I just had a brilliant invention: a mailbox that, when opened by the postal carrier, sings "thank you for bringing the mail" to the tune of "thank you for being a friend." I'll take my residuals monthly, thank you.

@danielpunkass Do you know how many mailboxes the average carrier opens in a day? Probably hundreds…hundreds of times each day hearing that same refrain…it’d be worse than a Golden Girls marathon.

Perhaps stick with just your mailbox.

@tylerstone killjoy!

@danielpunkass Oh, so you *do* know me!

(P.S.: Hope you’re feeling better.)

@danielpunkass so what you are saying is that MarsEdit for iOS has to wait for a singing mailbox?
@danielpunkass Well, @caseyliss is already 70% of the way there with his mailbox-open notification system he built — it just needs adding a little speaker!

@leoncowle @danielpunkass FWIW it announces “YOUVE GOT MAIL” inside the house when it’s triggered.

But that’s inside.

@caseyliss @leoncowle “thank you for bringing the mail” cmon Casey
@danielpunkass @leoncowle Pfffft this is the notification for the family that the mail is here and ready to be fetched. How could I *not* channel 90s AOL‽
@caseyliss @danielpunkass @leoncowle my dad and I worked on a mechanical way to know the mail was delivered about 25+ years ago. Little piece of PVC drops down with red tape on it when the door is opened and stays down till you get the mail and push it up.

@caseyliss

Very nice. How do you make the announcement? I’ve been trying to send audio announcements to HomePods, but it’s unreliable, to say the least. I may resort to using a Pi with a speaker, which I suspect you may be doing.

@Unfed The YoLink hub I ended up with happens to have a speaker on it. Which I thought was dumb. But has turned out to be useful.

@jackbrewster

@danielpunkass Possibly related: a student friend in boarding academy had a Commodore 64 system and rigged the monitor to be able to show TV from an antenna and tuner hidden behind his desk.

TVs weren’t allowed in rooms back then (late 80s). He figured out how to run a line to his door with pennies on the door and in the jamb. If the door opened and broke contact, it would switch back to the computer screen. Safeguard for if a dean or RA popped in. LOL

@danielpunkass We have a box of snacks and water bottles at our front door for delivery drivers and mail carriers. Our carrier doesn’t leave our packages at the community mailbox - he brings them to our door. 😀