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Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#21
post #7

I have a list of questions that I like to be thinking about and have an automated system that texts me one of those questions at random during my waking hours.

I use IFTTT to do a few things like this.

Mostly motivational sort of stuff.

I like this idea of asking myself questions.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#22

Not exactly a script, but if I really think about it the largest thing I've automated in my life is investing--- via index funds. No picking individual stocks, no rebalancing (Vanguard and others have "target date" funds that rebalance automatically).

Don’t you just end up with a portfolio weighted with half below average stocks? Seems like you could beat this just by buying stuff you’ve heard of. I’m sitting her with my Apple phone, using Verizon internet, burning electricity from a publicly traded utility that probably won’t go broke next week, wearing my Nike shoes and drinking a Coke. That portfolio probably beats your index and requires zero brains or effort.

The problem is there's no way for you to pick the winners and losers accurately. Most people who spend their whole career picking stocks actually don't beat the market indices. It's not as trivial a problem as you seem to think it is.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#23
post #2

I live in a condo complex with a dog and no lawn. We learned after getting our dog that this place doesn’t want dogs going to the bathroom on any of the common area (makes sense but annoying to dog owners). We used to get a small patch of grass delivered every week but it was a hassle to swap each time. Also it was disgusting by the end of the week. Then I discovered porch potty. Got the version that is hooked up wit…

> We used to get a small patch of grass delivered every week haha, WHAT??

I know it’s crazy. https://doggielawn.com/ Wasn’t cheap either

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#24
I have a website that tells me when the next train leaves and if I need an umbrella: http://mazu.ai/

Probably a good idea for a startup actually, a 90s style "web portal" for urban commuters that tells you the weather, transit situation, and downloads some news articles for when you're in the tunnel.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#26

Not exactly a script, but if I really think about it the largest thing I've automated in my life is investing--- via index funds. No picking individual stocks, no rebalancing (Vanguard and others have "target date" funds that rebalance automatically).

If I recall, target date funds have taken quite a bit of flack for their fee-adjusted performance compared to a minimalist simple 2 or 3 fund fund portfolio approach.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#27
Report generation that need to be done through some poorly designed web frontend (even to a point where you abstract the automation process and the return of the data as an api). Have been worked at various companies over the past decade, I found that this kind of automation is the most valuable.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#29
Nothing fancy or involved at all, but in my personal finance spreadsheet, I dynamically pull in Zillow's current estimate of my home value (which I take with a grain of salt obviously).

I also use IFTTT to pause my robovac if my doorbell rings.

Right now I'm working on a Mint scraper to automate the rest of my personal finance data entry, but running into headaches getting Selenium to work properly on Catalina.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t you just end up with a portfolio weighted with half below average stocks? Seems like you could beat this just by buying stuff you’ve heard of. I’m sitting her with my Apple phone, using Verizon internet, burning electricity from a publicly traded utility that probably won’t go broke next week, wearing my Nike shoes and drinking a Coke. That portfolio probably beats your index and requires zero brains or effort.

The problem isn't always knowing what to buy, but when to sell. For some who don't have the time of researching and rebalancing an index fund or ETF that does it for you is a good value prop. Example where that strategy might run into problems - hindsight is 20/20: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EH6la6VWoAIC0cM?format=jpg&name=...

Index funds don't try to time the market. Which ETFs are you thinking about? Hedge funds?
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