Non-joke version: <https://www.creativeapplications.net/project/durr-shivering-...>

Discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7007731>

A NE555 could be sufficient and even more reductionist. =;-) Circuit example https://theorycircuit.com/ic-555-ic-741/adjustable-duty-cycl...

A CD40106 could do the same and would even be more reductionist (and uses less current).

How much current would the capacitor/resistor attached to it use?

Modern microcontrollers are insanely power efficient. An ESP32 in "light sleep" (which would be sufficient to serve timer routines) is said to consume <1 mA (at 3.3V), down to ~10 uA (microamps!) in "deep sleep".

In other words, 1 year in deep sleep is 315 ampere-seconds or less than 100 mAh.

Obviously it's irrelevant in this use case (where the goal is running a motor every wake-up cycle), but nowadays, as absurd as it looks, being power-constrained isn't necessarily a reason to not slap something on it that happens to also be able to do cryptography, connect to WiFi and make HTTPS requests.

Touché ;)

This does the typical "two short buzzes with a break in between". I think that would be hard with a singe NE555, and of course much more annoying/complicated to fine-tune.

Also, the random delay between the notifications.

Ah, right. With two buzzes it gets complicated again.

> The medium is the massage.

That’s brilliant. A phone’nt, if you will.

A PDA... Portable Distraction Accessory. Or maybe that should be Plywood...

This reminds me of the Hipster PDA craze from decades ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_PDA

Come on, phon't.

Really needs an update, the No-Tiff-ier, that also doesn't display an image, in addition to the other features.

For 2026, the No-Tiff-AIer extension is planned to also not bury you in slop.

This is great for when I'm on the train and don't want to accidentally glance at another person. I can just hold the rectangle in my hand and stare at it!