Texting with my girlfriend. https://github.com/sjozsef/agf5k
Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
621–630 of 722 posts
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#622Passive 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-...
Man, this is awesome. Now that Firefox has become so vastly better than Chrome (who would have expected that a year ago?) you should port it to Firefox too.
I just gave it a spin again, after using Chrome for years.
The new Firefox is actually faster than Chrome, on my PCs. Plus of course the mobile version actually supports adblockers. I'm switching back to Firefox, personally.
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#62314 years ago, when low cost flights became popular in Europe with Ryanair, I moved to London with a friend for a year. To get the cheapest price, we had run a simple perl crawler in a cronjob to monitor the prices and it sent us a text over some free api.
We didn't realize that time that this could have been a massive service and over the years many businesses basically executed on the same basic idea.
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#624If you include home automation:
- Holliday decoration / lights
- Security
- Morning routine (Elliptical on, TV on, Audible book queued up, etc)
- Irrigation
If you don't include home:
- Putting important events like what day the trash should be taken out onto my calendar (taking into account snow delays and holidays)
- My personal tweeting
- Exercise planning / tracking (as much as possible). What is not possible (like recording actual reps) I put as easy to use voice commands on my Alexa
- And I also farm out minor stuff to a virtual personal assistant, which has an API
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#625If you include home automation: - Holliday decoration / lights - Security - Morning routine (Elliptical on, TV on, Audible book queued up, etc) - Irrigation If you don't include home: - Putting important events like what day the trash should be taken out onto my calendar (taking into account snow delays and holidays) - My personal tweeting - Exercise planning / tracking (as much as possible). What is not possible (li…
Hi which va service do you use/recommend ?
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#626If you include home automation: - Holliday decoration / lights - Security - Morning routine (Elliptical on, TV on, Audible book queued up, etc) - Irrigation If you don't include home: - Putting important events like what day the trash should be taken out onto my calendar (taking into account snow delays and holidays) - My personal tweeting - Exercise planning / tracking (as much as possible). What is not possible (li…
Hi which va service do you use/recommend ?
I'm currently trying out FancyHands https://www.fancyhands.com/
A task is 20 minutes, if it takes longer they ask you to use more than one credit on a single task. And there was one task so far that took so long I ended up doing it myself (they refunded my credit for that one). But overall it has been decent. I haven't tried others yet.
I picked them because their minimum fee is reasonable. As it is I have trouble using all five tasks they give you. (it rolls over to the next month)
For example, the last thing I had them do was to call the landfill and schedule my trash bin to be replaced because the lid broke and put it on my calendar. It is a pain in the neck thing (they don't always pick up the phone... you have to wait on hold... etc) so the assistant probably saved me a lot of aggravation.
They have an affiliate link but it uses my real name and this is an anonymous account so no affiliate referral for me :)
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#627I was in the US and want to immigrate to Canada because of US broken H1B immigration system ( for me it will take 9 years to get a greencard). Here is what I did - The immigration website of Saskatchewan province opens up randomly to apply for immigration. I missed it many times because there is no indication other than the "Apply" button being enabled and a small text in their homepage which says "Applications are n…
Did something similar to check availability of a special deal by my ISP. No need to write code, you only need a shell account on a box somewhere. Put a line like this in your crontab: 20 9,12,15,18,21 * * * curl -s http://example.com/special-deal-page | grep 'something that needs to appear on the page' | mailx -E -s "it's happening!1!" $MAILTO This will check every three hours during daytime (which is what I wanted).…
Pretty concise. I needed a loud phonecall, so used twilio free developer account for that.
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#628Wrote a simple app that emails people automatically asking them if they want to hangout. It reads my calendar and randomly decides whether or not we should hang out. The probability that it'll decide to ask gets higher and higher the longer we don't hangout, which it determines by reading my calendar.
Would you happen to have this script up on Github? Also, do you usually send events as part of the invitation (i.e. concerts, coffee e.t.c)?
Not yet - let me clean it up first and I’ll ping you guys
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#629Does it count if it doesn't FEEEEL like work??? I started an escape room business for fun, and have been enjoying the heck out of writing custom software for the rooms. Both in-room and for administration. My favorite is a javascript "OS" that I use to put imaginary windowed environments in the room, but the players never actually leave a full-screen browser. It does full window management and all the regular UI stuf…
Nice! If you don't mind me asking, how profitable is the room?
I'd also like to know this. I'm fascinated by their business model and I see them popping up all over.
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#630Many of automation ideas here bring an edge to one person at the expense of everyone else. The ideas fail completely if too many people start doing the same thing. Actual examples from people on this list: - User pokes immigration website repeatedly to submit his application as soon as the site starts accepting. Obviously if everyone did the same thing, no one would benefit. The thing that needs fixing is an immigrat…
> Many of automation ideas here bring an edge to one person at the expense of everyone else.
Except for mine. it’s a win / win when people hang out together