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

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

#231

Post by _tsz4 » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:38 PM UTC

vollmond wrote: post #114

_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-...

This is really interesting. What are some of the things you have used this for? One of the examples is a quotation, which makes lots of sense. What else could it be useful for? Formulas, maybe?

I'm trying to expand my Chinese vocab, so I usually do something like " translation"

eg. 拓展 expand

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

#232

Post by jpeeler » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:38 PM UTC

throwaway613834 wrote: post #183

marvinpinto wrote: post #45

I automated downloading and reconciling my financials from all my bank accounts. https://disjoint.ca/projects/ledger-reconciler

Holy cow, I've been looking for this but for the US. Anybody know of any?

This might be helpful, though I haven't looked at it in a very long time: https://github.com/madhat2r/plaid2text

Essentially it is some python to download transactions using the plaid API (and requires an account to do so).

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

#233

Post by justboxing » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:39 PM UTC

t1o5 wrote: post #228

snadwich wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you convert this into a paid service? Sounds amazing!

I did, hosted at sinpnotifier.com, Saskatchewan province is not that attractive for skilled immigrants. Had one sale though, then I shut it down.

> Why don't you convert this into a paid service

and

> I did, ...Had one sale though

Yeah, was about to say, it's too small of a niche. Plus the risk that sooner or later, Saskatchewan would update their site to provide the same feature.

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

#234

Post by lucb1e » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:39 PM UTC

dm03514 wrote: post #153

I just bought a roomba: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LX6OC6/ref=oh_aui_deta... Highly recommend it to anyone with a large amount of hardwood floors. We have a couple area rugs, one is pretty thick and it handles the transitions fine. Floors have never been cleaner, no longer need to vacuum animal fur everyday.

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

#235

Post by shadefinale » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:39 PM UTC

I'm fairly interested in the competitive smash bros scene - a common occurrence is that one might record a few hours worth of gameplay after an event and then be too lazy to split the recording into the individual matches, leaving a lot of recorded dead time where nothing is happening.

I learned how to use the gstreamer and opencv libraries to automate recording gameplay only when a game is in progress - it is still a WIP but the basic functionality works.

I'm looking into using a webcam + barcode labels or an NFC scanner to implement a solution to automate naming the players playing each match. If anyone has an idea on how to track something like that I'd be interested in hearing it.

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

#236

Post by parthdesai » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:40 PM UTC

t1o5 wrote: post #228

snadwich wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you convert this into a paid service? Sounds amazing!

I did, hosted at sinpnotifier.com, Saskatchewan province is not that attractive for skilled immigrants. Had one sale though, then I shut it down.

Maybe you didn't market it to right crowd? I know a lot of South Asian people who go to Saskatchewan just to get their PR.

There are a lot of Software Engineering/Development jobs in Toronto or bigger cities so people in those fields wont leave these bigger cities.

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

#237

Post by IgorPartola » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:41 PM UTC

Does anyone have a script for integrating with Facebook and grabbing whose birthdays are today? I'd really like to automate it, but this info isn't available via the Graph API, so I kind of gave up on this, but if someone else has done this, I'd love to take a look.

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

#238

Post by jshap70 » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:42 PM UTC

tylerjaywood wrote: post #141

I have a house plant that is watered automatically, but not based on any pre-determined schedule. I have the plant's livestream and its moisture level available publicly on pleasetakecareofmyplant.com and the decision to water is crowd sourced on reddit.com/r/takecareofmyplant by way of a daily vote.

I'm truly amazed that this has been going for over a year now and the internet hasn't murdered it

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

#239

Post by justboxing » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:42 PM UTC

rrggrr wrote: post #230

1. My former spouse wouldn't answer the home phone when I talked with the kids during the divorce. I wrote an app that texted her and logged the attempt for reporting to the guardian ad litem. 2. She also wouldn't answer the door when during kids pick-up. The same app texted her when I was outside. 3. To disprove her allegations I wasn't involved in the kids school and activities I used Android's Locale app to trigge…

This is awesome. You should turn this into a sevice or App -- call it DivorceBot or CustodyBot or FatherTime ?

Considering that close to a MILLION Americans get divorced every year, at a 50% rate i.e. half of marriages are ending up in divorce in the US.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage_divorce_tables.htm

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

#240

Post by bernardom » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:43 PM UTC

jldugger wrote: post #198

santaclaus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ohh someone should do this for the pot holes in the Bay Area.

IIRC, boston wrote a mobile app that people could install to auto report potholes. http://www.streetbump.org/ This was five years ago, donno if they've improved it.

That thing was awesome. I lived in Boston at the time and loved reporting potholes- they would usually fix them within a week and post a picture of the "after." Made it really fun to participate.