Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

davekiss.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 229 posts

Re: How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

#191

Post by adr1an »

bigiain wrote: post #124
julianeon wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm somewhat skeptical of this amount of validation. There's a solid educational consensus on how to become the best at something: do it a lot. If your goal is to winning contests, you should really prioritize cranking through them: getting practice at getting better. Don't try to make a masterpiece. Instead focus on becoming fast at creating entries, doing them according to the rules, and sending them off. Like thos…

I kinda feel we both read two different blog posts here? What I took from this was: 1) Choose contests with well defined judging criteria, not subjective or popularity contests. Ideally ones where there are specific weightings for requirements and where some of the heaviest weightings are both a) things that'll be overlooked by a lot of entrants, and b) things you're personally very good at. (in this case video conte…

To be fair, the criterias to decide on joining a contest were presumably developed by joining contests. At least, that's how I interpreted his ramblings through code and so on. I am more skeptical towards contests showing you the submitted jobs. Surely that is less frequent and an error (e.g. if a submission looks like copied, you'd assume it was but having shown these was on you as organizer)

Re: How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

#192

Post by TacticalCoder »

hi_hi wrote: post #115

Oh no, its the AWD vs 4WD thing all over again. Is WD-40 a lubricant? Apparently, again, it depends!

> Is WD-40 a lubricant? Apparently, again, it depends!

Yeah...

I love WD-40 and use it all the time but... For many use cases there are better solutions out there. For example the picture showing it used in a window (or door?) seal: you want to use a spray of silicone for that instead. For locks (inside the lock I mean) you want to use graphite powder (or teflon). Not WD-40.

WD-40 is amazing because one can can save your day. But the examples where something better exist are numerous.

Re: How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

#194

Post by ravenravenpl »

shermantanktop wrote: post #139
sedatk wrote: post #137

When I was visiting India for work back in 2006, I got my name published on The Times of India newspaper. I was reading it while having breakfast at the hotel, and I saw this sports related question, and all you had to do was to send an email with your answer. So, I did that. And apparently, only a few people did it. I got my name printed on the next issue. We're talking about a national newspaper with a circulation…

It’s what I tell my kids. Two things will put you ahead of most people doing most things: 1) show up and 2) try.

I wish someone has taught me that. It really boils down to that most of the time.

Re: How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

#195

Post by ertgbnm »

neontomo wrote: post #29

I'm in the art scene, and when it comes to submitting proposals for exhibitions and being in art/film festivals and such, competing against other people being picked is surprisingly easy when you realise that most people don't study the brief that tells you exactly what the organisations is looking for. make sure you nail everything in the brief and you're in the lead, even if your art is terrible. I feel this is sim…

Even engineering contests are like this. I remember back in college there was a sustainable dog house competition with a very clearly defined rubric. My partner and I min/maxed the hell out of it and won first prize and $1,000, while everyone else built beautiful dog houses that ultimately missed the point.

Re: How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

#196

Post by neontomo »

ertgbnm wrote: post #195
neontomo wrote: post #29

I'm in the art scene, and when it comes to submitting proposals for exhibitions and being in art/film festivals and such, competing against other people being picked is surprisingly easy when you realise that most people don't study the brief that tells you exactly what the organisations is looking for. make sure you nail everything in the brief and you're in the lead, even if your art is terrible. I feel this is sim…

Even engineering contests are like this. I remember back in college there was a sustainable dog house competition with a very clearly defined rubric. My partner and I min/maxed the hell out of it and won first prize and $1,000, while everyone else built beautiful dog houses that ultimately missed the point.

what was the rubric they missed?

Re: How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

#198

Post by davekiss »

triwats wrote: post #193

One huge question is whether or not you took the time to read the T&C yourself, or got ChatGPT to analyse that for you too. Regardless, I'm in awe of your approach to being a serial contester.

Great question. I manually review the T&C, word for word. However, I did think to plop it into ChatGPT this time around as well, mostly out of curiosity, to see if it came to the same conclusion:

> here are the rules for a video contest. are there any gotchas or clauses that could give me the slight edge in winning if i were to submit one or more videos? what do i need to know? [entire ruleset]

The response was accurate but generic. Maybe with some stronger prompting (ie. "what's the number one thing I should prioritize?") it'd be more helpful, but for now, I'd still rather review manually.

See the response here: https://gist.github.com/davekiss/10209469246dde21b2550747add...

Re: How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

#199

Post by dubcanada »

biofox wrote: post #68
nasmorn wrote: post #66

I once ran an ultra marathon distance and had no lubricant but getting a bad rash so I sprayed my thighs and balls with WD-40 which I found outside someone’s garage. It lasted me almost 15 miles until I could buy some Vaseline. Off label use probably

Genius idea! I've found Vaseline to be less than ideal for running, and "personal lubricants" dry out much too quickly. I hadn't considered using industrial lubricants. Pretty much everyone who uses WD-40 for mechanical work ends up getting it on their skin (and probably inhaling a good amount), so I'm sure it's fine for limited exposure.

What you really want is somewhere between corn starch and lubricants, like gold bond friction stick.

Re: How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40

#200

Post by andai »

This is just work! You made eight commercials for a megacorporation for $300 a piece, right? Sounds like you are undercharging!

I did a contest once and won $2500. In the end the part I spent 2 weeks on made like $50, and the part I spent 30 minutes on right before the deadline made $2000. Not sure what lesson to take from that...

It was way more work than expected, especially because they had us do a peer review that took like 80% of the actual time. So in the end I probably made close to minimum wage and most of it was not fun. But the novelty at least made it sorta-worth it.

Post reply on HN