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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?

#461

Post by captaintacos »

richev wrote: post #381
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…

https://visualping.io/ can do this, although it sends email alerts rather than SMS messages. I used it to notify me of new Hololens events, listed on this page https://www.microsoftevents.com/profile/web/index.cfm?PKwebI...

Cool! Thanks for that Already using it to track whenever a couple stores here in Japan put the Nintendo Switch back in inventory or lottery sale

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

#462

Post by rocky1138 »

_tsz4 wrote: post #444
yorwba wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that I use Anki with the Chinese Support plugin, which is honestly pretty great. It does not only have characters and translation, but also pronunciation both as Pinyin (I think other romanizations can be configured) and audio (which plays on review, great for training your ear and checking your pronunciation), as well as measure words and characters in the opposite set (simplified vs traditional). And it can fil…

ive actually never tried anki before, but will check it out now. thks for the details!

Skritter is also really good for this.

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

#463

Post by richev »

I got a Nest thermostat a few years ago when I was working from home and sat at my desk most of the day. This meant that I seldom walked past the Nest, meaning that after a while it would assume there was no-one home so would turn the heating off.

I wrote a Windows app [1] in C# that would ping the Nest API to keep me at "home", so long as the PCs screensaver had not come on (in which case I would have probably _actually_ gone out).

Worked well, but when I submitted the app to Nest for approval in their store [2] they asked me to remove this specific feature! It still acts as a handy desktop notifier for Nest thermostats though.

[1] http://richev.me/nest

[2] https://workswith.nest.com/company/notifier-for-nest-by-rich...

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

#464

Post by rocky1138 »

mrfusion wrote: post #250
tfolbrecht wrote: post #146

One of the biggest automation arena improvements I've made in my life is creating visual cue reminders and systems for a sort of stateful orderliness. When the laundry basket gets full past the painter tape line, I do a load. I load the dishwasher after dinner, and unload it in the morning regardless of the volume. Got a roomba that runs every other day and cries when it's full of dirt. I have NFC stickers that link…

How do you make the roomba cry?

Mine plays a sad song when it's full. I think it's the 595?

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

#465

Post by wingerlang »

I've mentioned this before on HN.

- I've automated taking screenshots of my laptop screen + webcam and fuse them and organise by year/month/day/hour. This gives me a nice lookback at what I was doing on a particular day (assuming I was at my laptop, which I mostly am).

- I also send my GPS location each 30 minutes, again from my laptop, into a database for a nice visualisation where I was at some time.

- Automatically move files from my laptop into various folders which are stages of "stagnation" of the file, makes it easy to keep stuff clean.

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

#466

Post by throwanem »

humanrebar wrote: post #455
weaksauce wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer but it would seem if you attest to the fact that it is reliable data it would be admissible. Lying under oath and fabricating evidence is still against the law.

> To disprove her allegations I wasn't involved in the kids school and activities... There don't seem to be any criminal charges here.

That doesn't mean you don't get sworn.

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

#467

Post by jmcgough »

wingerlang wrote: post #465

I've mentioned this before on HN. - I've automated taking screenshots of my laptop screen + webcam and fuse them and organise by year/month/day/hour. This gives me a nice lookback at what I was doing on a particular day (assuming I was at my laptop, which I mostly am). - I also send my GPS location each 30 minutes, again from my laptop, into a database for a nice visualisation where I was at some time. - Automaticall…

Pretty neat, but that could be dangerous if someone got ahold of that information.

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

#468

Post by verelo »

alaties wrote: post #453

Built an automatic outdoor watering system using a zwave-controlled power outlet, a 120v AC solenoid valve, and a simple linux server running openHAB. I trigger the watering system using a script that checks the weather and sunset time for that day. If there was no rain and it's 2 hours past sunset, the script turns the watering system on for a set period. Makes supporting a large garden while frequently traveling do…

What solenoid did you use? I was looking into this and struggled to find an affordable valve for the water, the zwave switch is simple and I love that part of this solution!

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

#469

Post by gitgud »

tfolbrecht wrote: post #283
mrfusion wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love to get a 3d printer for 160! Can you point me in the right direction? (Or add me to your alert)

Newegg Business, Davinci XYZ jr 1.0 There's DRM on the filament and it's PLA only, but you can buy the key to unlock and rewrite the DRM NFC chip. I use an app on my phone to rewrite the values

DRM on the filament, so you need to buy their filament? How does that work?

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

#470

Post by laktek »

bakli wrote: post #456
laktek wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to build stuff like this in future, check Page.REST a simple API I built. You can pass a query string `contains=TEXT` to check the existence of a word or a phrase. Here's a Postman collection of all possible options with the API https://app.getpostman.com/run-collection/620bbe44b6ecc6c2e3...

You can maybe add a glitch repo to make it easier to get started.

Thanks! I looked at Glitch but didn't quite get how I can make a shareable sample.
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