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by Jackpillar 1335 days ago
Random but this app was founded by ex-NFL quarterback Carson Palmer's brother Jordan.

Also still requires you to check your phone during a movie which should be immediate jail time across the board.

8 comments

>Also still requires you to check your phone during a movie which should be immediate jail time across the board

Not true! The app has cues that you can read ahead of time. Eg:

> Bob says “I didn’t know you were French!”

When you hear Bob say that, there’s your chance to go.

The app will give roughly 3 cues per movie, about 15 to 30 mins apart, so you have multiple chances.

Also, apparently you can set it to go off with a timer, although I haven’t used that feature. On iPhones you can allow specific apps notify even when you’re on Do Not Disturb, which would probably be useful in this case.

Parent is complaining about this will make you have to view your phone during the movie in order to see when it's happening, presumably because you'll disturb others who sit next to you because of the brightness of the phone.

So instead you suggest making it go off with a timer instead? That seems even worse!

Neither of the two methods I described require looking at the phone during the movie.

1. If you’re going to use the cues, you look at them before the movie starts.

2. If you’re going to use the timer, the phone will vibrate in your pocket. Granted, if you have a loud-vibrating phone, that could be disruptive (although not as bad as the screen being on or ringing, and not worse than a person getting up to go to the bathroom).

When the cue/timer happens, you leave the theater. While you’re peeing you can look at the app to find out what’s happening in the movie.

You start the app when the movie starts and it just sends a notification that vibrates at the best time. If you read the cues beforehand it’s a great reminder. Not distracting or disturbing to anyone else in the theater.
Except you can use this to tell you in advance when you can run, so you know when to take you're 1/2 way break.

And a discrete timer that vibrates in my pocket disturbs noone. And it does it at the best possible times.

Covered in their marketing copy: "Built in Timer so you can enjoy using the RunPee app during a movie without disturbing those around you."
Jordan Palmer is also an ex-NFL quarterback. He never started, wasn't that good, didn't last long, and only had 18 career passing attempts, certainly no Carson, but he was still a pro.
It's pretty funny that he probably looks bad in context, but if he showed up to a non-NFL match he'd be hilariously better than everyone there

I think about that a lot when I'm trudging through the muck on forums, especially TeamBlind. There are kids in their 20s getting burned out at Amazon who'd be able to singlehandedly revolutionize the engineering processes at most normal companies in the world.

> There are kids in their 20s getting burned out at Amazon who'd be able to singlehandedly revolutionize the engineering processes at most normal companies in the world.

You'd have to believe that talent and compensation are actually well-correlated and I'm pretty sure it's tenuous at best.

Yeah, the kids coming out of top schools and crushing their LeetCode interviews are probably smarter on average, but it's not like that necessarily translates to the sort of skills or behaviors that can revolutionize business practices.

Start the timer on the beginning cue and it will vibrate at pee times.
A live sports version of this app, predicated on the likelihood of a big play coming up, would be fun.
It would be fun to think about predictive upcoming down/ad time. For example, one of the worst offenders in live sports is the ad break-kickoff-ad break sequence in an NFL game. If you could predict based on how many ad breaks have already happened whether such a thing was about to take place, you could get buzzed right after a touchdown: "hey, you're about to get 6 minutes where nothing happens but a touchback, you can take a bathroom break plus refill your drink."
I think you're right - easier job to predict lulls in the action.
Don't most phones have the ability to vibrate?

When I used this, that's how it worked for me.

> Also still requires you to check your phone during a movie

Unless you use a smartwatch.

That's just a tiny phone on your wrist. If anything it's worse because you have it out during the entire movie.
mine has a theater mode specifically for this. yours doesn't? sounds like you "chose poorly" to quote the movie.
Or check it beforehand, and remember when you can go pee?