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Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#621

Post by driverdan »

marcol1n0 wrote: post #544

My mum did run a B&B, in Italy, on the sea. Me and my sister do live in different cities. She was quite old, but did not want any help from strangers. She did refuse to use a computer keyboard, since she hated informatization, and her sight was short. So I did automate a system for her to scan the guests documents, detect the data required by local police for registration via OCR, fill up the form to send those data,…

> detect the data required by local police for registration

What data do the local police require?

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#622

Post by gitgud »

paraschopra wrote: post #378

Oh boy, great question. Over the last couple of months, I've been writing apps for a single user: me. Here's what all I've built so far: 1. A custom twitter client I feel like tweeting whenever I get an insight so I post a tweet several times a day. But I whenever I used to tweet, I'd get pulled into an endless stream of notifications and timeline. So I wrote myself a client that does only one thing: posting of tweet…

This might be another good option for you!

https://hn.algolia.com

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#623

Post by rtkwe »

amelius wrote: post #171
dest wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an idea how could such a database of copyrighted material be shared? (Asking for a friend...)

Good point. Perhaps use only parts of the material (not the entire clips). This should be covered by "fair use". And perhaps using the clips for other purposes than "viewing" may in fact be fair use. Especially since you are trying to find a method for not viewing them. (IANAL)

Just apply a transform to them like FFT then it's not the original work anymore and it should be fine.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#624

Post by hajrice »

claydavisss wrote: post #573
hajrice wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're just debating additional income. However, say your company lost -$10,000. If you profited $10,000 in stocks -- you technically made $0 in profit, which means you still don't need to pay taxes, even on the profit on stocks. ...and if your business is really killing it, and you're also killing it in the stock market, I am certain you won't have a problem paying a few dollars to the US Gov. It's still better…

Your "business" losses offset personal trading gains? This is fraud.

It is not personal trading gain. The business owns the stock, not myself

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#625

Post by gormz »

ramshorns wrote: post #403
anonymous5133 wrote: post #259

I have a robot lawn mower that is wire guided. Instead of the traditional lawn mowers that basically cut the grass in all directions (making a sloppy cut pattern) my mower knows how to cut in straight lines so you get a traditional cut pattern. It also has the ability to dump the grass cuttings into a composting bin. Basically, I put down wire guide cable into the lawn and into the cement as well. It is all powered b…

Does the wire ever get in your way or trip you when you're walking around the lawn?

They rent a cable burying machine at home depot to do things like this and invisible fences for pets.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#626

Post by bonestamp2 »

t0mek wrote: post #154
amelius wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The commercial block starts and finishes with a jingle, so the potential software should recognize these specific sounds and turn off the volume between them. I suppose that many stations don't have such markers though.

Indeed. I see two options here. First is to analyze the other signal features of the commercials (eg. increased volume), although it may be tricky. The other option is a crowd-sourced solution - pretty much as for the browser adblock - where users can mark samples recognized as ads. Since the publishers often buy campaigns for many stations in the same country or state, it may be a shared database. On the other hand,…

> analyze the other signal features of the commercials (eg. increased volume), although it may be tricky

My home theater receiver does this (Marantz). It works pretty well. It doesn't cancel out the TV commercials though, it just normalizes the volume so it matches the show. But, I assume you could make it work for muting too.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#627

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

megy wrote: post #397
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived in India, it was cheaper to hire someone to wash clothes and dishes by hand than to buy a washing machine or dish washer (and the place we lived wouldn't have had anywhere to put them anyway). [Though half the time we did these things (by hand) ourselves.]

I mean, of course. It is cheaper to do that anywhere in the world. The trick is to use the washing machine more than once.

"When I lived in India, it was cheaper to hire someone to wash clothes and dishes by hand [assuming that context makes it clear that the costs are being calculated over an extended period of time rather than a single instance] than to buy a washing machine or dish washer".

Just like if I were to say "when in city X, it was cheaper to travel by taxi than to buy a car", I wouldn't mean a single taxi ride.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#628

Post by halite »

marcol1n0 wrote: post #544

My mum did run a B&B, in Italy, on the sea. Me and my sister do live in different cities. She was quite old, but did not want any help from strangers. She did refuse to use a computer keyboard, since she hated informatization, and her sight was short. So I did automate a system for her to scan the guests documents, detect the data required by local police for registration via OCR, fill up the form to send those data,…

This made my eyes wet.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#629

Post by bonniemuffin »

enneff wrote: post #398
bonniemuffin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often commented that I'm glad I have to water the garden because it's an excuse to just stand around looking at plants. I don't like watering grass because grass is boring and requires a ton of water, so rather than install irrigation, I ripped out all the grass and planted more interesting plants. (Drought-tolerant xeriscaping is common in my area, so this isn't unusual.)

> just stand around looking at plants. Hard to overstate how good this is for one's mental health.

I'm pretty sure the part of my eye that processes tall green things and wide blue things is wired directly into the happy spot in my brain.

Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?

#630

Post by bonniemuffin »

reitanqild wrote: post #143
bonniemuffin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often commented that I'm glad I have to water the garden because it's an excuse to just stand around looking at plants. I don't like watering grass because grass is boring and requires a ton of water, so rather than install irrigation, I ripped out all the grass and planted more interesting plants. (Drought-tolerant xeriscaping is common in my area, so this isn't unusual.)

> so rather than install irrigation, I ripped out all the grass and planted more interesting plants. Nice. A lot of local plants too?

I don't think most of them are truly native to the area, but they're mostly cuttings of abuse-tolerant species that were growing well at friends' and neighbors' houses in the area.
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