A sad indictment of modern times:

1. Invited to play physical game with friends 2. Only wanted to play a specific game which had no takers 3. Decided to play by self 4. Found that laborious 5. Automated humans out of the equation entirely 6. ???

This comment is a sad indictment of modern times. Nobody can be facetious on the web any more without someone taking the joke seriously.

To me, it seems like it actually was:

1. Had a Hungry Hungry Hippos game

2. Thought it would be a fun project to automate

3. Wrote a funny setup for the post

4.???

Exactly. There is no way that he couldn't find others to play hungry hippos. You could be in the process of getting arrested and then pull out hungry hippos to the cop and say "one quick game", and he'd be like "yes".

I'm going to try this.

Or you can try to improve it and implement a version where your friends connect to a webpage to control the other 3 hippos. Not as fun as IRL, but it may be nice when you have a few friends living abroad.

A sadder indictment would be if they marketed Hungry Hungry Hippo (singular).

I think Hungry Hungry Hippos was the board game that taught me that advertisements lie. They were not, in fact, "fun fun fun by the ton ton ton." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBYcWhQae98

Related, can't remember ever playing Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots for more than about two minutes.

The video where he controls the hippos via Alexa (1 million views) is a masterclass in patience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB0nCFxV3PQ

Try asking "tell me a hippo fact" to learn more about them

Quick warning to not play the video in the room with an Echo. Now I have Alexa telling everyone in the house that green hippo is hungry!!

Which begs the question, how do they broadcast "Alexa, ..." on TV shows so that it doesn't set my Echo off?

This is from 2018, but presumably they use largely the same method now: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/2/16965484/amazon-alexa-supe...

To save a click:

> Apparently, the Alexa commercials are intentionally muted in the 3,000Hz to 6,000Hz range of the audio spectrum, which apparently tips off the system that the “Alexa” phrase being spoken isn’t in fact a real command and should be ignored.

Looks great! Now add AI and you’ll be page 1 of HN!!

Hug of death? If you need assistance, email on my profile.