Who's nearby?

June 9, 2006 2:54 PM

Pony Idea: A little house or other such icon when the poster/commenter in a thread is within some range (5,10,20mi/km) of miles from your location.
posted by cellphone to Feature Requests at 2:54 PM (30 comments total)

It would be cute and would promote community and goodwill between users.
posted by cellphone at 2:54 PM on June 9, 2006

The Stalkanator 5000, now with extra Stalking Power. If you act now, we'll throw in the Stalkomatic7 at NO EXTRA COST!
posted by blue_beetle at 3:11 PM on June 9, 2006

...hmmm...2050 miles from here to Provo...
posted by ersatzkat at 3:14 PM on June 9, 2006

Yes, because a little house icon really worsens a pre-existing stalking situation.
posted by cellphone at 3:21 PM on June 9, 2006

Crimes of passion, man! Consider:

~Now~
"Man, that CharlieMogo is a lousy sumbitch! I'd like to punch him in the face! I guess I could click on his username and then see if he's in the vicinity...eh."

~Dystopian Ponyopolis~
"Man, that CharlieMogo is a lousy sumbitch! I'd like to punch him in the face! I—wait! He's within quick driving distance! Punchin' fingers, time to do the Face Shuffle!"
posted by cortex at 3:59 PM on June 9, 2006

Solution in search of a problem.
posted by mcwetboy at 3:59 PM on June 9, 2006

cortex, you just made me shoot dry cereal up my nose. So you're damned lucky you don't have a little house icon by your name.
posted by sugarfish at 4:19 PM on June 9, 2006

Ceiling Cat lives here.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:20 PM on June 9, 2006

It's not even a solution. It's a fucking pony. Nobody rides a pony because they need one.
posted by cellphone at 4:30 PM on June 9, 2006

cortex, they can do that anyway!
posted by cellphone at 4:36 PM on June 9, 2006

Hey, you take that back, cellphone! My sister had a condition that required pony rides. Extremely rare. I think they covered it on House.

Your anti-pony attitude could have gotten her killed. If I knew how close to me you lived somehow, I'd let my Punchin' Fingers do some Face Shufflin'!
posted by graventy at 4:53 PM on June 9, 2006 [1 favorite]

I like the idea.
posted by scottreynen at 4:59 PM on June 9, 2006

People who live near me should get a gold star.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:24 PM on June 9, 2006

I'm changing my profile location to Dystopian Ponyopolis.
posted by popechunk at 5:45 PM on June 9, 2006

I'd like to be able to choose how near is near. I'd also like to be able to turn off a lot of these little features through my user page. (For example, if I didn't ever flag or fave, turning off that stuff would clean the page up a touch.)
posted by The Monkey at 5:49 PM on June 9, 2006

What the Monkey said. Let's not turn the byline into a Christmas tree.
posted by fleacircus at 6:19 PM on June 9, 2006

Ooh ooh! I just had a great idea! Can we turn the byline into a Christmas tree?
posted by team lowkey at 6:27 PM on June 9, 2006

I suggest a fava bean icon when a potential target is within 10 km.
posted by fire&wings at 6:58 PM on June 9, 2006

It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again
posted by Ryvar at 7:02 PM on June 9, 2006

The comments are coming from inside the house!
posted by gleuschk at 7:09 PM on June 9, 2006

I like the idea, but I'm guessing the database queries required to check that when a page loads would be absolutely brutal (as I have my own zip code database and radius queries, I know that doing dozens of them on one page makes for uuuuggggliness)...
posted by twiggy at 7:39 PM on June 9, 2006

I vote that the little house icon, when we click on it, should give us google driving directions to that persons house, as well as usuage stats to tell us when they're online so we can tell when they're usually home. It could also do an online phone book lookup, give us satellite pictures of their house, do a credit check on them, as well as a background check on them (cross reference with sex offender registry). This should then be emailed to us in PDF format, easy to print and carry with us. It could also automagically create an AskMe along the lines of "Could [User1] armed with only a [User1's preferred weapon] be trained to consistantly win fights with [User2]? Please give training tips, and any knowledge about [User2] that you feel would be useful in crushing them, driving them before you, and how to hear the lamenations of their women."
posted by blue_beetle at 8:47 PM on June 9, 2006 [1 favorite]

note to self: change my location in user prefs
posted by blue_beetle at 8:48 PM on June 9, 2006

note to self #2: get the link right the first time.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:50 PM on June 9, 2006

I think StickyCarpet is on to something.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:59 PM on June 9, 2006

Well if not a little house, how about a little wiggling scrotum GIF.
posted by cellphone at 9:23 PM on June 9, 2006

Assuming the bear was trying to kill you? No. Not even close. You might get lucky, but grizzlies do this sort of thing for a living.

Ha!
posted by cortex at 9:51 PM on June 9, 2006

If they're within walking distance, I want to see a window with a silhouette of a woman in a negligee brushing her hair at a vanity while a guy in a hat stands in the bushes smoking a cigarette.
posted by pracowity at 1:24 AM on June 10, 2006

I could add this to the "mark contacts contributions" Greasemonkey script pretty damn easily.
posted by Plutor at 7:24 AM on June 12, 2006

Done. I don't particularly like the icon I'm using, but, well, it works. You can modify a variable at the top of the script if you don't want near-users.
posted by Plutor at 8:49 AM on June 12, 2006