GeoLetter: leave a letter where it happened, read first by a Gemma that never leaves the server

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Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Ghost in the Machine Submission 👻🌼 This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Ghost in the Machine.

Hacktoberfest 开源 AI 挑战赛：Ghost in the Machine 参赛作品 👻🌼 这是我为 Hacktoberfest 开源 AI 挑战赛“机器中的幽灵”提交的作品。

What I Built My mother died of COVID in 2021. I built GeoLetter because I don’t want to forget her, and I already am. Most of the year she slips away, and she comes back on November 2nd, Finados, the day Brazil sets aside for its dead. I’m haunted by the idea of losing every last memory of her. An episode of Grey’s Anatomy about Día de los Muertos stayed with me, and this project grew from it. She always pushed me to build things, and I think she would have loved to see this one.

我构建了什么：我的母亲于 2021 年因新冠去世。我开发 GeoLetter 是因为我不想忘记她，但我已经在逐渐遗忘了。一年中的大部分时间里，关于她的记忆都在消逝，直到 11 月 2 日——巴西纪念逝者的“亡灵节”（Finados）——她才会重新回到我的脑海。我被那种可能会彻底失去她所有记忆的想法所困扰。《实习医生格蕾》中关于亡灵节的一集深深触动了我，这个项目便由此诞生。她生前总是鼓励我创造事物，我想她一定会喜欢这个作品。

GeoLetter is a world map where you leave something at a place that belonged to someone. A marigold, a candle, a letter, or “his blue harmonica”. The person can be alive or gone. The shape of it came from the ofrenda. On Día de los Muertos the altar is built at home, but the memories are scattered around a city: the plaza where a grandmother sold tamales, the bakery where your mother bought bread every Sunday, the beach where a physics teacher tried to explain waves and the whole class ran from them. I wanted a place to leave words exactly there.

GeoLetter 是一张世界地图，你可以在某个属于某人的地方留下纪念物。一朵万寿菊、一支蜡烛、一封信，或者“他那把蓝色的口琴”。无论对方是在世还是已故，都可以进行纪念。它的形式灵感来源于祭坛（ofrenda）。在亡灵节，祭坛通常建在家里，但记忆却散落在城市的各个角落：祖母卖玉米粽的广场、母亲每周日买面包的面包店、物理老师试图讲解波浪而全班同学却四散奔逃的海滩。我想要一个能在这些特定地点留下文字的地方。

Some details that matter to me: Every word is read first by a guardian. It’s Gemma, running on the same server as the app. It turns away hate, harassment, threats, spam and other people’s private data, like a phone number or a home address. It lets grief through, including anger and bitterness, because that is what grief often sounds like. If it keeps a letter back, only the author sees why.

一些对我而言很重要的细节：每一段文字首先都会由一位“守护者”阅读。它是运行在与应用程序同一服务器上的 Gemma 模型。它会拦截仇恨言论、骚扰、威胁、垃圾信息以及他人的私人数据（如电话号码或家庭住址）。它允许悲伤的情绪通过，包括愤怒和苦涩，因为这往往是悲伤真实的表达方式。如果它拦截了一封信，只有作者本人能看到原因。

Letters can be sealed to the place. A sealed letter only opens if your phone says you are within 200 metres of where it was left. Everyone else sees an unlit candle and how far away they are. It’s a small ritual: you have to go there. Letters keep their language. A reader in another country can ask for a translation. Gemma does it once and it’s kept for the next person.

信件可以被“封印”在特定地点。只有当你的手机定位显示你距离信件留下的位置 200 米以内时，封印的信件才会打开。其他人只能看到一支未点燃的蜡烛以及他们距离该地点的距离。这是一个小小的仪式：你必须亲自前往那里。信件保留其原始语言。身处异国的读者可以请求翻译，Gemma 会进行一次翻译并将其保存，供下一位读者使用。

Help when you don’t know how to start. You write loose memories and Gemma drafts a short letter using only what you wrote. Then you change it. One note for the living. If the letter is for someone alive, you can give their email. They get one short message saying a letter is waiting for them at that place, with a link. Never the letter itself. Three notes per sender per day, one per recipient per day, and a link to stop them forever.

当你不知道如何下笔时，它会提供帮助。你写下零散的记忆，Gemma 会仅根据你所写的内容起草一封简短的信，然后你可以对其进行修改。关于生者的一点说明：如果信是写给在世之人的，你可以提供他们的电子邮件地址。他们会收到一条简短的信息，告知在某个地点有一封信在等着他们，并附带一个链接。但绝不会直接发送信件内容。每位发送者每天限发三封信，每位接收者每天限收一封，并提供永久停止接收的链接。

I tried hard to make it feel like a book of condolences instead of an app. Paper colour, ink, one serif face, the light of a candle as the only accent. No counters, no badges. Demo Live: https://geoletter.tech The eight offerings already on the map are examples I wrote for the demo. The people in them are invented. Try opening the letter in Lagos: it is sealed, so unless you are on Bar Beach you’ll see how far away you are.

我努力让它感觉像是一本吊唁册，而不是一个应用程序。纸张的颜色、墨水、一种衬线字体，烛光是唯一的点缀。没有计数器，没有徽章。演示地址：https://geoletter.tech 地图上现有的八个祭品是我为演示编写的示例，其中的人物都是虚构的。试着打开拉各斯的那封信：它是被封印的，所以除非你身处 Bar Beach，否则你只能看到你距离那里有多远。

Code gvcntz / geoletter A quiet map for leaving flowers and letters where someone lived. Moderated and translated by Gemma, running locally. Hacktoberfest 2026 Open-Source AI Challenge.

代码仓库：gvcntz / geoletter。一张安静的地图，用于在某人生活过的地方留下鲜花和信件。由本地运行的 Gemma 进行审核和翻译。Hacktoberfest 2026 开源 AI 挑战赛。