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

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

#671

Post by CGamesPlay »

inetknght wrote: post #361
CGamesPlay wrote: post #301

Paying parking tickets in SF. Input my license number and CC info and it would detect and pay parking tickets that came up. There is a CAPTCHA which was trivially solvable with Tessaract OCR.

When you say parking tickets, as in plural, it really makes wonder what kind of person would rack up so many parking tickets to make that worthwhile. I hope it's all in good fun...

You ever tried parking in San Francisco? (But seriously, it was very likely not worth it for me to have done this, although I imagine a 'fixed'-like [1] service but that just pays the tickets might be something would pay an extra few dollars for).

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/15/fixed-the-app-that-helps-y...

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

#672

Post by cwkoss »

timthelion wrote: post #367
cwkoss wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What automatic chopping/grating machines do you have?

I have the communist era UKS Kitchen Robot: https://www.google.cz/search?q=kuchy%C5%88sk%C3%BD+robot+uks... It has a round cheeze gratter and slicer which is turned by an incredibly powerful and slow motor, and whatever it is you wanted sliced or grated can simply be cramed into the thing. It has a number of attachments, including a dough mixer that is actually powerfull enough to work (and to break your arm if you'r…

Interesting. Thanks for the reply!

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

#673

Post by rodjomatic »

literallycancer wrote: post #557
fehrm wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you buy BTC every day? Is it cheaper than just buying once?

Helps with the volatility.

Do you have any special way of avoiding transaction fees? It would seem to me that buying a small amount daily would rack up lots of transaction fees?

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

#674

Post by hi41 »

t1o5 wrote: post #143

I 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…

It made me so happy to read your post! That is such an amazing idea!

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

#675

Post by maxk42 »

mxuribe wrote: post #115
maxk42 wrote: post #83

I automated applying for jobs a few years back. I wrote a scraper and a classifier that took a look at each job posting, determined if it required skills for technologies I wasn't familiar with, and if not, and it was also a strong enough candidate for requiring skills I'm strong with, it would send one of several appropriate resumes depending on which sort of job it was.

There's a fine line here...If i was a potential employer, and somehow figured out that you were blasting my company's career/job site, i would actually want to consider you speaking with you about the job. This is because I value resourcefulness, and also because - as part of the job interview - i would like to hear how you made the script; less the tech (though that's important) but more so the algorithm, your think…

I should've been more specific: It was applying to contract work on my behalf.

I basically built myself a sales team that's happy to work for free.

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

#677

Post by t1o5 »

nnd wrote: post #533
t1o5 wrote: post #143

I 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…

Is that for Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program?

Yes. SINP in short.

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

#678

Post by lamby »

Tepix wrote: post #597
t1o5 wrote: post #143

I 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).…

This is pretty much exactly how my https://github.com/lamby/gumtree-sniper works

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

#679

Post by aknosis »

jcun4128 wrote: post #528
heelhook wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gotta say, #7, if something were to happen to you would be pretty scary. Have you considered that scenario? Tying the delivery of messages to some kind of manual online activity (e.g. recent emails sent)

Haha I thought of this too, imagine you're working for clients and you just died and this condition is met and they receive this email saying "If you received this email, then I am probably dead."

It exists... https://www.deadmansswitch.net

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

#680

Post by jwong_ »

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 like this idea for fostering relationships that I either get anxiety or not sure what to say.

What do you ask them to hang out with? A calendar invite? Or SMS?

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