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

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

#641

Post by mrguyorama » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 3:45 PM UTC

shubb wrote: post #220

mrguyorama wrote: post #107

I had three fun ones. I wanted to learn powershell, and I was interested in the history of worms on the internet, so I made a script to check https://isc.sans.edu/ and send me an email if the status was not green. Turns out, powershell has an all-in-one function to send an SMTP email, which I thought was hilarious. I used windows task scheduler to run it every hour. Second, I was struggling with my Cable internet con…

Look at scraping Google and Bing maps?

That seems to be the prevailing theory, and in fact there's already a lot of work in the area, but I'm worried of falling afoul of terms of service. Scraping hundreds and hundreds of square miles of 1-foot per pixel satellite data from google might catch their attention

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

#642

Post by _tsz4 » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

jcun4128 wrote: post #527

_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-...

Sucks extensions don't work on phones (Chrome) I was doing a similar thing just grabbing topics when you go down a rabbit hole to remember random stuff you learn.

mobile app in the plan

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

#643

Post by _tsz4 » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

bobosha wrote: post #545

_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-...

https://www.memomize.com/ is a similar extension.

thks for the link. i think main difference is that harvest uses spaced repetition for passive learning, i dont want to see every thing every time i open a new tab. i like looking at my momentum backgrounds :)

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

#644

Post by chaostheory » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 4:31 PM UTC

someguy101010 wrote: post #446

chaostheory wrote: post #347

Wrote 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.

I'm also wondering if you could post that script, that sounds very interesting

I'll either ping you guys or do a ShowHN some time this year

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

#645

Post by _tsz4 » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 4:34 PM UTC

chestervonwinch wrote: post #330

_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-...

Cool idea. I will probably highlight way too many unimportant-but-seemed-neat-at-the-time facts from Wikipedia, but I'm going to try it out.

hah i do this all the time. added a "delete" button to get rid of the useless-in-hindsight stuff

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

#646

Post by artur_makly » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

btw this thread is gold for all you kids looking to find real world problems to solve -;)

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

#647

Post by _tsz4 » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 4:47 PM UTC

travbrack wrote: post #550

_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-...

Thanks for sharing. I tried it out and it looks great. I had a couple issues. Firstly it has me sign into my Google account on a browser window with no address bar. The only way I could actually verify that it wasn't a fishing site was to use the dev tools. After that it signed me out after a few hours. Hope this helps.

understand completely about the google signin. will look into how to display the URL as well to give people peace of mind. one day soon will add a dedicated authentication service.. this was just the easiest way to get up and running.

getting signed out happens for a variety of reasons, probably unrelated to the extension itself. ill keep an eye out though to see if there is a systematic reason

thks for the feedback mate!

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

#648

Post by michaelthiessen » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 5:06 PM UTC

artpi wrote: post #102

I have set up a battery of scripts on google app engine and Im pretty happy with it. 1. I have a script to automatically buy small amount of BTC every day 2. For the more knowledge-dense books I read, I write summaries of them ( https://piszek.com/books/ ). I have a script that puts a random book review to my pocket for reviewing every week 3. I have an instagram account of lego minifig ( https://www.instagram.com/le…

For #6, are you storing checklists in Evernote as well? Just reading through GTD right now, is this to replace the "Weekly Review" concept in the book so it is automated?

I'm looking to implement a GTD-like system myself, and any automation is helpful.

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

#649

Post by shujito » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 5:22 PM UTC

jurasource wrote: post #590

I "automated" (trained?) my kid to make her own breakfast at the weekends so I can sleep longer. Started when she was around 4, it's easier now she's 7. Lots of parallels with hacking code: * Specific rules (if there are more than 2 stars showing on your clock, it's too early to get up) * Trial and error (put cereal in a jar and loosen the lid slightly, put milk in a tiny jug at the bottom of the fridge) * Optimisati…

can you elaborate on more details? seems fun/interesting

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

#650

Post by benji-york » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

jurasource wrote: post #590

I "automated" (trained?) my kid to make her own breakfast at the weekends so I can sleep longer. Started when she was around 4, it's easier now she's 7. Lots of parallels with hacking code: * Specific rules (if there are more than 2 stars showing on your clock, it's too early to get up) * Trial and error (put cereal in a jar and loosen the lid slightly, put milk in a tiny jug at the bottom of the fridge) * Optimisati…

Animal training skills are key to parenthood.