19 comments

  • jtickle 13 hours ago
    This seems exactly like the sort of shenanigan that would piss off rather than appease the wood spirits.
  • nkmnz 11 hours ago
    What’s next? Touch-grass-as-a-Service?
  • weirdish 13 hours ago
    I'd only buy this if it included a subscription-based AI upsell to predict and adapt to my adjusting superstition needs over time
  • yetihehe 13 hours ago
    Knocking on wood was about knocking on unpainted wood, so that you have actual direct physical contact with wood. Remote knocking seems to go in the other direction...
    • thaumasiotes 12 hours ago
      > Knocking on wood was about knocking on unpainted wood, so that you have actual direct physical contact with wood.

      How do you know this? For example, there is a wikipedia page section entitled "Origin of use in the English language"...

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocking_on_wood#Origin_of_use...

      but the contents of that section make it extremely clear that no relevant facts are known to wikipedia.

      • pessimizer 8 hours ago
        The contents of the article make it clear that "touch wood" is basically synonymous with "knock on wood," making the knocking less important than the touching.

        But is is important to mention that a ctrl-f on that page for "unpainted" is proof that you didn't spend much time looking.

      • couchand 10 hours ago
        N >= 2
  • krunck 13 hours ago
    There are societies where rather than knocking on wood one turns one's head and spits. For example: "Grandad is looking well after his fall, let's hope that doesn't happen again. Ptew!"

    Looking for this in app form.

    • random_cat_8745 12 hours ago
      the true SaaS (Spit as a Service).
      • markdown 11 hours ago
        I'm imagining a thousand people in a spitshop in (Mechanical) Turkey in a sitting at desks with a spittoon, waiting for a signal to spit.
  • gexla 3 hours ago
    I wonder if I could create a full time job for myself tossing salt over my shoulder.
  • psadri 8 hours ago
    Whoever created this - you are the crazy kind of person I want to meet in real life.
  • skinfaxi 12 hours ago
    Found this other experiment, part of the same series "Machines Responding to Superstitions".

    https://www.dezeen.com/2023/10/31/kinky-kashayam-portable-bl...

    Though it seems less like machine response than humans integrating technology into superstitious belief.

  • TehCorwiz 13 hours ago
    If an app knocks on a tree and nobody is around…
  • dr_pyser 6 hours ago
    I never had to knock on wood
    • petters 3 minutes ago
      Me neither knocks on wood
  • gosen 12 hours ago
    I can't explain why but it's amazing! Maybe because in my culture "knocking on the wood 3 times" helps to avoid the bad luck and I lived with that for 20 years, or maybe it's just fun to imagine that you're knocking on the wood remotely ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • dvh 13 hours ago
    It's like FakeBlock from Arrested development
  • itissid 13 hours ago
    I am ratting this out to the Tree Beard
  • Cpoll 12 hours ago
    Looking forward to one that will let me touch grass from my computer.
  • ButlerianJihad 11 hours ago
    Nothing can surprise me. Every day at college, I would walk past these "Trees".

    https://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artist/allen.html#about-th...

  • lofaszvanitt 12 hours ago
    You have to do it with a right hand, from under. So this is 100% fake.
  • classified 13 hours ago
    The knockers are missing solar panels to continuously charge their batteries. So there will be sustained costs to keep them running. And how water-proof are they? Apart from that, it's going to sell like hot cakes.
  • tinyplanets 13 hours ago
    Or just, you know, walk outside in the fresh air, find a nearby tree, and knock on it...
  • slipperybeluga 9 hours ago
    [dead]