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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?

#401

Post by ian0 »

shostack wrote: post #274
wynnvonn wrote: post #212

Dodging the f *ing lightning in the desert area of FFX. I spent hours in that section as a kid, never managing to dodge more than 20 bolts in a row... When it came out for PC, it was time for revenge! I captured video input with a simple python+QT script and emitted a button-press whenever the screen flashed. The best part was that the script didn't interfere with my controller - I could run around the area opening c…

On the video game kick, I remember needing to do a massive number of laps in Gran Turismo 3 to unlock something. Turns out the low-tech solution of using an insanely fast car (Escudo), taping down the controller's gas button and just letting it do laps while grazing the wall worked. Some time later I looked back and had won.

Super speedway endurance, to get the polyphony formula one car perhaps :) I also had the same strategy.. Very handy as the car was one of 4 randomly gifted and that was one boring track.

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

#402

Post by zild3d »

chrisseaton wrote: post #380
santaclaus wrote: post #86

In college I wrote a script to register for classes. I'd input the potentially-full classes I'd like to register for, and it would just hammer the registration site repeatedly until someone removed themselves from the class at which point I'd be registered. I'm still amazed IT didn't pull the network connection to my dorm room or have any kind of rate limiting. No 8am sessions for me!

I occasionally hear about students in US colleges having to compete for places in classes like this. How does it happen? Why does the college admit more people than it has class space for? In the UK they don’t enroll more people than they can teach so everyone has a place.

It's not that the schools enroll more than they can teach. One simple reason is that many classes are just very popular, word gets around that they are great for whichever reason (professor, easy A, really fun project, etc). If a class can only hold 20 people, and its a popular class, its going to fill up as soon as registration opens.

In the end, you aren't left without being able to take classes. Just possibly not the ones you wanted

I doubt this isn't the case in the UK too

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

#403

Post by fishywang »

I have SmartThings at home for various IoT things. Among them I have a garage door controller, and a presence sensor. I put the sensor in my car, and wrote a script that closes the garage door when my car leaves, and open the garage door when my car comes back (with some logic to prevent it from opening unexpected, I documented that part in my blog: https://wang.yuxuan.org/blog/item/2017/03/smartthings-myq-an...)

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

#404

Post by peacelilly »

sachleen wrote: post #359
peacelilly wrote: post #93

Checking the radar. In the midwest, weather comes at you from a long ways away, so I wrote a script to set my desktop background to be the current national radar mosaic every 15 minutes. Explicitly setting the background programmatically was very unreliable in practice. The beauty of my script is that it simply wgets the image, checks if it is valid, resamples the image using a high quality algorithm (slow but worth…

Do you mind sharing where you get the radar image from? I'm trying to do something similar so I can see how I should dress for my bike commute every morning. The only good/free one I have found is NOAA's RIDGE ( http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/doppler/ridge_download.htm... ) but it's low resolution and ugly.

I use the national base reflectivity radar.

https://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Conus/RadarImg/latest.gif

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

#407

Post by Cyphase »

vxxzy wrote: post #150

I automated the birth announcement of my child using Tropo. Basically I had an app where, when I sent it the magical command ("here"), it generated a text and call to all family members with a canned message. Saved me a bunch of time :)

~$ announce_baby --weight=7.5 --sex=f --time=2017-10-11T17:56 --name=Emma

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

#408

Post by boardwaalk »

I have a script that scrapes my broker's website for my core balance and the value of my mutual funds. It then calculates orders to work toward goal percentages while keeping my core balance above a certain level. It then emails me and saves the orders.

This runs once a week. The next day it runs again and puts in the previously calculated orders, giving me a chance to review.

This along with bills on autopay entirely automates my day-to-day finances, besides a rent check I need to snap and cash once a month.

It's been great peace of mind.

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

#409

Post by rrggrr »

threeaccents wrote: post #242
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…

Did you have to prove your system was logging real data?

It was enough for the GAL to make a positive recommendation, and that seemed to be what the Court was after (the recommendation).

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

#410

Post by chrisseaton »

zild3d wrote: post #402
chrisseaton wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I occasionally hear about students in US colleges having to compete for places in classes like this. How does it happen? Why does the college admit more people than it has class space for? In the UK they don’t enroll more people than they can teach so everyone has a place.

It's not that the schools enroll more than they can teach. One simple reason is that many classes are just very popular, word gets around that they are great for whichever reason (professor, easy A, really fun project, etc). If a class can only hold 20 people, and its a popular class, its going to fill up as soon as registration opens. In the end, you aren't left without being able to take classes. Just possibly not…

In the UK you start a degree as a group and do all the same classes all at the same time as your peers. If you have a choice of classes then each of those choices can accommodate the whole group at the same time if everyone chose it, so classes just can’t be too full. At least this was the case at both use UK universities I’ve been to.
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