Nice! I recently thought of doing something similar, where you can shoot different kinds of real guns over the web and observe the effects over a webcam. Payment per shot would be in Dogecoin, naturally.
I am not trying to be dismissive, but I don't see how this "Solves the problem of remembering to feed the fish". If it is entirely automated, it can just as easily be automated and the fish be fed automatically. I do understand the aesthetic value of this, but I believe that that is the only value proposition that this setup has. Am I missing something over here?
TheNextWeb damn near killed my browser, and it's just an ad-laden article about the fish-food thing instead of the fish-food thing itself, which can be found at https://www.aquard.io/
The lagginess of the webcam leads me to believe that it's real, also I saw a couple of fish stop and eat algae off of a rock. A 3D simulation (which the company does do) would hopefully have better performance.
Is it safe to feed fish every hour? That seems excessive.
I use to have this screensaver running, it's very nice. I'm not sure if it's been updated in a while though. http://www.dreamaquarium.com/
"Never feed him a lot. Never more than a spot! Or something may happen. You never know what." (Childhood memory successfully recalled. That's from A Fish out of Water, a Dr. Suess "I can read it all by myself" series book almost precisely as old as I am, penned by Suess's wife, Helen.)
"I'm not at all certain the fish are real either."
This is 2014. Assuming a decent level of development skills, it is not like this is so amazing that it just has to be faked. Hooking up webcams to the internet and hooking up a few web buttons to some real equipment via an Arduino is so easy I can't help but think it's actually easier to set this up for real than convincingly fake it in front of an Internet audience!
Seriously, folks, turn the cynicism knob down a bit. And I'm a cynic myself.
Eh, I dunno, you could just put the feeder on a timer and not have to deal with scaling issues of allowing thousands of people to manage one feeding apparatus.
Hello there, I am Thomas, one of the guys involved in the development of aquard.io. The fish are real and the feeding is FCFS (first came - first served) based. We designed the logic based on an estimate of ~50 concurent users. So it does not work well (for interactions) when massive users are online. 300 Users to One Physical Object :/. Feel free to ask me anything related to the project and from the side of the team thanks for enjoying it!
As i told before, the control part is not faked. We have a dedicated PC communicating with an Arduino UNO via a Serial port (USB). PC gets (web) requests forwards it to Arduino and then it controls the airpump and the feeder.
It is indeed much easier to do it for real than to fake, although I suspect if you used real footage of fish as sprites that would largely do the trick. My theorized motivation was more along the lines of "social experiment/proof of prowess/sense of humor" than "easy route".
After a second visit and careful observation I am convinced the fish are indeed real - one swam very close to the camera so it couldn't have been a sprite, and I've also spotted a few shadows cast by the fish onto scene geometry.
Or even just walk away from your desk for a while. If you can't because your employer is looking for an ass on a seat then start looking into more challenging, and rewarding, employment. Don't just be bored at your desk, up skill.
It's unfortunate that you feel every second of your day need be used to be productive. It's also unfortunate that you feel the need to manipulate others through condescension in order to feel superior. If someone wants to feed some real fish, virtual fish, or simply play a game when bored to blow off some steam, then more power to them. How I choose to spend my time is both none of your concern, and entirely up to me.
I noticed the following about myself the other day.
When I should be doing something productive, but can't be bothered, HN is a "compromise" for me. Basically 90% of the time is wasted, but at the same time I do learn a fair bit in the other 10% of the time. I can kid myself I am doing something productive, (when 90% of the time it isn't).
The first paragraph explains this app in a more constructive way than the title:
> Sometimes it can be relaxing to peer into a fish tank and just pass a few minutes in quiet contemplation. Just you and the fish. But if you’re at work, this isn’t really a very practical way of de-stressing.
I usually prefer to grab a coffee and talk to a real human being. A little pause is sometimes useful to pick a new solution method for a problem when you are at a dead end.
>I usually prefer to grab a coffee and talk to a real human being
Plenty of people like to de-stress away from humanity, in the woods, near water especially think waterfalls, oceans, waves, beach, river... Nothing wrong with that. Everyone is different.
Time "wasted" relaxing a little with your concious in idle, is often not wasted time. Though climate and other local conditions permitting, I might suggest a short stroll in the fresh air as a better alternative.
I wonder if this is real. It'd be easy to run this system for a few days recording enough video data to be able to just play it back to people without them noticing. It also solves nicely the scaling problem (if you and 1000 other users connect to the real aquarium at the same time, what are the chances that you're going to feed the fish today?) and any potential availability/maintenance issues (you can just flush the fish down the drain and call it a day; no one will be any the wiser, and you save money on fish food).
The article inspired a spin-off idea in my head: "online crocodile feeding". No machines are involved, instead a fearless human is hired to dangle those raw, bloody wildebeest steaks in front of their noses.
One of LifeSize's internal video streams you could use for testing their video conferencing product was a fishtank, it was pretty cool. Couldn't feed the fish though.
They had a bunch in like a warehouse and you'd control the claw to see if you could get the toys. Once and a while you'd see someone slightly off camera walking around the warehouse throwing the toys back in. My brother and I got good at those games from that site. They also had an address where you could send in toys to be put in the games. I remember there was a roll of toilet paper in one of the games, and sometimes other weird things too but I don't recall anything else specifically.
Hi everyone! I am Marios, one of the developers of www.aquard.io and just wanted to let you know that the fish are live and broadcasted real-time. And because seeing is believing in 5' stay tuned for a live message for your eyes only! :)
Hi everyone! I am Marios, one of the developers of www.aquard.io and just wanted to let you know that the fish are live and broadcasted real-time. And because seeing is believing in 5' stay tuned for a live message for your eyes only! :)
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05...
Maybe there's room for two?
Maybe negative feedback just isn't the right thing to provide.
I'm not at all certain the fish are real either.
Is it safe to feed fish every hour? That seems excessive.
I use to have this screensaver running, it's very nice. I'm not sure if it's been updated in a while though. http://www.dreamaquarium.com/
I haven't looked at the feeding yet, so I can't comment on whether the amount of food is small enough.
This is 2014. Assuming a decent level of development skills, it is not like this is so amazing that it just has to be faked. Hooking up webcams to the internet and hooking up a few web buttons to some real equipment via an Arduino is so easy I can't help but think it's actually easier to set this up for real than convincingly fake it in front of an Internet audience!
Seriously, folks, turn the cynicism knob down a bit. And I'm a cynic myself.
After a second visit and careful observation I am convinced the fish are indeed real - one swam very close to the camera so it couldn't have been a sprite, and I've also spotted a few shadows cast by the fish onto scene geometry.
Chill out, he said please.
How much time have you wasted on HN over the last few years?
When I should be doing something productive, but can't be bothered, HN is a "compromise" for me. Basically 90% of the time is wasted, but at the same time I do learn a fair bit in the other 10% of the time. I can kid myself I am doing something productive, (when 90% of the time it isn't).
> Sometimes it can be relaxing to peer into a fish tank and just pass a few minutes in quiet contemplation. Just you and the fish. But if you’re at work, this isn’t really a very practical way of de-stressing.
I usually prefer to grab a coffee and talk to a real human being. A little pause is sometimes useful to pick a new solution method for a problem when you are at a dead end.
Plenty of people like to de-stress away from humanity, in the woods, near water especially think waterfalls, oceans, waves, beach, river... Nothing wrong with that. Everyone is different.
These:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claw_crane
They had a bunch in like a warehouse and you'd control the claw to see if you could get the toys. Once and a while you'd see someone slightly off camera walking around the warehouse throwing the toys back in. My brother and I got good at those games from that site. They also had an address where you could send in toys to be put in the games. I remember there was a roll of toilet paper in one of the games, and sometimes other weird things too but I don't recall anything else specifically.
Way better than feeding fish.