Texting myself the weather every day (opens in new tab)

I had to leave twilio after the new requirements for SMS took effect. I just couldn't get approved to send text messages to a single phone number - myself.

That made me laugh. Github actions was just running Cron so that one could easily be self hosted.

Wonder if the new solution potentially decreases (or increases) the volume of banal surveillance.

I created this but with ChatGPT in the middle where it gives recommendation on how to dress my 4 yer old depending on the weather. It messages my families telegram channel.

I guess that means you can get proper iMessages. That would be great and look the part.

I quickly looked at Samsung's Modes and Routines app, and you could build a similar routine (but only with a local notification).

This is a British thing called self-deprecating humour where he's already thought ahead to those who will critically ask, "wouldn't it be less effort to just open the Weather app every morning!?" and is jokingly acknowledging that yes, it would be, while signalling to other hackers this shared feeling we all know that we don't do these things to save time even if we say we do, we do them because they make us happy.

Most of the time it’s a solution looking for a problem with these recreational programming writeups, and that’s perfectly fine.

I also wrote a script that downloads my mum’s favorite series from public broadcasters, puts them in Plex and sends her a text message. Is it necessary? No, but it was fun.

Yeah on my Android device I use an app called Breezy Weather [1] which shows me the temp, weather, and air quality on my lock screen.

I'd love to figure out how to get an hourly weather widget on the lock screen though.

[1] https://github.com/breezy-weather/breezy-weather

Having very recently gone through this process for both a “local” number A2P registration as well as a toll-free registration process I can say, unequivocally, that’s already what it is.

There is no step in the process that would deter any company from taking the ~30 minutes of effort to get the registration details in order. We run a legitimate company that was only seeking to send transactional notifications that our customers specifically requested, and it took 4 rounds of back and forth to get approved. However, each step provided a very clear error code with very specific remedies (e.g. Opt-in form must include language which states…), which would make it a rote process for automation or even manual repetition. In fact, the only thing that I could see which would deter a company which seeks to rely on spam for profit would be if the registration fees were larger than their expected profit (they’re not, thankfully).

I don’t even mean this comment to necessarily be an indictment of the process - it was…fine? I’m just not entirely sure what it’s purpose could be except to collect additional fees for each SMS campaign.

Sole prop registrations (for individuals/non-corporations) are not _too_ onerous anymore and generally have a faster time to approval, provided you submit the right docs. Totally agree it's a money grab though. Twilio et al. have so much power to keep bad actors at bay but keep pushing responsibility to the consumers of their API. I feel like setting up push notifications is easier though, which is saying something.

Pushover is $7 one-time, you can push notifications via a simple api. Having a machine hosted on, say, fly.io waking up once a day, fetching open meteo data and pushing via the pushover api would effectively cost $0/month.

For me it's about being able to build a mental model of the relationship between the forecast and the feeling so when I look at a forecast for the future I have a better idea what that might actually feel like.

The numbers alone aren't enough especially in places with microclimates and shade etc.

I live in a place where right now it's either 16C or 28C and looks the same in the morning. It's important for knowing what to wear

If you walk or ride a bike, it reminds you to wear the right jacket (:

There's also a GitHub Action, `set-timezone`, that can be called in the workflow for that purpose:

https://github.com/szenius/set-timezone

That used to be the way to do that in 2G era.

Multiple Nokia 6210 or similar connected via RS ports to servers. It was reliable, reasonably priced (SMS price was not great compared to today), allowed for around 12 or so texts a minute AFAIR. Some companies I know used to do that for downtime notifications to admins.

Today I can get a card with unlimited text for around 3-4€ a month.

Honestly pushover is better and cheaper.

I use the Telegram bot API to send myself the UV Index every morning, it's really simple to use and free

I can send myself an SMS via Google Voice, which has never charged me anything.

Sadly, it seems this option is fading away, at least in the US.

https://www.smseagle.eu/2025/05/08/no-support-for-email-to-t...