Show HN: You will die in X weeks

https://www.failflow.com/die

by shahahmed • 7 years ago

51 53 7 years ago

shahahmed2• 7 years ago

I built an interactive visualization that shows you how many weeks of life you have left. Seeing the finiteness of life definitely helps me stop procrastinating!

this-pony• 7 years ago

It gives me mostly anxiety

cybwraith• 7 years ago

I like it! I think it should also add in "If you commute 2 hours/day, 5 days per week, you'll spend X weeks sitting in a car."

Agentlien• 7 years ago

I like that idea, though I'd probably word it differently. Personally, I do spend 2 hours a day 5 days a week commuting. However, I don't commute by car.

the_af3• 7 years ago

Somehow that's more depressing than the 1500 weeks spent sleeping. At least sleeping is (for the most part) a restorative/enjoyable part of life. Commuting to work is hell.

sethammons• 7 years ago

The classic example is that you will spend over a full month of working hours putting on socks. Some assumptions: living 91 years, taking 30s a day to deal with socks, and work days being around 8hrs.

xwdv2• 7 years ago

It was cool but by the time I got to the part of people’s accomplishments I felt utterly worthless and left.

God damn, I haven’t accomplished much of anything in my life except writing code and accumulating money to spend on making more money.

khazhou2• 7 years ago

Yeah, that part kinda frustrated me. The boxes highlight, e.g., that Simone Biles and Michael Phelps has world records in their teens... so what exactly is the takeaway? I'm happy for them, I'm not sad about myself for it -- it's just random trivia.

Unclear message.

GFischer• 7 years ago

You're beating most of us. I've done nothing but write code and accumulate debt..

ljm• 7 years ago

If you can take your mind off the comparison bit (I think it’s unfortunate they put that there) and look at what’s made you happy so far, then the result might be quite interesting.

I’ve been doing a different version of this sort of activity for a while to help with depression. E.g The first time I travelled alone or moved country might not impress anyone else, but they’re certainly pivotal moments in my own development.

I think we’ll all have our own examples, and we can quite often be dismissive of them.

taurath3• 7 years ago

Fwiw it’s simulateneously comparing you with the biggest .0001% outliers in recent human history.

starshadowx2• 7 years ago

"On average, women get 364 weeks of life than men"

I think this should say "364 more weeks".

ASalazarMX3• 7 years ago

Surprising how little 7 years sound in weeks.

zepto• 7 years ago

This is why there is a tradition of skull watches:

https://www.watches.com/blog/skull-watches-over-time/

throwaway_bad• 7 years ago

This is not an original idea: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html

But I don't see credits anywhere.

sunir2• 7 years ago

You don’t need to credit anyone. It isn’t a school paper. And no death clocks are an older idea than this webpage.

khazhou2• 7 years ago

A random article from 5 years ago doesn't own this concept.

JansjoFromIkea• 7 years ago

you seem to be assuming it's such an utterly genius idea that they had to have stolen it as opposed to just coming up with it by themselves

NickNaraghi2• 7 years ago

The other responses to this comment seem oddly defensive to me.

I was thinking the same thing - in particular, the format and the connection to famous milestones are similar in a way that's uncanny.

DrKabab• 7 years ago

Yep. Something fishy about got defensive the replies are. Besides, its not just an idea from a "random inter Blog from 6 years ago", Tim Urban also shows it in his popular Ted(x) talk

sunir2• 7 years ago

It's Hacker News. It's not defensiveness; it's a check on social norms to remain positive.

For business ideas, originality is great, but execution is everything.

For hacker ideas, originality is great, but the hack value is everything.

There's nothing gained by poo-pooing someone else's fun little project.

Be positive, encourage more hacking, encourage more people building things.

coolspot• 7 years ago

Would be nice to have lines representing decades. Also I doubt 91 year lifespan.

kangnkodos• 7 years ago

Does this give everyone a 91 year expected life span? If so, it could be more accurate if it took your current age into account. Older people who have already dodged a lot of chances to die are expected to live to an older age, on average. Younger people are expected to die at a younger age, on average.

dysoco• 7 years ago

Yeah no way I'm getting depressed on a Friday afternoon

html5web• 7 years ago

Just try it. It’s something you do not expect :)

taurath3• 7 years ago

Its what I expected, and even worse because you get to compare your life against the milestones of the greatest accomplishments in recent human history.

nathankunicki• 7 years ago

It's exactly what I expected, and I regret trying it.

gyvastis• 7 years ago

You could make the memorable pop-ups on hover instead of on click. It would make it faster than trying to find that small rectangle you're supposed to click.

d--b• 7 years ago

There's nothing quite like contemplating the finiteness of life to help you to stop procrastinating.

I had the total opposite thought. Seeing this makes me realize how stupid it is to toil one's life away for a career

ninju• 7 years ago

I believe they are implying that 'procrastinating' is the same thing as 'toiling one's life' away

xwdv2• 7 years ago

There’s not much of a point to life, so you might as well choose to be happy and chase after pleasurable stimuli. The silver lining to toiling at a career is that it gives you the funding to chase greater and greater stimuli and with less effort. As long as you keep your body healthy the climax of your life will be that much greater. If your career is not doing that for you come up with a new strategy or get a new career, but never change the goal.

winter_blue• 7 years ago

Fair point.

(Basically, if you have the financial means, live the best life you can. Don't toil it away on non-meaningful stuff.)

taurath3• 7 years ago

Trigger warning for anyone with depression or anxiety - this will more than likely make you feel like crap.

cagenut• 7 years ago

You can always tell those links, they start with "http".

RandomGuyDTB• 7 years ago

sometimes they start with an "https" too

Ancalagon• 7 years ago

Seriously, talk about existential crisis :(

smegmasamurai• 7 years ago

can confirm - have both - feel like crap

ASalazarMX3• 7 years ago

OTOH, I picked 1930-01-01 and it says 48 weeks left. Be glad you're not from 1930.

drharby• 7 years ago

Some sort of death clock?

the_af3• 7 years ago

Some years ago there was a similar "death clock" site which everyone at the office was sharing. When I opened it, it predicted I had more or less a month to live.

Yes, yes, for a minute I didn't get the joke. I'm dumb :P

buboard2• 7 years ago

Maan, can you please give me the exact date so i can make arrangements??

Also, does this take into account leap years?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON8cTi5NSMc

the_af3• 7 years ago

My death is sure to be such a bore. I intend to skip it and be elsewhere.

buboard2• 7 years ago

But they make funerals and flowers and all, you should go it's a once in a lifetime experience.

munherty• 7 years ago

"If it takes 50 weeks to become advanced at any skill, you can learn about 44 new skills during your career or 64 if you include retirement. Might as well pick something for this week"

This last statement really stood out to me. Especially as someone who has been feeling like theyre are late to the career phase of life.

smsm42• 7 years ago

50 weeks seems too low. Even if you're going all-in "do nothing but this" I have hard time believing you can go from "no idea" to mastery in less than a year in most subjects.

ASalazarMX3• 7 years ago

Advanced, not master. The low hanging fruit is going from novice to intermediate, progressing to advanced requires more effort, and mastering is the really difficult part.

aoveri• 7 years ago

The contemplation of death is a necessary exercise for a well-rounded mind. All the better that it's now available with a slick UI.

_bxg1• 7 years ago

https://youtu.be/ON8cTi5NSMc?t=75

z3ugma• 7 years ago

Curious why this seems to make a record in a database with an autoincrement ID for each sumbission(https://www.failflow.com/die/1102). Try putting a number <1500 at the end of the URL to see some strangers' answers.

shahahmed2• 7 years ago

Hello - it's not an auto-increment, that's the number of weeks calculated from your birthday til today. You can try it with 3000 to see what it looks like.

wbrando• 7 years ago

The section at the end displaying famous figures and their milestones seems a little bit counterintuitive, at least from a certain perspective. If the goal is to get visitors to stop procrastinating, it's pretty disheartening to display that information and make the visitor realize they've likely done nothing in their life by comparison.

excessive• 7 years ago

I prefer looking at in months. If you make a grid 36 across and 30 tall, those are the months of a 90 year life. Much easier for me to fit in my head.

Show HN: You will die in X weeks

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