Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#261

Post by philsnow » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

auvrw wrote: post #131

making animated gifs https://github.com/ransomw/dotfiles/blob/master/shutils/gifm... ... and some other stuff, but that's probably the most important.

why do you extract the frames as jpgs instead of something lossless ? I expect you'll get better quality, smaller gifs with less noise if you use pngs instead.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#262

Post by aoeuasdf1 » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

_tsz4 wrote: post #87

Passive learning. Whenever I come across something cool or interesting, I put it into a chrome extension I made called "Harvest". It sends me email reminders of what I've added on a spaced repetition schedule (1, 7, 17, 35 days into the future) for optimal retention https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-grow-your-...

Really cool idea, thanks for sharing!

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#263

Post by sircastor » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

For a while, I had Tasker setup to track when I left home, when I arrived at work and the opposite for when I left work for home. I had a vision of analyzing the data to determine optimal traffic times, but never really got around to it. I did get everything dumped into a spreadsheet though.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#264

Post by teekert » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:03 PM UTC

I wrote a script that switches my outside lamps exactly at sunrise and sunset. It checks the times and schedules the switch command using cron. It runs on a Pi, for several years already without much trouble. (https://myrpi.nl/node/60, sorry it's in dutch)

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#265

Post by aoeuasdf1 » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:03 PM UTC

vollmond wrote: post #114

_tsz4 wrote: post #87

Passive learning. Whenever I come across something cool or interesting, I put it into a chrome extension I made called "Harvest". It sends me email reminders of what I've added on a spaced repetition schedule (1, 7, 17, 35 days into the future) for optimal retention https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-grow-your-...

This is really interesting. What are some of the things you have used this for? One of the examples is a quotation, which makes lots of sense. What else could it be useful for? Formulas, maybe?

For formulas, I find Anki to be pretty effective, because it forces me to recall the formula. I also try to put proofs and proof-techniques into Anki so I can maintain knowledge of an area without using it frequently.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#266

Post by tylerjaywood » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:09 PM UTC

jamiegreen wrote: post #148

tylerjaywood wrote: post #141

I have a house plant that is watered automatically, but not based on any pre-determined schedule. I have the plant's livestream and its moisture level available publicly on pleasetakecareofmyplant.com and the decision to water is crowd sourced on reddit.com/r/takecareofmyplant by way of a daily vote.

Very cool! Can you share the hardware setup you have?

Yeah, there are some affiliate links on the main page of the website, then a link in the header to 'how it works' shows a bit more. All of the code is mostly on github. (I was still learning how to use git for this project, so its not perfect)

If you have any more questions feel free to post them in the sub and I can explain more!

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#267

Post by tylerjaywood » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:10 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #184

tylerjaywood wrote: post #141

I have a house plant that is watered automatically, but not based on any pre-determined schedule. I have the plant's livestream and its moisture level available publicly on pleasetakecareofmyplant.com and the decision to water is crowd sourced on reddit.com/r/takecareofmyplant by way of a daily vote.

Do you have limits to prevent over or under watering?

Yeah, so it's not water on demand. That was my original idea but obviously that posed some risks to the dryness of my floor and the relationship with my landlord.

How it functions is a daily yes/no vote that triggers a watering event for that day.

Edit: Oh, but to I think the real question -- No. It's not my plant anymore as far as I'm concerned. The community can care for it as they see fit. I won't interfere, except to add features, or put up seasonal decorations :)

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#268

Post by tylerjaywood » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:10 PM UTC

rando444 wrote: post #225

tylerjaywood wrote: post #141

I have a house plant that is watered automatically, but not based on any pre-determined schedule. I have the plant's livestream and its moisture level available publicly on pleasetakecareofmyplant.com and the decision to water is crowd sourced on reddit.com/r/takecareofmyplant by way of a daily vote.

Very clever, I like the project. I'm a fan of the pin too.. can there be a fridge magnet version?

haha I can snip off the pin and super glue a magnet to the back of one if you want. They haven't been selling well enough to recoup the initial production cost so I'm hesitant to expand the product line.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#269

Post by tylerjaywood » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

rootsudo wrote: post #149

tylerjaywood wrote: post #141

I have a house plant that is watered automatically, but not based on any pre-determined schedule. I have the plant's livestream and its moisture level available publicly on pleasetakecareofmyplant.com and the decision to water is crowd sourced on reddit.com/r/takecareofmyplant by way of a daily vote.

This couldn't backfire. I like it.

The worst case scenario was me trying to keep the plant alive, so it was really all upside.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#270

Post by romdev » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:12 PM UTC

markfer wrote: post #166

juancampa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you automate this? Did you use some sort of API or just set it up through the bank's website?

also curious how

No coding. I'm just one of the lucky people who has almost all forward-thinking billers who support auto-pay with a credit card. There's one exception that only allows using a bank account for auto-pay, so I pay that manually through my bank's bill pay service. I've stopped giving out my 20+ year old bank account number to any service provider, because it's no fun to close an account for fraud.

The text message alert is set up on the online banking site - I set it up to send a text message whenever there's a debit >$1. There are a few banks (Chase is one) that even offer real-time alerts where you get texted as soon as the transaction happens, but most will send the alerts at some time of the day. It's a shame that more banks don't implement and advertise that feature to prevent fraud. To me it's comforting to get a text as soon as the card gets swiped.