Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought so too, until I realize she could immediately call and ask what do I think about the picture.
Just spin up a good computer vision algorithm!
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Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
681–690 of 722 posts
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#682[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#683I got into programming in 6th grade when I was addicted to the online game Runescape. My parents only allowed me to play 2 hours a day, so i downloaded some bots to farm gold for me. Within a couple months i got perm banned for macro abuse, and wanted to create a smarter bot. I began making simple edits to scripts to add randomness. I kept getting banned. By highschool i was putting more effort into coding bots than…
Some of the best Runescape bots were all written in SCAR ( https://scar-divi.com/ ). A friend of mine used them for months at a time all on one character to get 99 in many skills. He was never caught and never banned. The scripts were very sophisticated- human style mouse movement, mouse clicks, random event solvers, etc.
I used a few scar scripts, but i found that a lot of them would look for pixel colors and fall out of sync within a few hours. Im sure there were some good ones though. Rs bots really started to thrive when people started modifying the game client itself.
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#6841. IFTTT turns off all of my Hue lights at sunrise (task: turn off forgotten lights) 2. At one point last year, I felt that my mornings were getting slower and slower (causing me to leave later), so I set up a Dash button where I hang my keys. When I left for work, I'd press the button, and the script would log the time to a Sparkfun data feed. After a month, I reviewed it to see just how bad it was (pretty bad). (ta…
I got an email about how to do the dash button thing, so I figured I'd post my response here as well. I use this project: https://github.com/hortinstein/node-dash-button
Here's how it works:
1. Figure out the dash button's mac address by network sniffing
2. Set up the dash partially, so it tries to make an order (but don't specify in your account exactly what to order, so it never completes)
3. Sniff the network for that mac address, and run an arbitrary script when you see it (this is the actual action, like my data logging)
4. For good measure, block outgoing requests from that address in your firewall
It's not 100% reliable, but it's still pretty useful.
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#685I "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…
LOL, I found this hilarious because my 5 y/o kid wakes me up when it's time for food. Definitely gonna "fork" your source here and try it out myself :)
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#686Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did something similar, my gf wanted me text her that I got home safely after I left her place. So I automated it that when I disconnected to her WiFi and within a certain time reconnected to mine it would text her. She noticed it when she drove me back home once and still got the text.
My wife and I simplified the "where are you" problem by turning on always-on location sharing in Google maps. Some people find it creepy, but as a couple of engineers we're pretty stoked on the efficiency improvement.
I'd still be creeped out. What if I want to go secretly shop for a gift?
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#687I made a script which would automatically check my visa application status a couple of times a day:
A simple selenium script which went to the embassy website and downloaded the latest new PDFs for visa decisions, and search the PDF text for my application number.
I wanted to complete it by adding a telegram or text message push, but I got lazy at that point. One script which simply printed out the result on my terminal was good enough.
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#688I "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…
I have four kids now, and I learned this automation trick way too late. We helped our older kids with "activities of daily living" longer than we realized we needed to. Now or younger two are doing things on their own years earlier than their older siblings.
We've just generally found that our kids have been ready to do things earlier than we imagined. Each time we've made a transition, we look back and think "why didn't we do that sooner?"
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#689I found that through some careful sleuthing, you can find pretty much any font committed to open-source repositories. So now I have a command-line tool to get any font I want (for personal use only).
Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?
#690I've gotten sick of listening to broadcast news on my commute so I've made my own. I scrape r/worldnews, r/news, & r/politics and then put the content through a text-to-voice program. This is done daily so I have hands-free news consumption experience.
If people find this valuable, I'm considering creating a paid service out of it.