Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 200 posts

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#51

Post by buffaloo »

joshuamorton wrote: post #33
buffaloo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t you just end up with a portfolio weighted with half below average stocks? Seems like you could beat this just by buying stuff you’ve heard of. I’m sitting her with my Apple phone, using Verizon internet, burning electricity from a publicly traded utility that probably won’t go broke next week, wearing my Nike shoes and drinking a Coke. That portfolio probably beats your index and requires zero brains or effort.

Over the past 5 years, Nike has gone up by 100%, coke by 20%, Verizon by 15%, and apple by ~125%. The s&p500 has gone up by ~50%. So if you invested 100 in an index fund, you'd have 150, if you invested 100 split evenly in those 4 stocks, you'd have 165. Of course, if you invested in GE, you'd have lost money. And if you invested in Amazon alone, you'd have $500.

This analysis is flawed in two respects: 1. It neglects dividends. 2. The S&P 500 as presently constituted omits all the companies that were excluded during that time period (eg., went broke).

If you just buy good solid companies that pay dividends, you do ok.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#53

Post by Mathnerd314 »

xyst wrote: post #43
rsync wrote: post #8

I use cron to send myself birthday reminder emails: 0 0 9 11 * /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: Nov 9 is Marks birthday" me@mydomain.com Or just annual reminders or warnings I want to heed: 0 0 1 8 * /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: MAKE christmas St. Francis reservations NOW for good pricing..." me@mydomain.com Sometimes, instead of /usr/bin/mail, I use 'smsme' which is a small script that interfaces with twilio: /usr/local/b…

What’s wrong with reminder apps that are default with all smart phones?

Emails are easier to deal with as task items, and he probably wrote this before smart phones were a thing.

Also reminder apps for smart phones suck, just read some internet reviews, e.g. first half of https://www.ipitaka.com/blogs/news/does-your-calendar-remind....

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#54

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

laurentdc wrote: post #36

I use a 20 line Python script to convert Outlook .ics calendars into billable hour count. It looks for a company name (the client) and calculates start and end time. All it needs now is to fill a .pdf invoice template and I can get rid of HR :D

Use DocAssemble... it has an API and can fill PDF templates.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#55

Post by gorgoiler »

I have a folder on my mail server called “Dead”. If I move an email to that folder then all subsequent emails to the same address as the first one go into “Dead/Match”. It’s driven by procmail and a script.

When used with one-off email addresses you get a behavior that’s like unsubscribing, but without having to trust any “unsubscribe” links or processes, and also without having to edit any config files (it’s all driven from iOS Mail.)

1/ book your hotel using the email address $RANDOM@yourdomain

2/ receive booking conformation and enjoy holiday

3/ when you eventually get marketing spam, file it in Dead and never be bothered again.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#56

Post by rsync »

xyst wrote: post #43
rsync wrote: post #8

I use cron to send myself birthday reminder emails: 0 0 9 11 * /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: Nov 9 is Marks birthday" me@mydomain.com Or just annual reminders or warnings I want to heed: 0 0 1 8 * /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: MAKE christmas St. Francis reservations NOW for good pricing..." me@mydomain.com Sometimes, instead of /usr/bin/mail, I use 'smsme' which is a small script that interfaces with twilio: /usr/local/b…

What’s wrong with reminder apps that are default with all smart phones?

I've been building this crontab since 1996.

How many phones have you gone through since 1996 ?

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#57

Post by flukus »

xyst wrote: post #43
rsync wrote: post #8

I use cron to send myself birthday reminder emails: 0 0 9 11 * /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: Nov 9 is Marks birthday" me@mydomain.com Or just annual reminders or warnings I want to heed: 0 0 1 8 * /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: MAKE christmas St. Francis reservations NOW for good pricing..." me@mydomain.com Sometimes, instead of /usr/bin/mail, I use 'smsme' which is a small script that interfaces with twilio: /usr/local/b…

What’s wrong with reminder apps that are default with all smart phones?

Notifications/interruptions don't tend to be at a good time and get swiped away, if you get an email you can check it at an actionable time, assuming you disable email interuptions.

It's easy to keep in git along with other configs so it survives phone refreshes without relying on third parties who are probably snooping on that data.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#58

Post by hbcondo714 »

xyst wrote: post #43
rsync wrote: post #8

I use cron to send myself birthday reminder emails: 0 0 9 11 * /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: Nov 9 is Marks birthday" me@mydomain.com Or just annual reminders or warnings I want to heed: 0 0 1 8 * /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: MAKE christmas St. Francis reservations NOW for good pricing..." me@mydomain.com Sometimes, instead of /usr/bin/mail, I use 'smsme' which is a small script that interfaces with twilio: /usr/local/b…

What’s wrong with reminder apps that are default with all smart phones?

What's wrong is that it's not default, in Android at least:

https://support.google.com/calendar/thread/1699815?msgid=171...

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#59

Post by wyre »

rolleiflex wrote: post #34
geocrasher wrote: post #13

My typing. In my work I tend to type a lot of the same things over and over again. So I automate that with AutoHotKey. Ctrl+Tab becomes RightAlt. Two words become entire paragraphs. Even simple things like "You're welcome" are just 'ywyw' or 'tyvm' becomes "Thank you very much". I know it sounds silly, but while trying to avoid RSI's, the less typing the better. I also use autohotkey to help me remember to Linux comm…

I wonder if it would be possible to build an app that's effectively a self-installed keylogger given access to your entire stream of writing, and after a few days, it starts to recommend candidate strings for automation with Autohotkey.

I think it could. It could log words for a certain amount of time, give a list of recommendations, and export it as a AutoHotkey file.

It would be a neat project at the very least.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#60

Post by fudged71 »

shostack wrote: post #29

Nothing fancy or involved at all, but in my personal finance spreadsheet, I dynamically pull in Zillow's current estimate of my home value (which I take with a grain of salt obviously). I also use IFTTT to pause my robovac if my doorbell rings. Right now I'm working on a Mint scraper to automate the rest of my personal finance data entry, but running into headaches getting Selenium to work properly on Catalina.

There appears to already be a mint scraper on github
Post reply on HN