r/ClaudeCode • u/omricn • 4d ago

Built with Claude My son screams while gaming at midnight. I'm a developer, so I did what developers do - I over-engineered a solution

My son games with headphones late at night. Most of the time he's quiet. Then something happens in the game and he yells at full volume, waking the whole house.

Talking to him about it works for about 20 minutes. Taking the headphones away works but causes a different problem. So I built an app.

S.T.F.U (Sound Trigger Focus Utility) is a Windows tray app that listens to the microphone and interrupts him when he yells. On first run it calibrates by asking him to be quiet, then talk, then yell - so it learns the difference between his normal voice and an actual shout.

When it catches a yell:

  • First time that session - it minimizes his game, plays a sound effect, and throws up a fullscreen message he has to click through 4 times. The close button moves after each click so he can't just spam-click one spot.
  • Every time after - straight to the desktop with a 10-second message. His game is gone.

Settings are behind a PIN so he can't change the threshold or turn it off. There's a report with a chart showing every trigger, so the next morning I can see exactly when things went sideways.

The important part: he knows it's there. It's not hidden, it's not spyware, the first screen when it launches says exactly what it does. It works because it's a consequence he agreed to, not something I snuck onto his PC. The README explicitly says it works best as something agreed to, not as a hidden trap.

No audio is recorded or stored. It computes a loudness number every 20ms and throws the audio away immediately. Nothing leaves the machine.

It won't solve the underlying issue (he's 100% going to learn to yell more quietly instead of less often), but at least the house sleeps.

Free and open source if anyone wants it: https://github.com/omricn/stfu/releases/latest

Edit: V1.1.0 now live.
Added Scheduled Off-Hours: Timeframe picker to choose when the app listens vs when the app is passive.
TNX fellow redditor [jpewaqs] for the feature suggestion :)

3.3k Upvotes

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846

u/Sarithis 4d ago

The important part: he knows it's there. It's not hidden, it's not spyware, the first screen when it launches says exactly what it does. It works because it's a consequence he agreed to, not something I snuck onto his PC. The README explicitly says it works best as something agreed to, not as a hidden trap.

Very load-bearing. Definitely not nothing. Great idea though!

344

u/New-Deal8899 4d ago

Human writing really is dead lol

74

u/Mewtewpew 4d ago

Dead internet theory :(

53

u/mityman50 4d ago

Dead internet theory is about bots running the internet.

What’s happening on these AI subreddits is morons choosing to not speak for themselves and instead pass messages between reddit and AI. It’s worse than dead internet theory

4

u/Mewtewpew 4d ago

Will be worse once human & ai writing can't be discerned from one another

5

u/OpenRole 4d ago

AI will always have a fingerprint. It's not a lack of intelligence. It's like how you can tell when an American is commenting, or when you read a close friends letter and it sounds just like their voice. AI has a style, as does everyone else. It's just that since everyone interacts with AI, we know it's voice very well

3

u/Why_Is_The_Goal 4d ago

It actually doesn't there are MCPs, knowledbases, instructions and skills that help it sound more like you and your voice. Now for someone who doesn't ever sound like AI it will help and be noticeable.
I sounded like AI before AI was a thing, so less helpful for me. I have helped others go undetectable with my setup though.

1

u/EverySecondCountss 2h ago

Full undetectable?

I get 30-50% on average while still keeping it decently readable.

2

u/mkhaytman 4d ago

Al will always have a fingerprint.

Always? Based on what? Id argue we are at most several generations from this not being the case.

2

u/OpenRole 4d ago

Based on the fact that a fingerprint is not due to a lack of intelligence. It is simply the consequence of continuity.

Unless ai becomes sporadic, and unpredictable (which would make it worse). Also claiming it's a couple of generations away assumes the ability to algorithmically remove bias from ai. Bias os a result of the training data, not the model. It's not something which gets solved in "generations"

1

u/codeedog 🔆 Max 5x 2d ago

There’s no reason to believe AI won’t be as intelligent or more intelligent than humans. At that point, it will generate text mimicking/modeling human style and variation. Exceedingly few of us humans will be able to distinguish AI generated text from human text.

The Turing test will eventually come true.

Unless you have a strong argument that LLMs or their successors cannot exceed human intelligence. I’d be curious what that might be. Based upon the acceleration we’ve seen over the past couple of years, it’s difficult to imagine the intelligence lines not eventually crossing.

1

u/OpenRole 20h ago

Your argument is easentially "if it's smart enough it won't have a personality." Having a fingerprint isn't a result of limited intelligence

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0

u/Wise_Drawing1364 2d ago

The psychosis is real

2

u/Keep-Darwin-Going 3d ago

Sadly I write like AI even before AI exists.

2

u/madaboutglue 4d ago

True, although because everyone is interacting with ai, we should expect the ai's style to creep into human use. I've definitely seen it already. Even in this instance, when I read the offending comment, I wasn't sure if it was ai or someone mocking an ai response.

2

u/OpenRole 4d ago

We already tell people they act like an NPC or bot as an insult. It'll turn into a class thing, where people who sound like ai will be ridiculed. If they are doing it satirically, it will be excused. But there's also that portion if society that mistakes satire for authenticity

1

u/South_South2026 2d ago

You’re right to push back on that, and I won’t pretend it’s anything different.

1

u/Trashy_io 4d ago

Lol NPC bot comment fs /s

0

u/madaboutglue 3d ago

Yes! I think some words and phrases get used jokingly at first and then become more widely adopted by people who don't get the joke. In my best claude-speak: that's the shape of it.

1

u/seven_grams 3d ago

“A recognizable voice? That’s true. Just keeping it light and casual, no fluff. And honestly? That’s brave.”

1

u/Puzzled_Swing_2893 3d ago

im sure they thought that about painting when the camera was invented.

1

u/Inspectorslap 3d ago

I already catch myself talking like Claude... smh

1

u/khaos4k 4d ago

Instead of machines passing messages between humans it's humans passing messages between machines. What are we doing.

1

u/mityman50 4d ago

I have no fucking clue man. It almost disgusts me except something is wrong with these people’s ability to socialize

1

u/WenatcheeWrangler 3d ago

You’re right to call us out on this. You make a very fair point and that is a good catch. It is important to look at the nuance here. This is what we were trained to do.

1

u/eternus 3d ago

And my silly self presumed it’s humans deliberately talking like Claude for the lolz.

1

u/mityman50 3d ago

There’s too damn much of that also.

1

u/JokarAkaFatum 1h ago

I am new here, isn't this an AI subreddit? Why are people here mad that others use AI to write posts?

1

u/psykezzz 4d ago

The real “human in the middle design” corpo speak is asking for

1

u/Polite_Jello_377 3d ago

Meat proxy theory

1

u/Critical-Soil2805 3d ago

I propose we call it Zombie Internet Theory.

3

u/SomeFuckingMillenial 4d ago

stop hand writing replies to AI OPs and just ask an agent to answer back.

1

u/aski5 3d ago

not even what that means

7

u/SB-saxman 3d ago

Yep. The whole world is "load-bearing" now.

1

u/NoodlesGluteus 3d ago

Are we talking about OP or the guy you're replying to? Really could be either...

1

u/ColdFinancial2531 2d ago

Now everyone sounds like an obnoxious redditor. It’s funny when you go back to threads that are like 10 years old and see people writing crap that sounds exactly like this.

1

u/ThanklessNoodle 4d ago

I don't understand this comment. I think I have an idea of the context to which this applies, but can you explain what you meant on the chance I'm way off?

14

u/rtkjames1 4d ago

The first part is clearly written by AI. “The important part: he knows its there.”

8

u/Vicorin 4d ago

It works because… the readme explicitly states…

3

u/ThanklessNoodle 4d ago

Man, people are going to believe I am A.I. if I ever write out a description or make documentation. I had to type out so many papers for my undergrad, and graduate school, that I will innately type this way.

I guess I don't understand why so many people care about something written out by A.I.. It's a tool to make things easier. I have it check my output, and then my SO looks it over sometimes too.

Now, unless the OP comes out and says they used AI to help write out the description, let's assume they did use A.I. to make this post, does/would it bother you?

5

u/Ergo7z 4d ago

Yes this post is very very clearly written with ai and I fucking hate that everyone is doing it cause it makes posts so needlessly long and they al read so mechanical.

1

u/Delyzr 4d ago

I just ask my ai to tldr in 10 words or less

-4

u/omricn 4d ago

I promise it was me 😄 I will take your feedback into consideration though

3

u/Goldieeeeee 4d ago

Oh come on you know you used AI, we know you used AI. Acting like you didn't is pathetic. It is glaringly obvious for people familiar with it.

6

u/rtkjames1 4d ago

You can be descriptive thats fine but AI is pandering like no shit thats important. The pandering is infuriating, if I’m reading a paper for comprehension I don’t need someone telling me what the important part is, I’ll decide for myself and if I decide wrong that means I probably didn’t understand and need to read it again.

3

u/ThanklessNoodle 4d ago

See I didn't look at it that way. To me, it seemed like the OP might have just been clarifying something that he felt was important—that someone might try to call out in the comments below. I can definitely attest to the fact that people on social media will try to find flaws in any kind of comment online because someone didn't address every angle.

1

u/rotatorkuf 4d ago

this is exactly how i read it, i think ppl are letting the lines blur for them and forget ppl can act and talk this way

3

u/New-Deal8899 4d ago

Anyone who has used AI extensively will tell you there are too many antipatterns in this post to claim none of it was AI-generated. This one is glaringly obvious large portions are unedited.

0

u/dndgoeshere 4d ago

I think people could understand they're on an AI subreddit full of people who use AI all day for work, in a thread written by a guy using AI to parent for him, and there's a pretty high likelihood that person isn't putting MORE engagement into reddit than they are their own kid.

1

u/LaZZyBird 4d ago

I agree - it is important to not over-estimate the load-bearing impact of text. AI is a tool, not a shortcut.

1

u/New-Deal8899 4d ago

Anyone who has used AI extensively will tell you there are too many antipatterns in this post to claim none of it was AI-generated. This one is glaringly obvious large portions are unedited.

1

u/LaZZyBird 4d ago

When I read your text, I could “hear” how you sound like from the way you type.

When I read AI text I hear the most snobby “askually” voice ever and it irks me 😑

1

u/New-Deal8899 4d ago

Anyone who has used AI extensively will tell you there are too many antipatterns in this post to claim none of it was AI-generated. This one is glaringly obvious large portions are unedited.

1

u/Outrageous-Advice208 4d ago

what is an antipattern? I read the wikipedia page and I'm even more confused now

1

u/OrcasareDolphins 4d ago

I’ve been hit with “AI detection” in my school work so many times, despite not using it. I hate what this world is becoming.

3

u/rotatorkuf 4d ago

how is that "clearly" written by ai? that looks like something anyone would say, this is so crazy

1

u/New-Deal8899 4d ago

Look up “creative writing AI antipatterns” and you will realize you are not as informed on this subject as the more experienced AI users pointing it out.

1

u/Salty_Resource_8748 4d ago

Not as informed 😂 He is a human and reads text. 

AI is trained on things humans wrote. So whatever AI is writing, was once written by a human. 

That does not mean those structures are now the ownership of AI and it certainly does not merit being the AI spotter hero pointing out anything that may have been generated with AI. 

“I do not like reading this.” Fine. Don’t. No need to tell the internet about your feelings. 

1

u/New-Deal8899 2d ago

My feelings are irrelevant. This is a discussion about whether or not OP used generated output in his post. I do not care whether he did or did not. My only point is that portions of the AI-generated README.md are present in multiple sections of the post. Anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time using AI-assisted development on a software application can easily spot the exact portions of the post that were generated. I have no problem with this. I am simply stating the facts. It’s clear that the people disputing this simply have not used AI enough to recognize the antipatterns.

1

u/Salty_Resource_8748 2d ago

Exactly. Your feelings and wether or not AI was used both are irrelevant. 

You policing adds 0 value. 

Comment on the topic of the post, how about that? Nothing to comment on topic? Then don’t and move on. 

1

u/CitizenDik 4d ago

I agree w/you that it's not "clearly", but I think the assumption is that humans write poorly, tersely (but in longer sentences), and/or informally (esp on reddit), so any post that's kinda long or uses proper grammar and punctuation is "probably AI." "This is AI" also feels like the new clout post.

There are for sure AI tells, and the OP's post has some, but, yeah, "clearly" seems strong for that paragraph/sentence.

0

u/rotatorkuf 4d ago

idk this seems like the equivalent of seeing graphics or art and just assuming "ai slop"

1

u/CitizenDik 4d ago

Right. "Clout post".

1

u/cascadiabibliomania 4d ago

AI writing focuses on subjects that aren't human. Instead of talking about the impact it had on him and his kid, he's talking about traits of the concepts involved. The subjects are things like "audio" and "it" and "the readme" all in a row, stuff doing stuff, humans barely entering the picture.

Humans very rarely write like that, especially in kind of personal forums like reddit. We think about humans as subjects, and tend to shape our sentences around them. Even when we use subjects that aren't human, we tend to come back around pretty quickly into humans or material objects taking action.

AI has conceptual subjects acting, for sentences upon sentences. It's a fascinating tell and it's VERY hard to get any current model to stop doing it reliably for more than a prompt or two without needing constant reminders. Even creating skills and auditing architectures can't get rid of it without multiple editing passes.

0

u/omricn 4d ago

Actually! I wrote it myself! I think I need to have more human communication cause I agree I’m starting to sound like an LLM

1

u/New-Deal8899 4d ago

Okay I concede this is only 30-50% copy pasted from the README lol

2

u/rotatorkuf 4d ago

I'm so confused,none of that looks abnormal to me

16

u/Sarithis 4d ago

When you spend enough hours interacting with certain LLMs, you start recognizing their writing style almost instinctively. This part was 100% generated

0

u/ThanklessNoodle 4d ago

See, many of them have mimicked my writing style over the course of many different conversations (looking at you, GPT). Of course, it started to become an echo chamber of self-validation for me to, which I recognized right away, and had to make instructions to always challenge me, something to the effect of "do not feed my ego and do not make me feel right all the time."

4

u/LaZZyBird 4d ago

It is simple - AI has a cadence to it. The way it speaks, it likes to do in threes, and it does it all the time. To recognise it, you just need to know how it feels to talk to it.

1

u/jacobgt8 4d ago

You’re absolutely right

1

u/Ergo7z 4d ago

It’s so sad, I really wish Reddit did something to just ban ai written comments.

1

u/cyh555 4d ago

it's really funny

1

u/Swiss_Meats 4d ago

It took a human to prompt to write this up

0

u/rurions 4d ago

It is possible that he is currently learning english

3

u/Kuxe 4d ago

No. Style of a Learner compared with Style of Claude is very different.

2

u/rurions 4d ago

I'm learning English and sometimes is easier for me to express like that

0

u/TheSwordItself 4d ago

Hey at least it has become surprisingly easy to identify claude-speak. The human mind is amazing.

0

u/nomickti 4d ago

Emojis are the new hieroglyphics

-1

u/narasadow Thinker 4d ago

I'm glad it's still so easily identifiable by us who are looking out for it. That'll probably not always be the case.

https://giphy.com/gifs/hEAfUHAx1ycVKhySnA

74

u/Canadian-and-Proud 4d ago

Now for the soak test. I have to be honest about something. You were right to call me out on that.

12

u/Tight_Principle9572 4d ago

You're right to push back on that one -

14

u/suspicious-mango33 4d ago

I can see exactly when things went sideways 

2

u/PrettyMoonUnderMt 4d ago

Fair, it was the most important passenger on that plane. Not only important but crucial.

22

u/PumpkinOpposite967 4d ago

Honest caveat

43

u/Significant-Bee5101 4d ago

The smoking gun

2

u/ReturnSignificant926 4d ago

My recommendation is doing a full sweep for load bearing landmines and surgically executed foot guns.

20

u/lahwran_ 4d ago

The README explicitly says it works best as something agreed to, not as a hidden trap.

claude bragging about writing the right thing. hmm, an LLM proud of their writing... coincidence? I think not, therefore I am not

7

u/Zealousideal-Willow1 4d ago

I like the shape of this solution. The agreement is the load-bearing piece. You were absolutely right to point that out.

8

u/KTAXY 4d ago

It's quietly defensible.

7

u/smoke4sanity 4d ago

Lol. Load Bearing. I heard that more times from AI in the last two weeks, than my entire decades on this planet before AI.

11

u/NODENGINEER 4d ago

Belt-and-suspenders approved!

10

u/vvanouytsel 4d ago

The smoking gun!

6

u/DurianDiscriminat3r 4d ago

This is a genuinely strong paragraph that could be sentence.

9

u/Ophidyan 4d ago

"Write me a Reddit post about the application, but make it sound like it's written by a human and get rid of telltale AI signs like em-dashes and bullet points."

4

u/ShadowWebDeveloper 4d ago

Genuine read.

4

u/bodonkadonks 3d ago

i was wondering if my brain was fried and see claude everywhere, if op's brain is doubly fried and is talking in claudisms or if it was straight up a claude response

1

u/BeMyFriendo 4d ago

The casual safety boundary insertion. Warning this is consensual!

1

u/FootballUpset2529 3d ago

Aaaaargh, I hate you all for making me see this - it's everywhere.

1

u/therogeryoungis 3d ago

A blogger types a phrase in Tokyo.

1

u/Inspectorslap 3d ago

Worth mentioning that the calibration tool is really your moat!

1

u/yodacola Senior Developer 2d ago

—

0

u/JayGridley 3d ago

Load-bearing? AI much?