely pay a couple of hundred dollars per device for a solid version of such a thing, if it could be mounted and then recharged every month or two.
(disclaimer, i'm the founder)
Also, what country are the orders shipped from? US?
It's shipped from USA.
I don't want a battery because:
- although every X months is quite ok, I don't want the hassle of remembering to charge it (first world problems, I know)
- but I also have a fear of leaving devices with a battery plugged in for a long time / having to monitor for battery swelling or other abnormalities
I already have a classic battery-powered display which shows temperature info from some sensors and it's really convenient, but annoying when the battery is dead right when you need the info. Even if that only happens every X months.
https://usetrmnl.com/assets/section2-3-d6887b41db12ad0659992...
as the first character, タ (ta), is missing from the display, making it read "(a)minaru".
Might be a neat idea to offer a magnetic mount for it, like a flexible flat magnetic board shaped to fit the TRMNL with a sticky backing so you can attach it somewhere and then use that to attach the TRMNL (your site doesn't seem to say anything about being magnetic so I'm guessing you have to attach magnets to the TRMNL too though?).
For that matter, the site doesn't offer any information about mounting it at all. Looking at the disassembly animation I see what looks like a hole to hang it on a nail, but it might be nice to put this info at least in the FAQ section if nowhere else (that does say it can be "hung on a wall" but no details).
we included magnets for VIP backers on our crowdfunding campaign and may start selling them again. device has a mounting hole on the back for nails / hooks, we’ll probably release mechanical specs so people can 3D print or otherwise fabricate their own mounts. for example some people want to mash up an array of them. but until then, adhesive magnets work great for the fridge use case.
I came into possession of several sheafs of the A4-sized ones, which now serve as "generic surprisingly heavy objects".
Just one comment:
> Developer Edition > Ability to build custom plugins for yourself and others. Unlocks our API. > $20
Isn't it in your interest that developers unlock the potential of your hardware in some new ways? Charging for it seems... weird.
I mean the price is not that high, it just doesn't feel right to pay for access to API. My 2 cents.
If eInk wasn't a monopoly this would be 100% a project I'd love to do
I wanted the same kind of general eink device, but this is also supposedly super hackable!
no longer a Kickstarter btw, shipping same-day now (see homepage)
(This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing about it!)
> Your TRMNL device pings our server, never the other way around.
> Each request made to our /api/display endpoint includes only the minimum details needed to support customers -- an API key, device mac address, firmware version, battery voltage, and wifi signal strength.
Super hackable but it pings their hosted server and nothing else?! Is there a way to run your own server?
> Purchase a TRMNL from our home page: https://usetrmnl.com
> Then follow the instructions on BYOD/S > Server.
> More TBD.
[1]: https://github.com/usetrmnl/firmware/blob/e3db8c37990c2333ec...
if you think about it, we are incentivized to do this. no subscription fees means the more you ping our server, the lower our margin. but for now we're wrapping up fulfilling all pre-orders, scaling, etc typical new product issues.
even without BYOS (bring your own server) docs however, it's already possible to point TRMNL to your own stack if you 1) fork our OSS firmware + b) have some experience with e-ink.
brief post here outlining more of the benefits: https://usetrmnl.com/blog/developer-edition
need to update docs too, thanks for the call out. we were writing docs before this piece was ironed out.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/invisible-computers/e-p...
I've backed the new, bigger display, which should be shipping soon.
You can either just get the module, or buy with a battery and mountable case already attached. I think all of the models are also available via Digikey and Mouser if people don't trust random websites.
More amazing was how creative the sisters were in managing themselves with technology. Many decisions are made by votes, done in real time globally! Religious people get short shrift.
TLDR: 20 years as SWE, then used his skills for his calling.
1. install python
2. make a file named `index.html` somewhere.
2a. put this in the "head" tag, so it'll refresh hourly: `<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3600">`.
3. run `python -m http.server` from the same folder
This will start a single-threaded web server on 8000
4. On another machine on your network verify you can pull up http://firstmachine:8000/.
5. having proven it works, go buy an e-ink display and point it to http://firstmachine:8000/, make it the default homepage.
Any time you have anything to say, just edit the `index.html` file and the eink display will update.
No need for fancy subscription services or kickstarter projects or crowdfunding... just... batteries included python.
Like most DIY tinkerer solutions, unfortunately, which is why people like paying money for productised solutions - the time it takes to debug and troubleshoot home made solutions is often prohibitive for a lot of people who aren’t techheads.
"I had to reboot my raspberry pi"
"whoops rando eInk display doesn't do javascript"
... In short - if our parish priest above sees the original post, I'd suggest he give it a go. It's an hour to set up and won't cost him or his parish anything (aside from buying the eink display ofc).
If it turns out that the DIY solution is insufficient, or his parish is wealthy enough to spend money on a thing like this, great, then upgrade to that.
* Browser runs out of memory or has other issue and stops refreshing.
* Wifi connection drops and browser displays an error page and stops executing your refreshes. The power-saving options on the RPIs wifi caused me quite a bit of grief before I disabled them.
* Raspberry Pi crashes with kernel errors due to cheap SD card, underpowered USB power supply, or something else.
I ran into these issues one by one over a few months and fixed each one as I ran into it. What I ended up with was:
* Browser set to run at OS startup displaying my page.
* That page having a meta refresh tag, and javascript code to reload the page periodically.
* A browser extension to automatically reload the page as well if both of those failed.
* A watchdog daemon that detects when the RPI has frozen and reboots it.
* A cron job that reboots periodically.
With all of those my dashboard would run for months without any issues or interruptions. Just sharing so others can be aware of potential issues.
Purpose: if you come into the building to fetch the car with the medical equipment, you could see at a glance how many people acknowledged the alert and would arrive shortly etc. Sadly, the system tended to loose its WIFI connection and then the reloaded web page would display a network error. And since the web page was a 3rd party product, we could not hack the Javascript.
1. AJAX request for itself, with a timed retry in the case of any failure (optional: During this time, add a visible indicator that you're having connectivity issue) 2. Extract the contents of the <body> tag of the fetched HTML 3. Set the innerHTML of the <body> tag of the DOM to the fetched body.
To avoid memory leaks I'd still be tempted to also try to implement a "safe-ish refresh" that checks for a successful response and quickly fires off a location.reload() on like a daily basis.
Additionally for a raspberry pi, you can use a watchdog timer service that checks to see if the rpi has frozen, and reboots it.
So all you need to do is create a project and use a plugin(existing or your own) to generate your view. The plugin is flexible, so it could be a custom UI or uploading a HTML file for example.
Then, you can open a link on any machine like the e-ink display.
Open-source and self-hostable. But you can also use the online version I'm hosting.
It's still very new so things will break but I'm already using it in church and other meetings.
Thankfully she fully recovered after a few weeks. It takes a lot of patience to deal with someone like that, and you could tell it frequently caused a lot of frustration on her part. Every 10 minutes or so in fact.
Glad that your wife got over it.
Third and last day of our stay, as soon as I entered the living room he lit up and exclaimed my name. We sat and talked for hours, reminiscing past events with great details, until we had to leave for the plane home.
It's like asking "what makes a person unable to walk?" Arthritis, paralysis, muscle wasting, MS, Parkinson's, a broken bone, an amputated foot... some are temporary, some are permanent.
Walking is hard, even though most of us can do it. Forming memories is similarly hard.
As a side note on his mother remembering that the tablet exists, it sounds like she has amnesia quite like Henry Molaison, a famous case study in neuropathology. He had very specific brain damage that seemingly stopped him forming new memories in the same way as OP's mother, but studies showed that he could remember some things, just not consciously. So for example he would have warm feelings towards people who'd been caring for him despite not remembering them, and would also pick up card games more and more quickly as he played them repeatedly despite saying he didn't remember the game. OP's mother remembering the tablet sounds very similar, particularly when paired with the feeling of being remembered and loved by her children.
This reminds me of muscle memory. I can play pieces on the piano even though I don't actively remember the sheet music of them. My hands just "know" what to do. Funnily enough the moment I start actively thinking about certain passages that ability worsens by a lot.
I think that's when you really know a piece, when you can play it incredibly slowly. Paradoxically it's easy to play quickly and just let your fingers play out their muscle memory, playing something really slowly is the challenge.
Now I’m wondering if you can tell a kid is from an “even” or “odd” generation by which way they tie shoes…
I wonder if what you describe is kind of the reason for this.
- cheap liquid dishwasher detergent including in the prewash cup instead of costly pods that deprive the prewash cycle of soap
- Put bleach in the washer's bleach dispenser and use hot water for any light sheets, no, it doesn't hurt prints or fade light colors
- cook anything you can fit in the air fryer to decrease total time ~70% vs an oven
Why would I want to cook my milkshake?
However my wife, who’s 3 weeks younger than me, ties her shoes in a completely different way to me, which I believe is a “bunny ears” method.
Give the large variety of ways to tie shoes, there’s no way you could infer anything other than the way they are doing it now.
Even with the bunny ear method right bunny ear over left is wrong, it comes undone much easier than left bunny ear over right.
If you're like me there's a Google rabbit hole to disappear into for 1/2 hour, completely forget about, and carry on doing it completely wrong.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069...
Reddit is telling me to not accept it at face value - https://old.reddit.com/r/research/comments/1bh2jmv/this_is_h...
These mechanisms may or may not encode memories as we typically understand them, i.e., the ability to remember an event or fact, but could very plausibly shift personality, preferences, etc.
> organs outside of the brain don't contribute to memory
Interesting question. To start, personality typically refers to the totality of a person's behaviors, not the memories they may be able to bring forth. Behavior, esp automatic, is informed by cognitive states informed by the body.
Affect is the general sense of feeling that you experience throughout each day. It is not emotion but a much simpler feeling with two features. The first is how pleasant or unpleasant you feel, which scientists call valence. . . . The second feature of affect is how calm or agitated you feel, which is called arousal. [0]
Simple pleasant and unpleasant feelings come from an ongoing process inside you called interoception. Interoception is your brain’s representation of all sensations from your internal organs and tissues, the hormones in your blood, and your immune system.
...[M]oment-to-moment interoception infuses us with affect, which we then use as evidence about the world. People like to say that seeing is believing, but affective realism demonstrates that believing is seeing.
0. Barrett, Lisa Feldman. How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (p. 72). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
1. ibid (p. 56).
2. ibid (pp. 76-77)
At least playing is mostly an entertainment. Passwords is where the shit happens. I recently lost a 20y old account thanks to this.
At the start it's all about carrying around notes full of picking the relevant condition depending on the current permutation/state of the cube then following the step by step algorithms on which sequence of steps to perform for that condition.
Then you'll naturally realise that certain conditions happen a lot more than others and you'll start to remember the sequence of letters for each series of steps to perform.
Over time you'll forget the letters and your fingers will just know the sequence to perform when you perceive that condition, kind of like typing a password without thinking about it.
Eventually you'll be able to fit each condition and algorithm into your muscle memory and completely forget the series of letters that you used to memorise.
Now I can barely explain how to solve a rubik's cube in-person. I just do it.
If nothing else, myelinization counts as a form of memory. Strengthened by reuse.
I would love to know if those warm feelings are stronger with individuals who remind you of someone you used to know. “This nurse reminds me of Aunt Sarah, who was nice to me when my dog died.” And so forth.
I always find those non-obvious connections fascinating, like the disorders where e.g. someone can't say the word "fork" when they're looking at one despite being to describe what you use it for etc, but can immediately name it when they touch it.
Edit: got a link? I'd be interested to read that.
I have a relative with anterograde amnesia from a stroke, so that story got passed on to my father when it happened. 8 years ago perhaps?
I have no idea if feelings would automatically transfer to me from people with amnesia, but they certainly do for people without it, even though I don't remind them of anyone they know well enough to name.
I expect it is very hard to overestimate how incorrect our mental model memory and learning is. If literally everything was forgotten, then you could set up a reverse groundhog day or groundhog hour for someone, just optimize for them having a wonderful day every day. (Would still be horrible for the loved ones to be effectively disconnected from their still-living relative.) Probably there have been movies made about this.
I have no experience with this but I am sure it is nothing, nothing, nothing like that. The article says you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.
> Because she cannot remember things, she goes through each day in a state of low-grade anxiety about where her grown children are and whether they are all right. She feels she hasn’t heard from any of us in a long time.
To me this is not a description of someone frozen in time. To me this is a description of some horrific combination of some amount of learning or "remembering" happening, some sense of passage of time, and no episodic memories to draw on to explain any of it.
There is a Drew Barrymore movie Fifty first dates. And yes, it is horrible for the relatives.
It's even aesthetically pleasing! What mom wouldn't find this charming?
> I ended up writing a small JavaScript function to maximize font size: it makes the text invisible (via CSS visibility: hidden), tries displaying the text at a very large size, and then tries successively smaller font sizes until it finds a size that lets all the text fit. It then makes the text visible again.
Wow -- not just for accessibility but this seems like a very useful feature to have in native CSS.
Nice find.
Overall such a heartwarming use of technology. Love.
Css jumped the shark and today I'd vote to scrap it entirely, which I know is a strong and controversial statement. But I grew up with Microsoft Word and Aldus PageMaker, and desktop publishing was arguably better in the 1980s than it is today. Because everyone could use it to get real work done at their family-owned small businesses, long before we had the web or tech support. Why are we writing today's interfaces in what amounts to assembly language?
Anyway, I just discovered how float is really supposed to work with shape-outside. Here's an example that can be seen by clicking the Run code snippet button:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/33953666
Notice how this tiny bit of markup flows like a magazine article. Browsers should have been able to do this from day one. But they were written by unix and PC people, not human interface experts like, say, Bill Atkinson. Just look at how many years it took outline fonts to work using strokes and shadows, so early websites couldn't even place text over images without looking like Myspace.
I think that css could benefit from knowing about the dimensions of container elements, sort of like with calc() and @media queries (although @media arguably shouldn't exist, because mobile shouldn't be its own thing either). And we should have more powerful typesetting metaphors than justify. Edit: that would adjust font size automatically to fit within a container element.
IMHO the original sin of css was that it tried to give everyone a cookie cutter media-agnostic layout tool, when we'd probably be better off with the more intuitive auto flow of Qt, dropping down to a constraint matrix like Apple's Auto Layout when needed.
Disclaimer: I'm a backend developer, and watching how much frontend effort is required to accomplish so little boggles my mind.
> not being able to center text no matter how much frontend experience we have
Not being able to center things is a bit of a meme, but flexbox was introduced back in 2009 and has been supported by major browsers for quite a long time. Centering text and elements is now extremely easy.
> css could benefit from knowing about the dimensions of container elements
You're in luck! Container queries were added to CSS fairly recently:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_contain...
I agree with GP that CSS should be scrapped.
Obviously this is a very contrived example but it can also express itself in subtler ways.
https://www.joshwcomeau.com/css/container-queries-introducti...
I take offense at this! We weren't that stupid back then! We just put the text 5 times on the page, with position: relative, 4x in the outline color, each copy with a 1px offset in a different direction, and the final one in the text color. That trick worked with pretty early CSS.
I've had dozens of clients complain about headings wrapping onto the next line when they add one too many letters, and ask if we can make the font size smaller without affecting the others. There are several ways to accomplish that, but they're all annoying compared to a theoretical one-line CSS solution like:
font-size: 12-18px 400px;
Or something of that nature that could hopefully do it automatically.
font-size: "as-big-as-possible-while-still-fitting-parent-container";
font-size: max;[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text-wrap
anyone with influence on the CSSWG?
My dad didn't like poetry clock, but he does like image gen. So we got a (color) Inky Impression 7.3 and hooked it up to an RPi.
I made a basic telegram bot that you could send a verbal prompt to ("snowy day"). It would then ask which of your favorite artist styles it should create an image in. I found that presenting a list of two styles combined had cooler results. The prompt would be used to fetch a random quote on the topic, and quote and style would then be feed to stable diffusion, and maybe 30 seconds later you have fresh art and a quote on the display.
My dad then asked if we just could forward images directly there. He prefers, each day, to post an image of whatever the day is (November 13 is "World Kindness Day") and occasionally share a family photo. My mom looks forward to seeing what day he picks every day.
That's fun. Although, from the article:
> There’s one other problem, though. It’s well known that AI language models like ChatGPT have a tendency to make up data (sometimes known as “hallucinations”), and it turns out that’s true even if you’re just telling the time. Roughly once every 15 minutes, says Webb, the clock will simply lie about the time just to make a certain rhyme work. “The fibbing is hilarious. Sometimes you can’t tell — it might say ‘one past two’ when it’s actually ‘two past one,’” he says. He says this will be fixable but, for now, is a fun quirk of the system. “Clockwork means you get precision drift; AI-work means you get hallucination drift.”
;)
Anterograde Amnesia, on its own, is a failure to write to the SSD.
Medical amateurs, like tech amateurs, might struggle to differentiate between the two.
Medical professionals, like tech professionals, should not.
When it is not possible to upgrade the SSD, using the CPU and the RAM to compensate for the faulty SSD is an excellent hack.
There is a reason I check out Hacker News on an almost daily basis, this is it.
All boox tablet/e-readers just run Android. They can do literally anything Android can for folks asking about the loading and displaying of the web page. There are several "kiosk" apps and browsers with kiosk modes. Also fairly expensive Android automation tools.
> It takes approximately 40 seconds to refresh this display
I think that would rule it out for the purpose of this project - the demo in their introduction video[0] shows that it flashes multiple colors for ages during this long refresh. I imagine that could be very confusing for someone whose short-term memory might not last that long.
EDIT: posted this before I noticed harpastrum's comment
You can either just get the module, or buy with a battery and mountable case already attached. I think all of the models are also available via Digikey and Mouser if people don't trust random websites.
> Despite her amnesia, my mom came to remember that this display exits and what it’s for. She looks forward to seeing updates from her children on it.
This is the most interesting part for me here. Brains are such wondrous things. Would be cool to know if this is a special quirk of her mom or this is something which can help others like her too.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_priming
For example, I am already in the habit of logging every phone call to any doctor's offices or important contacts as they're happening. Being able to refer back to all the notes has helped me manage a number of complex errors. I know the name of the person I spoke to, the date, and what we discussed. Any time I need to make a call about a topic or to a company, I have an easy way to pull up all the past notes.
I'd like to think if I ever got amnesia, already having this system in place would serve me really well if I couldn't learn new things. I have the old things, and the habit of referring to and adding new things to the list.
But I wonder what else would or wouldn't be useful to try to practice now?
That's the kind of idea I'm looking for.
As for amnesia, it seems like a habit of making notes and seeking out to read your own notes would be useful. However, the trend in technology to constantly change behaviour, appearance, and functionality makes anything digital a barrier. Manual notes are also susceptible to being impossible for ageing people to make. So it's really hard to think of something.
I want to do something similar for anki cards I'm struggling with, and I dunno if I'm in for a world of pain. I was considering https://shop.boox.com/products/go6 for my needs as it's a bit cheaper.
E-ink displays don't have this, they just blend in.
Unrelated, but does anyone know a good TV remote for elders? I'd like something like a Stream Deck with big buttons for things like :
* Turn it on/off
* Switch to TV channel 315
* Switch to TV channel 517
* Play Planet Earth on Netflix
* Play Young Sheldon on Netflix
My grandparents are 92 and 97 and even big remotes aren't cutting it. Not only that, but I'd like for them to be able to use ondemand video platforms, not only random TV channels.
To control the TV itself, it seems a RPi or ESP32 with an IR led is enough, but to put something to play on Netflix is surprisingly difficult. I'm able to control a Fire Stick using remote adb commands, but not sure how reliable it is. I'd love to find something like this off the shelf.
Technology is great, but it's not made for elders. It frustrates them (and me), and they end up feeling stupid, which angers me.
I am sure someone else must have done this, but I couldn't find it anywhere.
If anyone has a solution in this space, I would be very interested.
On the former I had luck with one of those jumbo remotes that just has a few buttons (channel up/down, volume up/down, power, mute) and separately programming the TV to only have the channels they cared about in the list. When it came to smart apps it just became impossible to try to fix via the remote as the remote wasn't really the problem.
I remember my great aunt repeatedly mashing the on/off button insisting that the TV was not working, when it never had a chance to bring up the picture.
My mum just recently switched TV provider and while the new box has quite capable voice search (including both regular TV channels and integrated streaming services), it always takes her about 3 attempts to get it.
The “correct” way is to just press the button and say what you want without waiting. But she needs some sort of visual indication that it’s listening to know she’s “doing it right”, which takes just long enough to appear on screen that it’s either stopped listening and started trying to process background noise, or she presses the button again thinking she didn’t get it.
My sister has a disability making independent living a challenge. Although I have 0 technical background, I need to start thinking and brainstorming in this manner.
I think an e-ink that we control remotely might work for her, too. We can put an item up there and then remove it as soon as it's not relevant anymore so she won't keep re-reading it and obsessing over it.
- I would expect that their and your mom did not forget how to use a web browser when they acquired short term memory issues. So a web browser interface (links, scrolling, buttons) might still be fine.
- I was surprised that in the posters' display, the date / time of each msg was not shown.
- I was susprised that there is no reminder "Mum, since an operation, you rarely form short term memories." Wouldn't it make sense that even that is not forming a memory?
- As you mention, remove the item or mention how it was resolved.
Had to write a medium article with exact instructions for how to use it otherwise she was very skeptical of using it. The only issue was that she would sometimes read aloud which would enter her into a feedback loop lol.
https://medium.com/@admangan2018/how-to-utilize-the-transcri...
1. https://www.levels.fyi/blog/scaling-to-millions-with-google-...
That way, all of the rendering is done on the web server (by a cron script in my case and LaTex) and display doesn't have any fiddly html/css issues it is just putting up a full size png image which was part of the library that the Soldered guys provided.
Based on the referenced article I'm going to see if I can replicate this for my Dad who is at the age where he doesn't remember things.
[1] https://soldered.com/product/inkplate-10-9-7-e-paper-board-c...
[1]-https://help.usetrmnl.com/en/articles/9510536-private-plugin...
[2]-https://github.com/usetrmnl/firmware/blob/main/include/confi...
As a bit of a luddite, e-ink is one of the few modern wizbangs I'm enamored with. It's so damn nice I take it as an inside woosh joke that it isn't everywhere and available without pawning my organs.
>A Compose page my siblings and I write messages and save them to be displayed.
Is there a risk of a malicious actor discovering the website and writing in their own messages? I would think building user authentication in to the MomBoard website might be a bit heavyweight. Whats the best way to do this?
https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/examples/basic-aut...
The creator is on HN too.
Disclosure: I'm from the TRMNL team.
Meeting for dinner tonight? Set the message to expire after today.
Many ship with a standard image or set of images displayed when powered off or suspended. Presumably those display for long periods of time. My experience over ~3 years with a similar Onyx BOOX device has been that those images don't burn in at all.
What is experienced is temporary ghosting which varies by display mode (these can be set either globally or per application), when partial refreshes are made. The solution is to do a full refresh every so often, for which there are a number of built-in settings, or which can be triggered manually on the tablet.
For either the author here or others looking to implement similar projects, you can very likely safely skip any consideration of burn-in, though if your interest is in crystal-clear display, full refresh can be used. Particularly when display updates are infrequent, say, < 1/minute, or any longer period.
I'd bought mine a few years back through their online store. Arrived in a few days as I recall.
<https://onyxboox.com/product#actual>
Onyx refresh their offerings frequently, though older models typically still sell for a while. You might be between offerings.
You can also likely buy used from online sales sites (e.g., Craigslist, eBay).
I'm working on a personal dashboard right now so I can have one space to leave notes for myself - I have the problem of not being able to consistently use the same tools since there are so many to reach out (social media, sms, chat apps, trello, physical notepads, .txt files). I frequently just fully forget that I've been taking notes every day, and where they're at. Building routines is, as one can imagine, really difficult. An app requires that I'm looking at my phone and can prioritize a notification. All the apps together are just too much to be able to prioritize, and I find myself hunting through all the apps for reminders or to try to ground myself.
[1] https://usetrmnl.com/integrations [2] https://usetrmnl.com/framework
Separately, regarding dementia, it is both less and more complicated than many commenters suggest.
From UCSF Neuroscience’s excellent Memory and Aging Center resources:
“Dementia is a general term for any disease that causes a change in memory and/or thinking skills that is severe enough to impair a person’s daily functioning… There are many different types of dementia… Most types of dementia cause a gradual worsening of symptoms over the course of years due to progressive damage to nerve cells in the brain caused by the underlying disease process…” [0]
Even more briefly: dementia is an umbrella term, many diseases can cause dementia, and those diseases may or may not be progressive.
It solved a personal problem.
Amazing mission behind the tech.
Could solve a myriad of issues for other families. This part is unproven, but that's why it would be cool to see the author release it as a product!
Could start by simply putting up a payment page and making them bespoke as orders start coming in.
> I ended up writing a small JavaScript function to maximize font size: it makes the text invisible (via CSS visibility: hidden), tries displaying the text at a very large size, and then tries successively smaller font sizes until it finds a size that lets all the text fit. It then makes the text visible again.
That would be a good application for dichotomic search if performance was ever a problem (I doubt it though).
More generally, having elements on a grid of different sizes should hopefully be much more easy once CSS masonry grid is available.
A good 'trick' would be to have a Gmail account (calendar, and all), share the password with the 'inner circle' and anyone can post anything they want and it will appear on the google calendar, in "Agenda" mode
Could tweak the UI to add an expiration date on the initial input screen, with a sensible default (maybe 2 weeks?)
Dementia is a multi-system failure, memory + CPU. Amnesia, on its own, is a failure of memory, the CPU is working fine. Medical amateurs, like tech amateurs, may be confused by the difference. Tech professionals, like medical professionals, ought not to be.
Since we do not yet have the capability to switch out human memory 'cards', making use of the CPU to compensate for the faulty memory card is a great hack.
There is a reason I check out Hacker News on an almost daily basis. This is it.
This product is pretty slick. The e-ink looks very natural. Anyone compared this to a Kindle or reMarkable Paper Pro?
Happily, e-ink displays don't suffer from burn-in.
Can't say if it is due to burn-in but some manufacturers do recommend refreshing the display image periodically like every 24 hours [1].
See precautions #4
https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/4.2inch_e-Paper_Module_(B)_Ma...
Brilliant use of tech, I'm happy when I see someone turn their nerd-powers to things that unabashedly make life better. Good work!