Ask HN: Small scripts, hacks and automations you're proud of?

Script which parses my calendar and creates tasks in my GTD-like system in Todoist - so all my tasks are in one place and I should not jump between apps to get full picture of a day

Easily my highest utility script so far was to get an edge while picking classes. At my university there were some classes which were very competitive and there was also system where tranches of students would get access to those classes earlier (e.g. groups of honors students -> groups of seniors -> juniors, etc). I was a lowly sophomore at the time, so I basically got what was left over.

Before I could register I could see most classes I wanted to take had plenty of availability except for one which was almost full. That class would make my schedule perfect (no classes before 10am, everything ending before 4PM, good teachers), so I was ready the moment my group got access. I logged into the janky Java applet and saw that my desired class was full. Dismayed, but not giving up, I refreshed the class list to see if someone might drop during the drop-add week. Nope, still full, but there was still time for someone to change their mind and for me to slip in. I was going to need an edge.

Another peculiarity of this system was that it was definitely a weird Java app based on some type of main frame. It must have been around for a decade at least. One of the signs of its age was that you had a limited amount of time per day during which you could be logged into the system, something like 90 minutes a day.

So I did what any good hacker would: I made _really_ good use of that limited time. I wrote an AutoHotkey script which would automatically log in, traverse all the menus and attempt to sign me up for that class. It was much faster than a human, so each run barely put a dent in my logged-in time allotment. As a cherry on top, I wired it up to a python script to push notify me if it succeeded.

After letting it run for two days, some false alarms, and tweaking, I got a delightful "You're registered!" notification on my phone and found that it had successfully gotten me the class I wanted. I'm still chasing that high to this day.

Looks very interesting, thanks! Apple noob here.

I used to have a script that would turn my desktop into a "whiteboard for temporary files". Every file older than 2 days would get copied to some temporary trash folder, and would then be deleted after 90 days of inactivity. I had no shortcuts on my desktop, only files and downloads. Everything there was meant to be temporary, quick sketches. Was super happy with that workflow and it was all a couple dozen lines of bash/powershell (as I migrated between OSes).

And also access to those users’ other accounts if they reuse passwords (most people probably do)