Ask HN: What's your proudest hack? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#221

Post by siddharthgoel88 » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

Disposable email + Virtual credit-cards

Whenever I need to try some new service online which requires my credit-card(CC), then I make sure that I create account with a disposable email (using iCloud+) and a virtual credit-card (using Revolut) with max allowed spending to 1~2$ configured and use those for that account. As soon as my account (post CC auth charge) is created then I delete my virtual CC so that I am sure that knowingly/unknowingly I won't be charged or spammed.

Once I am sure that I would really like to use that service, then sign-up with my actual email and CC. I simply love this hack and use it extensively.

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#222

Post by abrookewood » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:10 AM UTC

bravoetch wrote: post #114

After reading an inspiring story in the mid 90s about someone that collected rejection letters for jobs they weren't qualified for (CEO of a national rail carrier etc), I turned to a life built on a similar idea. I applied for jobs I thought I could do, using mostly made-up resume information. If I was scheduled for an interview I would study like mad every waking hour until the interview. My career was absurdly succ…

You really need to give us some more details!

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#223

Post by abrookewood » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:11 AM UTC

bravoetch wrote: post #218

sharadov wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's insane, what are some of the jobs that you conned your way into?

Weird that you think I conned my way in. I was always able to skill up and do the job. Theoretical before, then learn the rest on the job.

Well, you did say you made up the contents of your resume. Kinda fits the description ...

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#224

Post by RomanPushkin » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

ziotom78 wrote: post #23

I often create screen recordings for my classes, but it's very boring and time consuming. I'm a perfectionist, and if I mistype a command I prefer to re-record everything. Moreover, every time one of the tools used in the videos gets a significant update, I feel compelled to redo the video. I have started using xdotool [1] to create bash scripts that send mouse clicks and keystrokes to apps. Interleaving calls to xdo…

that's really cool, thanks for sharing

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#225

Post by bakoo » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

racl101 wrote: post #132

I was a junior freelancer. Barely knew what i was doing with web development. Was given SSH credentials to a server hosting a WordPress site. Had to change a bunch of lines in a bunch of files. Hundreds of them. Took two hours to begin learning about a sed command. Spent a half hour testing it locally on the MacOS terminal. I didn't wanna screw it up. Made several mistakes on local. But eventually I think I got the h…

> I know server admins do this shit like in a couple of minutes

Yeah, but only from the second time on, and just until our notes become so crowded that we start gambling on re-learning being faster than maybe finding wherever the solution was documented ;)

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#226

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:30 AM UTC

nemo1618 wrote: post #109

After playing a lot of Tetris Friends, I started getting deja vu. Sometimes, after starting a new game and placing maybe 10-20 pieces, I would think, "Haven't I seen this exact board before?" Eventually I tested my theory through brute force: I would start a fresh game, write down the first 10 pieces, then restart. Over and over and over, until finally, I found it -- a duplicate! Apparently, Tetris Friends only seede…

i wrote a script that played Facebook bejeweled for me. took screenshot and then pick out the pixel colors from a grid since they're all different and mostly static. then simulated some clicks. it was a bad player but stupid fast so it racked up the score nonetheless.

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#227

Post by optimiz3 » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:30 AM UTC

Reverse engineered the proprietary cryptographic hashes used by drivers of a major game console so I could use the devices for digital currency mining.

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#228

Post by riwsky » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:36 AM UTC

Back in the nineties, I walked out of a training session on animal capture and flew to a little island in the south. I was surfing its eastern shore, when my vision began to flash. W̴̯͊̉̄͗̇͛h̷̻̯̗̖̝͖͓͗̇̆͒̈́̏͑͛͜a̶͉͔̗̖̘̹̾̓̂̑̈́͗̈̅͋̎͜t̷̢̼͓̺͓̬̩̥̟̺̋̈́̓̑̉̔̚͝ ̸̞̰̜͕͙̰͓͍́̀̓́̈́͜͠h̴͈̑́̍̕̚͠a̷̢̗̼̹͆͑͑͊̔͊͛͑́̒͜p̴̧̧̮̻͓̗͍̔́͗̿͗̚p̵̰̰̘̤̜̘͕̈̉͜ę̵̬͖̺̬͇̦̃ͅn̴̢̡̛͉̹̮͗̀̚e̷̤͈̭̱͋͆̑͑̓͝d̷̛̲̩̓̄̈́̀́̉͝͝ ̴̛̛̯̽̃͛́̕n̸̢̛͉̺̜͕͕̑͝ě̴̫͎̪̦̠̫̣̈́͆͛́̿̈́ͅx̶̡̫̯̙̝͉̹̰͔̉̏̾́̋̂t̴̯̪͒̐̅̈́̈́͝ ̷̡̡̙̮͓͔͇̗̠̒̐̾͑͆͘ͅw̴̨̢̛̠̅̐̈̕͠a̶̖̥̼̪̗̟̝͕̅͗̊̚͘͠͝s̶͈͉̼̘̰̰̄́͆̃͠ ̵̨̨̛̱͉̼͔͙̠̦̌́̃̊̿̔̋̀͝ḿ̷̢͙̩̫͍̜̹̓̐͑͜ơ̸̮͍͒̈́̎̾͛s̸̪̻̥͎͍̿̈̇͌͜t̴͇̞̲̊̉͘ͅ ̸̨̰̤͔͚͌͠p̶̠͋́̽̌͂̀ē̵̼͍̙̹͙̦͔̬̖͆̈́̔̊̋c̶͎̊͛͑͂̈u̵͈̰͎̙̲̓̓l̸̜͙̘͕̤̣͆̅͛̀̔̚̚̚͠í̵͔̘̺͈̹̰̓̀ā̶̡̝͕̺͇̪͙̎̊̎̓̀̒̌̀̋ř̸̳͊̂͊̎͑̊̕͝…̷̨͍͓̱̥͔̠̅̌͑̈͝

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#229

Post by moron4hire » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:44 AM UTC

My first job out of college was QA testing for a GIS consultancy. This peeved me off because I had a CS degree and wanted to code. I kept begging to get access to the repo even just to fix the bugs I was finding, as I found them, but to no avail.

Then one day, a client asked for the ability to draw things on top of the map view we provided. This was pre-HTML5 and nobody on the team knew anything about graphics (which just so happened to be a major area of focus I had done in my CS degree and part of why I thought working on mapping software would be fun. Turns out they delegated all that to ArcGIS). Everyone started talking about Flash and how the mapping server probably wouldn't work with it, it was going to take so long, blah blah blah.

I piped up that I could do it in a couple of days. I hacked together a 2D drawing library in JavaScript that used DIV tags as "pixels" (oh yes, I was also the only person in the company that knew JavaScript. At that time, "serious" software didn't use such "lowly" scripting languages). Pulled out my copy of Foley, Van Damme, Finer, and Hughes and got to implementing Bresenham's. Even made a huge performance optimization by concatenating contiguous strings of DIV pixels in flat, vertical and horizontal runs, into a single, wide-or-tall DIV.

Several years later, HTML5 came out and CanvasRenderingContext2D was nearly identical in design. Well, that was no accident. We both based our work on Java2D.

I didn't report to the QA team after that hack. And that's how a hack got me my first programming job.

Honestly, it's been all dirty hacks in JavaScript like that, ever since.

Re: Ask HN: What's your proudest hack?

#230

Post by maybe_pablo » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 5:45 AM UTC

When requesting pizza delivery from the Domino's site I captured and modified the http request to delete the `crust_type` field. Turns out most of the price was calculated from that so I was getting incredibly cheap pizzas for a while until they found out and invalidated requests without crust selection.