[HN Gopher] How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of ...
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How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40
Author : davekiss
Score : 594 points
Date : 2024-08-14 16:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (davekiss.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (davekiss.com)
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Did you spend more time working on this blog post than on the
| contest? Yes.
|
| Kind of feels line author spent more time researching their odds
| than working on the submission as well.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| Measure twice, cut once
| cjidjdj wrote:
| [flagged]
| davekiss wrote:
| Aw man, sorry this one wasn't for you!
| j45 wrote:
| Great response. The value is in depth not just soundbites.
| cjidjdj wrote:
| No I'm sorry, for my harsh and unconstructive comment. It was
| unkind and I shouldn't have made it.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Odd. I didn't find it tedious at all
| thekevan wrote:
| I was getting bored toward the middle, but that is because it
| is a topic that didn't interest me specifically, NOT because
| the writing was bad.
|
| I found the parts I was interested to be wonderful.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| I know it feels like you're 'just' sharing an opinion (or, lord
| help us, a 'fact'), but if you consider the externalities--i.e.
| the effect on the culture when many people post this way--the
| expected value of posts like this is super negative for
| everybody--including yourself--since over time it makes the
| commons nasty and lame. That's why we try to avoid them here.
| cjidjdj wrote:
| You're right. Sorry for making a dick comment.
| fsndz wrote:
| This is an excellent example of using LLMs to convert knowledge
| into productivity and profit. This will be the way forward:
| https://www.lycee.ai/blog/large-language-models-productivity...
| sickblastoise wrote:
| Had a similar idea, https://pypi.org/project/ai-alchemy/
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| That's not the way forward, that's how LLMs are already being
| used for short term gains. The way forward cannot possibly be
| having to participate in an even less predictable gig economy
| than the gig economy. That's the way backwards.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| The linked blog post is hardly a way forward, it's a high level
| summary of LLM uses and drawbacks with no real insight. The
| conclusion: "The potential for generative AI to transform
| industries is vast, but realizing this potential requires a
| thoughtful, strategic approach that balances innovation with
| practicality." Really?
|
| There are no excellent examples of anything. I feel cheated.
| fsndz wrote:
| I read it more as a source of strategic insights, but of
| course, it's not a list of startup ideas ready to be
| executed. No one has that, everyone is figuring things out.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Hahaha this is great dude. Also your creative fae submission is
| fantastic. I can see why it didn't win but it's amusing.
|
| The ElevenLabs narrator did say the faeries applied "Polish".
| From Gdansk or Warsaw? :)
| davekiss wrote:
| I noticed the "Polish" too but thought it was too funny to fix
| it
| gowld wrote:
| I got kicked out of a black-tie gala because my shoes were
| overheard telling Polish jokes.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| I love that 75% of the post was OP checking the math on whether
| or not he should join the contest.
| j45 wrote:
| ..and let the math shed some light on what to create and why.
| nadis wrote:
| Yes, this! Also that OP fully acknowledged spending more time
| on the write up than the actual contest entries. Which I'm glad
| for, that was a fun read!
| julianeon wrote:
| 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 those studies where people
| who made 1,000 good-enough vases were better at the average one
| than people who tried to make 100 beautiful ones - even when
| the goal was 'create a beautiful vase'.
|
| But then, if you're a professional contest-enterer, that's got
| do a lot to boost your chances - especially over time, right?
| At the 1 year mark, I would expect you could raise your chances
| to 10% of a win of some type per contest (being conservative
| here). You've specialized in this. You'll always be a
| contender.
|
| And that number's high enough that, if you enter 10 a day, that
| seems closer to the optimum. You are playing a numbers game on
| the strength of your numbers.
|
| By analogy, this is like picking an index fund and continuously
| investing, rather than trying to pick that one stock that's
| going to the moon.
| bigiain wrote:
| 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 content and
| production)
|
| 2) Choose contests where there are sufficient prizes that
| it's worthwhile entering even if you don't win first place.
|
| 3) Choose contests where you are allowed multiple entries,
| and allowed to win multiple prizes.
|
| This is all backed up with some javascript, webscraping, AI,
| and math - presumably to meet all the judging criteria and
| improve their chances of winning the HN front page contest.
| My suspicious is that this is what most of that validation
| you're skeptical about was for - not a beautiful vase, but a
| checkbox ticking exercise in ranking on HN.
|
| Then don't bust a gut trying to produce the best possible
| entry, just use your subject matter expertise (in this case
| video content production) to produce "good enough" entries
| that are above the level that most of the public can create
| but without striving to surpass Ridley Scott or Quentin
| Tarantino levels of production.
|
| Don't "make 1000 vases" to practice contest entry and enter
| 10 contests a day. Instead carefully choose only the contests
| who's requirements include something important that you've
| already "made 1000 vases" for (like, whatever you do as a day
| job) and only bother entering those.
| adr1an wrote:
| 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)
| bart_spoon wrote:
| They aren't trying to become the best at something, they are
| trying to maximize the ROI of their time.
| xnorswap wrote:
| I agree, that section read as a post-hoc justification given
| how much effort went into it. If the effort to determine if
| something is "worth" entering is more than the effort to
| enter it, it would be better to just enter it rather than
| wasting time on the verification part.
|
| Particularly as there's no reputational downside to entering
| and failing at such a contest.
| davekiss wrote:
| You underestimate how much logic takes a backseat when
| you're feeding an infant at 3am for weeks on end. This
| project gave me a creative outlet during a time where
| sanity preservation was paramount.
|
| The odds were calculated up front.
| xnorswap wrote:
| Fair enough, I haven't had that experience, it was a fun
| read in any case.
| langsoul-com wrote:
| You neglected that time is the most important variable here.
|
| It's better to enter a winnable completion rather than one
| that cannot be found without disproportionate effort.
|
| Hackathons are a good example. Global, online ones tend to be
| long, time consuming and near impossible to win any prize.
| Compare that with local only, now there's a chance as the
| number of competitors is limited to the geographical region.
| franciscop wrote:
| I got pretty good at "Makers Competitions" in my University
| years, to the point where my technical peak wasn't when
| winning a NASA competition, but ~2 years later when we
| released a technical product within a weekend in another
| competition.
|
| I remember wrapping up the competition, winning all the
| prices we could win except one (1st place, and "best of" for
| 3 out of 4 categories), and the feeling that we had
| demolished the competition all around and that felt somehow a
| bit unfair for the rest. That was the last time I
| participated in a competition of this kind.
|
| How did we do it? I had the network of contacts already (co-
| created a Maker group at my University) so I could literally
| hand-pick a team of 5 with the best maker in each sector; I
| called my previous co-winner who is great at tech
| presentations, and called the best designer+3D artist, the
| best App programmer, the best electronics person I knew, (and
| me). I got a stomach infection and spent a third of the
| competition in the toilet, but I ended up doing mainly
| programming and organizing: 1-2 hours to decide on the theme
| and solution, then split the work efficiently, and then let
| each person work on their own thing while continuously
| checking for sync between them. We ended up with a product
| and UI that seemed like a commercial product.
| lazide wrote:
| And this is, essentially, being a manager. And/or founder.
| Which is incredibly valuable, albeit often hated by many
| engineers.
| zamalek wrote:
| I _suspect_ the value derived here was enjoyment, not
| monetary.
| chongli wrote:
| _But then, if you 're a professional contest-enterer, that's
| got do a lot to boost your chances - especially over time,
| right? At the 1 year mark, I would expect you could raise
| your chances to 10% of a win of some type per contest (being
| conservative here). You've specialized in this. You'll always
| be a contender._
|
| If you're a professional contest-enterer then it seems like a
| pretty bad idea to produce a detailed write-up which
| prospective rival contest-enterers may use as training
| material. If 1k people from HN visit your blog then even 0.5%
| of readers getting in on the game can cause your expected
| value to plummet.
|
| It should be noted that the article addressed the question of
| how to discover contests with a refusal to divulge. This is
| security by obscurity. If a bunch of people get excited
| enough about entering contests using these deliberate winning
| methods then it wouldn't take much for them to set up a
| Discord channel to coordinate the discovery process. If even
| 10 people get together to "entry bomb" these contests then
| the original author's advantage will evaporate.
| rasz wrote:
| Most likely done post facto :)
| davekiss wrote:
| Nope
| justinsaccount wrote:
| Lubricating a sliding door Quieting a squeaky door hinge
| Lubricating an HVAC register lever
|
| Wd-40 is not really a lubricant. You can use WD-40 to clean gunk
| out of things, but you really need to follow it up with a proper
| lubricating oil
| davekiss wrote:
| I learned a lot about WD-40 from this project! This is a highly
| debated topic, but their website leans into the fact that WD-40
| is, indeed, a lubricant.
|
| > While the "W-D" in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement, WD-40
| Multi-Use Product is a unique, special blend of lubricants. The
| product's formulation also contains anti-corrosion agents and
| ingredients for penetration, water displacement and soil
| removal.
|
| Regardless of the facts, when all was said and done, they were
| the ones judging the entries, sooo... yep, it's a lubricant.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| It is a lubricant, just not a very good one for most uses. It
| can't bear much load and it tends to just dissappear in a
| short time.
|
| I once replaced a series of mortice lever locks in a first
| house that were very worn after a decade of use. You had to
| shake the key to get them to open. I was amazed on opening
| them to find them completely dry, when they come greased. I
| suggested they lubricate the replacements occasionally. They
| replied that they sprayed them regularly with wd40. This has
| washed the grease out and left... virtually nothing.
| snozolli wrote:
| For what it's worth, old lock grease tends to move away
| from where it's needed and turn into a hard, waxy
| substance. It's arguably better to have a lock cleaned and
| slightly lubricated with WD-40 than one gummed up with
| ancient grease and dirt, or worse, rusted.
|
| I've heard a lot of anecdotes in every direction: only use
| graphite, only use a cleaning solvent. I've never read
| anything authoritative and I suspect the ideal approach is
| to regularly (e.g. every decade) disassemble the lock,
| clean it thoroughly, and inject grease, but nobody is going
| to do that.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| I'm pretty sure with locks, you want a dry lubricant. So
| graphite, or better yet, a PTFE spray lubricant. Hasn't
| failed me yet.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| I think that's one of the biggest screwups people make with
| WD-40 is that it's basically just a petroleum solvent and
| other than maybe initially unsticking things, it often
| makes the problem worse. As far as solvents go it's not
| particularly great, and in terms of lubricating or breaking
| free it's pretty bad. I'm surprised they still sell as much
| of it as they do (chalk it up to good marketing), when for
| basically everything there's a better choice (protip: if
| something is really stuck, the best tool provided you don't
| have dogs or children getting near is going to be acetone
| mixed with a good ATF).
| jfengel wrote:
| TIL that ATF=automatic transmission fluid.
|
| Still unclear on why this particular mix is optimal for
| unsticking things but Google suggests a lot of people use
| it.
| winrid wrote:
| Yes, I've used ATF to fix seized up motors. Just fill
| cylinder and let it sit for a few days.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Jack of all trades, master of none. It is a better
| lubricant than most solvants and a better solvant than
| most lubricants, it will always be worse than a
| specialized product, but if you are only allowed a single
| can, that's a good choice. Affordable and widely
| available too. Oh and the pressurized can form factor is
| convenient.
| yial wrote:
| Hate the smell of ATF but it was a life saver on some
| hinges that I wanted to save, but I couldn't get to move
| after trying penetrating oil, wd-40, and some other
| things (not in that order ). ATF after a few hours
| succeeded.
| dekhn wrote:
| This was in fact one of my big learning experiences in
| mechanical work. As a kid, my bike was running rough so i
| took it apart, cleaned oout all that yucky/dirty grease
| from the bearings using WD-40, and then reassembled it all
| only to find it was even worse than before. Only a few
| years later did I learn that wd-40 is a terrible lubricant
| for bike ball bearings.
|
| You can see a similar effect with standard skate bearings
| used in fidget spinners - most bearings come pre-greased
| with a fairly high viscosity lubricant. If you spin the
| spinner, it will slow down quite fast, but if you take the
| bearing apart, clean out all the grease, and reassemble it,
| it will run wicked fast and long. Until some dirt gets in,
| at which point, grease would have worked better.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > Wd-40 is not really a lubricant
|
| And yet, it lubricates! I've heard your claim a lot, but the
| fact remains, it makes machinery work more smoothly, by
| reducing friction, and it is effective over significant time
| periods. By any definition, it is a lubricant.
|
| https://www.wd40.com/myths-legends-fun-facts/
|
| > Myth: WD-40 Multi-Use Product is not really a lubricant.
|
| > Fact: While the "W-D" in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement,
| WD-40 Multi-Use Product is a unique, special blend of
| lubricants. The product's formulation also contains anti-
| corrosion agents and ingredients for penetration, water
| displacement and soil removal.
| eth0up wrote:
| I don't remember the source and forget many details, but the
| test was very compelling. The guy used approximately a dozen
| different products, clp, wd40, etc. The test involved
| individual identical pieces of steel all coated with each
| product and left in wretched environment.
|
| The control, ie uncoated piece of steel fared better results
| that the regular WD40. I remember the best being Clenzoil (I
| had to grab my can to remember this). However, among the best
| was.... WD-40 _specialist_ , specifically the "corrosion
| inhibitor" version. I think it was either the second or third
| best and I consulted my other can to remember this.
|
| Sadly, my favorite lube ranked very poorly, which was
| Balistol; however, I'll never give up my Balistol.
|
| I have put both the Clenzoil and Specialist to various
| 'tests' over the years and can vouch for their quality. But
| I'd use snot before regular WD-40 unless I was making a stink
| bomb.
|
| Edit: While not the test mentioned, ProjectFarm (youtoob),
| who does myriad high quality evaluations, did test various
| lubes, but I think mostly for lubricity. It was also
| revealing and I highly recommend it and the channel in
| general.
| winrid wrote:
| And yet, if you want to actually lubricate things, there are
| much better, cheaper, options that will last longer.
|
| It's just marketing.
| wnissen wrote:
| Water is a lubricant as well. And yet it is not a good
| lubricant for all applications. WD-40 is absolutely
| spectacular for certain things, but if what you want is a
| lubricant there are much better options. For instance, there
| is a silicone version that will make a sticky old lock work
| like new.
|
| https://www.wd40.com/products/silicone-lubricant/
|
| You could probably burn WD-40 in a propane stove, but that
| doesn't mean it's a fuel.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > And yet it is not a good lubricant for all applications
|
| seems like a bit of a straw man, no?
|
| > a silicone version that will make a sticky old lock work
| like new.
|
| In my apartment, my deadbolt was so sticky that it was hard
| to turn even with the door half open. Two spritzes (keyhole
| and the bolt) with WD-40 classic, and it moved easily, and
| continued to turn easily for the remaining 6 months in my
| time there. Could lubricant-X have done a "better" job?
| Maybe, not that it mattered in practice.
|
| If NASA designed an even better lubricant, would
| lubricant-X no longer be a lubricant at all by your
| standards? Because now there's something that can also
| unstick your lock, but with an even lower coefficient of
| friction?
|
| WD-40 contains lubricants, and it can be used as a general-
| purpose around-the-house lubricant. Proven by my years of
| personal experience. Trying to claim that it isn't a
| lubricant is like trying to convince me that my lightbulbs
| are dim. I just laugh and move on.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > In my apartment, my deadbolt was so sticky that it was
| hard to turn even with the door half open. Two spritzes
| (keyhole and the bolt) with WD-40 classic, and it moved
| easily, and continued to turn easily for the remaining 6
| months in my time there. Could lubricant-X have done a
| "better" job? Maybe, not that it mattered in practice.
|
| It was likely the solvent properties of WD-40 that
| helped. It dissolved the old, tacky lubricant or rust and
| left you with a cleaner lock. For a six month fix on a
| rental, that is probably fine. For a long term fix on a
| house you own, it may be worth using one of a plethora of
| lubricants designed for that specific use case (including
| a more specific variant of WD-40 that is designed for
| locks and leave behind a dry lubricant when it
| evaporates.)
|
| > Because now there's something that can also unstick
| your lock, but with an even lower coefficient of
| friction?
|
| WD-40 is decent at removing rust, but not great at
| repelling water and thus preventing rust.
|
| There are a lot of things that go into picking the right
| lubricant for a specific application. It isn't just
| "which lubricant is slipperiest?".
|
| WD-40 is indeed a lubricant, but much of the benefits of
| using it are due to its solvent properties and people
| often don't understand that applying it in the wrong
| circumstances can lead to removing the correct lubricant
| and result in less lubrication.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| It's a solvent (penetrating oil), so it dries out. It works
| well to unstick whatever might be causing trouble with the
| door lock mechanism. If you use something like a silicone
| lubricant, you'll go a lot longer before needing to reapply.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| For the right things, e.g., machining 6061 aluminum alloy,
| WD-40 is an excellent lubricant.
| analog31 wrote:
| It's a mixture of light mineral oil and light mineral spirits.
| As a lubricant, the mineral spirits carry the mixture into
| crevices, then evaporates, leaving an oil film behind.
|
| This is either useful and appropriate for a situation, or it's
| not. Also, the oil might not be a specialized oil for any
| particular use, but a lot of applications don't need a high
| performance oil.
|
| In my view, the drawbacks are:
|
| 1. Controlling overspray. This is why, even if I liked the
| stuff, I'd prefer to apply it with an eyedropper in many if not
| most cases.
|
| 2. General ignorance about lubrication needs, where something
| else is preferable, such as grease, a suspension of wax,
| penetrating oil, etc.
|
| On the other hand, keeping a supply of every possible lubricant
| can be a storage problem, and I've gradually come to prefer
| using the "wrong" stuff than buying yet another oversized
| container of something that I have to keep forever or dispose
| of.
| awoimbee wrote:
| That 8th entry pouring loads on WD40 on trees is just crazy, that
| thing is petroleum distillate !
| davekiss wrote:
| Don't worry, this is a stump that's been dead for years,
| isolated to a very small garden bed in my yard
| a1o wrote:
| You chose papyrus too, I think that was the most damning.
| davekiss wrote:
| Fairies literally only use papyrus
| cinntaile wrote:
| I'd still wager that is why it didn't win any prizes though.
| They don't want to show a video spraying WD40 in nature.
|
| I enjoyed the post, I appreciate a good methodical process.
| previousjs wrote:
| Well there is the water table too. But that said weed killer
| is poured all over everywhere
| thinkingemote wrote:
| "dead" stumps provide an essential home to insects, plants,
| lichen, fungi and other stuff. Rotting wood is essential for
| a healthy ecosystem. These days it is not seen as unwanted,
| dead or waste material from a tree but part of a life cycle.
| It is a living habitat.
|
| So the judges may have seen something different rather than
| protecting, preserving and prioritising your family and the
| joyful and creative structures for children's play. At the
| very least it would give ambiguity in today's more ecological
| minded world.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Yeah the anti-eco optics was my first though too - also the
| voiceover is a little more obviously AI. "Dump chemicals
| into the forest, brought to you by WD-40" isn't a super
| appealing message (regardless of what was _actually_
| happening / intended)
| DowagerDave wrote:
| >> pouring loads on WD40 on trees
|
| not really the same thing as spraying a bit of WD40 on a dead
| stump.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I can simultaneously appreciate the write-up for gaming a
| competition while also dreading how it basically describes the
| incentives for contributing to the AI-enshittification of the
| internet.
| davekiss wrote:
| Sigh... you know, there's a bit of "can't beat 'em, join 'em"
| happening here, for sure, but let me be optimistic for a
| second.
|
| This story wouldn't have happened without AI. I genuinely used
| the tools to tell the story I wanted to tell.
|
| There was something about the way friction was removed with the
| typical narration round-trips that actually made the
| storytelling better, easier, less painful... and I truly don't
| believe anything authentic was lost in that process.
|
| My hope is tools like these can make storytelling easier for
| everyone.
| eth0up wrote:
| I read the story because of the AI part. Over the last two
| weeks I've been working for the first time with GPT and
| Perplexity and am a mixture of fascinated, exuberant and
| ready to drink a gallon of whiskey from frustration.
|
| I'm particularly intrigued by the creative things that can be
| accomplished with mutual diligence between user and AI. As a
| bit of a moron, I can now easily accomplish what otherwise
| would be too daunting. It's great..., when it works. What a
| smart person can accomplish under such conditions is
| frightening, in bith good and ungood ways. I'm hoping to go
| the API route soon and move toward a more free-thinking
| version geared as a research assistant.
|
| Anyway, I'd say that's some pretty clever teamwork. Well done
| and thanks for sharing. Just get some better slippery sauce
| and if you're gonna squirt it on all beneath the heavens, go
| with Ballistol (I misspelled it in my other comment) - the
| fairies will thank ye.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| > _This story wouldn 't have happened without AI._
|
| I don't think that's the optimistic take you present it to
| be. To me the post reads as the story of someone for whom art
| is the least important part in an art contest and treats the
| artistic part as an afterthought ("I just wanted to adhere to
| recording content that prioritized the weighted breakdown").
|
| I'm not going to pretend that the contest attracted the top
| artistic minds of this generation, but anyone who actually
| put care into the art part has lost to someone who made an
| art pipeline. Extrapolate to the art world and suddenly
| there's less real art because the money out there to fund it
| is going to AI programmers checking a spreadsheet.
| davekiss wrote:
| Did you see my fairy entry?
|
| Heavily artistic, thoughtful, and cinematic, leaning into
| my passion for the art of telling stories through video
| that I've kept close for almost 20 years now.
|
| It lost. The judges selected the entries they felt were the
| best fit. The argument for this contest is that AI enabled
| _more_ thoughtful art to exist, not less.
| panta wrote:
| I think that there is some value in that friction. It used to
| tell us, the readers, that the narrator believed enough in
| what he wanted to tell to invest some non-negligible amount
| of time and energy. The final effect was that it maintained a
| sane ratio of stories worth reading over stories worth
| nothing. It kept a decent signal-to-noise ratio. In the
| future stories worth reading will be lost in a sea of
| regurgitated garbage.
| krageon wrote:
| The content produced adhered to the requirements and is
| amusing. It allowed the creativity of a single person to be
| applied in a larger way to more things. This is exactly an
| example of how AI _wouldn 't_ enshittify the internet.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| I see where you're coming from, but I think it's just a story
| about a guy who outsmarted the system. He used math and AI to
| realize that his odds were actually pretty good, but him
| realizing he could submit multiple submissions is the important
| part. Using ElevenLabs for TTS definitely helped him win, but
| he could have also paid voice actors on Fiverr. He could have
| found royalty free music anywhere.
|
| Basically, there's a lot of AI enshittification going on, but
| this isn't one of them. Just seems like a bit of fun.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| If the AI is being judged as a winner, than by definition isn't
| it _superior_ to the typical human produced content, at least
| in this case? Seems like the opposite of enshittification.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Do you think someone else could have won without AI? The author
| didn't exactly win the grand prize here - he cleaned up the
| smaller prizes because other people weren't so good at reading
| comprehension or competitive analysis. The only role AI even
| played here was the audio, not the concept or the video or the
| edits. I'm not quite sure what your complaint is I guess.
| nickspacek wrote:
| I wonder if the mispronunciation of "polish" as "Polish" had
| anything to do with missing out on a win with the fairy
| submission? Fun read!
| BlueGh0st wrote:
| I assumed it was just a bad look dumping WD-40 straight into
| the environment
| shermantanktop wrote:
| It's a floor polish! It's a dessert topping!
|
| And apparently a shingle sealer too.
| edm0nd wrote:
| I too think it was that combined w the fact of hurting
| insects with it perhaps.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| Yeah, I'm assuming that was the reason too.
| garciasn wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9PFZTPSOkdY
| neontomo wrote:
| 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 similar in nature,
| but taken to its extreme.
| swayvil wrote:
| As a person who is also in the art scene, this is reasonable
| and inspiring.
| neontomo wrote:
| i have a friend who is great at this, so i picked her brain a
| bit. she does this method and i see her booking show after
| show without a social media presence. she does 90% studying
| the brief, 8 percent presenting her submission in a
| structured way (think: explain the idea, what lead up to it,
| how it will benefit the show, who she is, and even visualises
| how it will look by photoshopping her art into their space)
| and 2% submitting beautiful work.
| swayvil wrote:
| Everybody other than the artists love that "presenting her
| submission" part.
|
| Better than the piece. Better than the essay about the
| piece. They want the summation of the essay of the piece.
| Preferably with an associated pic of a cute art goth pixie.
|
| Ah art.
| dartos wrote:
| Is goth still in?
| swayvil wrote:
| Ya but they call it something different. I forget what.
| Maybe "death cultists".
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| No they don't, they call them mommy instead.
| bigiain wrote:
| Goth is always in. It just floats in and out of the
| consciousness of non-goths over time.
| flatline wrote:
| Basically what we are all doing here on HN. We are social
| creatures by nature and the commentary and commentators
| are often more entertaining than the subject.
|
| My dad is an accomplished artist but never wanted to play
| the art scene and mostly spent his career as a professor.
| He once produced an entire storage shed of metal
| sculpture than he later recycled for lack of anything
| better to do with them. I could only fit two in my house.
| transcriptase wrote:
| The same is true for scientific grant applications.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Except the reviewers don't usually read it either
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| A thousand times this. M******g reviewers who fail to
| comprehend the instructions for evaluating a proposal is a
| perpetual pain in the neck.
| zinglersen wrote:
| I'm surprisingly annoyed that I cannot guess what word
| you you are censoring, and AI wasn't helping much, mind
| spoiling it for me?
|
| Also, I don't think you have to censor words here in
| general.
| dirtyhippiefree wrote:
| What profanity that starts with M, ends with G and
| references sex comes to mind?
|
| We're an adhocracy that uses votes, and profanity doesn't
| win votes...simple math...
| neontomo wrote:
| something something with mothers
| 8organicbits wrote:
| Looks like "motherfucking" to me, just missing a couple
| asterisks.
| zrobotics wrote:
| I'm not in a grant field, but this comment reminded me of this
| video from attoparsec about public art grants from a few years
| ago that really resonated. My mom spent the last ~15 years of
| her career in a field that involved grant writing for public
| health projects, and many of the strategies were similar.
|
| Video: https://youtu.be/cK4K8aj7X1s?si=xAQH54SfC8yUE_ll
| nine_k wrote:
| This means that to improve one's chances to gain publicly, one
| should adjust their art to the exact requirements of the
| publicity-producing organization, and not let artistic whims
| like "inspiration" ruin the day. Or, better yet, has to learn
| how to reorient the latter slightly to check every box when a
| checklist becomes available.
|
| This requires a serious mastery of the art that allows to
| obtain exactly what's envisioned.
|
| It also rubs many artists the wrong way, because they want to
| be led by the art, ideas, concepts, etc, and not by external
| riders. OTOH most great masters of the past worked under such
| conditions, with notable success. Michelangelo certainly had a
| rather detailed list of requirements for the Sistine Chapel
| paint job.
| neontomo wrote:
| in my experience, your submission does not have to be a
| carbon copy of what you end up making. you can check the
| boxes to make them trust your artistic ability - then you can
| make it yours, within reason. the money controls the art
| outcome, until you're banksy. a lot of great artists are able
| to stylistically and thematically change their art on a whim,
| by studying the materials/style and putting conscious effort
| in. this is not rare. modern art does not require mastery by
| any means and some of the more successful artists actively
| avoid perfectionism.
| nine_k wrote:
| Modern art may not require visible utter technical mastery,
| even though sometimes it's demonstrated, too. What I mean
| by mastery is the ability to produce such an oevre that
| checks all the right boxes, and does not check any wrong
| boxes. In this regard, being edgy and provocative is the
| right trait to demonstrate, while overstepping it and, say,
| showing something that can be seen as bigotry is not comme
| il faut. Navigating these boundaries efficiently is what I
| also mean by mastery.
| treflop wrote:
| I agree with what your saying but I believe this applies
| to everything in life.
|
| From what you do at work or say to your friends to
| whether you break a writing rule or whether you jump a
| fence.
|
| When you observe people in their element, you can tell
| apart the people who know know when to break rules and
| who haven't figured it out.
| tomrod wrote:
| Yep!
| jrowen wrote:
| I mean, anyone's free to create whatever art they want on
| their own time and dime, and accept that it may or may not
| resonate with others and their pocketbooks. If you're
| applying for a specific thing for someone to give you money
| and they've said what they're looking for...yeah, you should
| probably conform to that.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It depends on whether you're doing art for the artistic
| expression or to make a living. If it's the latter, you'll
| need to do what is asked or what is worth money instead of
| what you want. This applies to every creative endeavour, or
| hell, most of anything that earns you money. I don't want to
| sit here writing user stories that should ideally be fixed
| today, but it earns me money and I can do it so I guess.
| ertgbnm wrote:
| 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.
| neontomo wrote:
| what was the rubric they missed?
| ertgbnm wrote:
| There was a lot of emphasis put on insulation values,
| thermal mass, and temperature differential. Half of the dog
| houses were like 20 pounds and open to the air on all
| sides. We put a 150 lb garden on top of ours to act as a
| heat sink and then insulated all the walls of the dog
| house. We were able to keep 10 degrees below ambient after
| 3 hours out in the sun.
|
| The rubric also put a ton of points on the technical report
| which seemed like an after thought for most people but at
| the end of the day it was an engineering competition so the
| whole point was the technical portion and the dog house
| display itself was kind of just the fun bit. We did really
| well just because we bothered to do all the requested
| calculations on life cycle cost analysis, heat losses,
| carbon balance, etc.
|
| Our final product looked like a tank, but it won by a long
| shot.
| noboostforyou wrote:
| As soon as you listed the full set of prizes I was really hoping
| to see that gallon jug haha. Nice job!
| a1o wrote:
| Hey can you tell me which sling are you using and weight of the
| baby?
| davekiss wrote:
| haha yeah -- it's a Tula, kid is ~11 lb
| a1o wrote:
| Thank you!!!
| jrflowers wrote:
| How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, a can of WD-40 and One
| Secret Factor That Makes This Process Unrepeatable and Useless To
| The Reader
|
| > Where do you find these exceedingly winnable contests? Sorry,
| that's a trade secret -- but it's not any of the standard various
| contest aggregators out there.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| I mean, sure, but not every post/blog has to be "useful to the
| reader". That last "n" of "n" fiction books I read were equally
| useless, but I'm glad I read them.
| mmcclure wrote:
| I'm not even sure I agree that that one piece renders the
| entire blog post _useless_. The process is all there, just
| because the author didn 't share a list of contests doesn't
| mean someone couldn't do their own research and replicate it.
| jrflowers wrote:
| There's a bit of a difference between a fiction book and a
| 3000+ word ad for consulting services[0] that could
| reasonably be considered a how-to guide until it reveals its
| lack of repeatability in its final sentences.
|
| I'm going to guess that if "You cannot replicate this" were
| at the top of the ad fewer people would spend their time
| reading through it.
|
| 0 (The link is towards the bottom, right above the reveal)
| https://davekiss.com/consult
| joshvm wrote:
| Well there is an unfinished section on the "contests" page that
| suggests this info might be added:
|
| https://davekiss.com/contests
|
| But generally I agree. I won an Instructables contest once,
| because the odds were very good: most entries were low effort
| and it was panel judged. Nowadays I dunno, there are so many
| entries and a lot of them are fluff from companies writing
| instructions on how to build their kits. But I do think if you
| had nothing to do, and a good workshop, you could probably farm
| contests there.
| jldugger wrote:
| I wonder if the author has a google alert set up for something
| like:
|
| "there is no limit on the number of entries" "official rules"
| 2024
| mlsu wrote:
| Incredible. One of the winning human made video submissions says:
|
| "There's something almost poetic about working with your hands.
| In a world where everything has gone digital, where things get
| solved with a click and a swipe, there's a unique satisfaction
| about tackling something tangible, something real."
|
| Then there's this guy who algorithmically floods the contest with
| AI slop. Click and a swipe indeed!
| davekiss wrote:
| Hey, it's not slop!
|
| I wrote the script, I shot the video, I edited everything --
| the only place AI was even used in the submissions was to
| alleviate the pain of tracking down fitting music and re-
| recording voice overs (both of which I've done manually in the
| past).
|
| I actually thought the videos would be pretty helpful for a
| non-handy homeowner.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| yeah if anything this is a good example of using AI to speed
| up work that's typically fairy tedious
| Tyr42 wrote:
| Having done voice overs, it takes time and it doesn't feel as
| creative as the rest of the job.
| IanCal wrote:
| > Then there's this guy who algorithmically floods the contest
| with AI slop. Click and a swipe indeed!
|
| But that's not what happened. The blog is very clear about
| explaining where and how it is used.
|
| I know there's AI in the title but it's pretty lazy and frank
| rude to assume that means "mass produced nonsense".
| nasmorn wrote:
| 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
| biofox wrote:
| 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.
| dartos wrote:
| Yeah but one's balls are pretty sensitive to topicals.
| wiredfool wrote:
| WD-40 isn't really a lubricant, it's more like a de-greaser
| and water remover.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| Water displacer, hence the name, right?
| analog31 wrote:
| It's a mixture of light mineral spirits and mineral oil.
|
| Oil displaces water, who knew?
| anamexis wrote:
| It is a lubricant. There's a lot of confusion around this
| because it often isn't a great lubricant for the purposes
| it gets used for, like door hinges or bicycle parts. But it
| most definitely is a lubricant.
|
| https://www.wd40.com/myths-legends-fun-facts/
| nasmorn wrote:
| Yeah I hate Vaseline too and normally use a stick called
| BodyGlide which just creates a thin coat. Vaseline was the
| only thing I could buy in the village and now I know WD-40
| can work in a pinch
| dubcanada wrote:
| What you really want is somewhere between corn starch and
| lubricants, like gold bond friction stick.
| Pikamander2 wrote:
| Sounds like you missed a great opportunity to make a video for
| the contest!
| brigadier132 wrote:
| You should've submitted a video to the competition!
| slashtab wrote:
| Next time please submit a video of this...haha
| djhworld wrote:
| Really interesting and amusing post thanks for taking the time to
| write it and share it.
| mhb wrote:
| Is it common for contests to post all the entries before the
| contest is over? Even if they do, why wouldn't smart competitors
| enter at the last minute in order to prevent their competitors
| from benefiting from their work?
| Liquix wrote:
| the goal here is probably "get X pairs of eyeballs on <product>
| for $Y" more than it is "create and administer a fair
| competition".
| raincole wrote:
| The main point of this article is that most competitors are not
| that competitive (for some reason).
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| The reason might be that they had their entry lying around
| and the cost of entering the competition was very low.
|
| This appears to be true of writing anthologies; it's pretty
| common that Amazon is running a sale on some anthology or
| other that advertises an incredibly high-powered list of
| contributing authors. But the quality on these is lower than
| you might expect.
|
| I understood why when one of Brandon Sanderson's blog posts
| mentioned that he was solicited to contribute to one of these
| that was raising money for some charitable purpose, and he
| sent them a piece of writing he'd done for a different book
| that hadn't made the cut to be included in that book.
| lazide wrote:
| Or that artists aren't very compliant with direction.
| cubano wrote:
| Love the use of Playwright for the contest intel...I am currently
| using Playwright to redo some prior scraping projects and seeing
| real world examples such as these is a big help.
|
| You attack the problem like blackjack card-counter would. You
| assess the rules, make mathematical odds projections when
| possible and logical ones when not, and keep a keen eye on what
| you are up against as to judge how to best attack the money.
|
| Thanks for the smart write-up...its been a big inspiration for
| me.
| qingcharles wrote:
| A gamed a contest into a brief TV career once.
|
| A British computer TV show ran a content on their web site, but
| it was a fast-paced multiple-choice Flash game. I just opened
| three accounts. Ran through it with the first two to figure out
| all the right answers, then got perfect scores on the third.
|
| The prize was to co-present the show one time, but apparently
| they got so much positive feedback they made me permanent, until
| I found a new job. I never let them know I cheated :/
|
| This is the show. I only did it because I had a huge crush on
| Kate Russell:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q6yPcUwatg
| wrsh07 wrote:
| In that video, Nigel pronounces www as "world wide web" and I
| have not heard that in decades. It's so much better than
| actually pronouncing the letters, I can't believe we ever
| stopped using it
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Be grateful we didn't end up with the w10b.
| treve wrote:
| It's also way fewer syllables!
| thenickdude wrote:
| Here "www" is read "dub dub dub", which is at least only one
| syllable per character instead of "double-u double-u
| double-u"
| ruthmarx wrote:
| Where is 'Here'?
| qxmat wrote:
| A fellow super brain finalist on hn?
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| > Dear CWE
|
| > I've got a Voodoo Banshee graphics card and when I installed
| Win98 with the latest drivers meant I could play the new titles
| like Unreal Tournament and Quake III but couldn't play old
| titles like Rollcage Turok 2 and Quake II. I then decided to
| install Win98 Second Edition with my old drivers which worked
| so I can now play all my old games, however, I've got no Open
| GL so I still can't play Quake III. Please give me an answer!
|
| > Paul
|
| The nostalgia is hitting hard here.
| hi_hi wrote:
| Oh no, its the AWD vs 4WD thing all over again.
|
| Is WD-40 a lubricant? Apparently, again, it depends!
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Any low viscosity liquid is a lubricant including water, or any
| small enough solids. WD40 is a lubricant, but a very poor one
| for folks who have not discovered silicone spray lubricant.
| That said if all I had was an old can of WD40, I would use it.
|
| The funny thing is where I live you can buy "WD40 Lubricant"
| (silicone).
|
| I think many people buy WD40 because, unconsciously or not, the
| smell brings back memories.
| hi_hi wrote:
| Right, and this is probably the important bit, sometimes a
| poor lubricant is worse than no lubricant, and its really
| important to understand when something like WD-40 should be
| used and when it absolutely should not.
|
| Let me explain. I ride motorbikes. You don't want to be using
| WD-40 on the chain as it will strip it of any existing
| lubricant and dry it out, which as you can imagine, is bad.
| However, it's actually really useful for cleaning parts of
| the bike that have been covered in gunk and grease.
|
| I have to admire their marketing, as like you mentioned, I
| grew up in a house where WD40 was used for absolutely
| anything sticking or squeeking, and so for the longest time
| also used it to fix those things, and beyond.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > You don't want to be using WD-40 on the chain as it will
| strip it of any existing lubricant and dry it out, which as
| you can imagine, is bad. However, it's actually really
| useful for cleaning parts of the bike that have been
| covered in gunk and grease.
|
| If you asked me to name the part of a bike most likely to
| be covered in gunk and grease, I'd say the chain. ;p
| lazide wrote:
| I think their point was 'and then use a proper chain lube
| on the chain or you'll regret it very quickly'.
| therein wrote:
| Speaking of the smell, all these quick WD-40 hacks will leave
| the room smelling like WD-40 for weeks. I am also surprised
| he touches the WD-40 with bare hands, it feels impossible to
| get the smell of my fingers for the longest time.
| progre wrote:
| I love that smell. I wish there where WD-40 smelling
| deodorant.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > 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.
| sedatk wrote:
| 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 of ~3
| million at the time. I still keep the copy of the issue with my
| name. Sometimes, just showing up can take you to the top 0.0002%.
| :)
| shermantanktop wrote:
| 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.
| a_t48 wrote:
| Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
| beng-nl wrote:
| Or, at the risk of being redundant, but from the wonderful
| lecture by Richard Hamming, "Luck favors the prepared
| mind."
| ravenravenpl wrote:
| I wish someone has taught me that. It really boils down to
| that most of the time.
| aneeshnl wrote:
| Me and my friend were fans of LinuxForU magazine, now
| OpenSourceForU. I once wrote a reply or so and it was printed
| in next edition. Inspired by that, we wrote an article, a
| simple one. That too was printed in next edition. We got a
| little money also from it, I think.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| This is not to be underestimated; you see these opinion pieces
| or columns in newspapers and think, "wow these must be like the
| smartest and most well-known people who passed a rigorous
| application procedure" etc, but in practice... there's very few
| people actually willing and able to do these things.
| trustno2 wrote:
| You realize it's true because the same people easily morph
| their "areas of knowledge" so they can write opinion column
| about basically anything.
| zadokshi wrote:
| What people don't realise is that the true competition he was
| trying to enter, was to get on HN by following the correct
| formula of including the keywords AI, maths, an amount of money,
| and a novel item (WD-40).
| edm0nd wrote:
| I too am only on HN for WD-40 content!
| davekiss wrote:
| There's no prize quite like internet points
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| doing the write up on the contest of course has its own benefits,
| it just seems to me whenever I read one of these things I think
| it isn't worthwhile. Not just this contest, this one seemed
| worthwhile, but this has to also be compared with all the other
| contests, payoffs etc. This seems like a big win that even if it
| took 20 hours (which seems the max of time it could have taken -
| given edits took 8 hours) would still be a good wage - do you pay
| taxes on context wins?
|
| But for every contest he enters and puts effort in what is the
| overall payoff, seems unlikely to be this high, and with that I
| would think it seems like a bunch of stuff to do for little
| money.
| isaacfung wrote:
| bro, it's not just about the money. He's promoting himself,
| building up a portfolio, learning new skills and entertaining
| himself.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| if you work for money you build up a portfolio and probably
| learn new skills - it is difficult not to.
|
| I have considered doing this before, contests etc. but I'm
| not sure I can breakdown the actual cost of doing it, the
| benefit, and risk to be able to see what one actually gets
| from the time devoted.
|
| Not to say that I might not do other things that cannot be
| quantified easily either, but in the contests case I want
| more quantification, I guess it just seems more likely a
| waste of time to me.
| mgaunard wrote:
| So it's two days of work for a chance at two days of pay.
| davekiss wrote:
| Eh, I think of this hobby more like a video game -- fun to
| play, even if you don't win (but more fun if you do).
| wickedsight wrote:
| I wax skis for people as a side hustle. People ask me whether
| it's worth it. I tell them I enjoy doing it and it brings me
| beer money, so it's definitely worth it, even if the hourly
| rate is less than working at McBurger.
| dubcanada wrote:
| $2750 USD is 2 days of pay? In what world? That's some parts of
| the world yearly gross.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| $1375/day is $170 per hour or about $300k annually (five days
| a week, 8 weeks off). Pretty reasonable rate for a senior
| software developer contract in the US.
| Mesh404 wrote:
| It took me a while to realise that it was a WD-40 branded one
| gallon jug and not one gallon of WD-40 in a jug...
| camillomiller wrote:
| Very cool! I think the one that didn't win was not selected
| because potentially problematic to use for the brand. Spraying
| WD-40 on the ground could be seen as polluting, and they would
| probably want to stay away from that. It's also not the intended
| use of WD-40 which makes it too far fetched for a potential
| marketing use.
| meindnoch wrote:
| TL;DR: submitting multiple entries increases your chances of
| winning.
| joeyagreco wrote:
| This is awesome!
|
| Is there somewhere that contests like these are tracked?
|
| Would be awesome to browse.
| andrybak wrote:
| It's covered a bit at the bottom of the article.
| Where do you find these exceedingly winnable contests?
| Sorry, that's a trade secret -- but it's not any of the
| standard various contest aggregators out there.
| triwats wrote:
| 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.
| davekiss wrote:
| 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...
| andai wrote:
| 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.
| cj wrote:
| For some people it's not all about the money.
| andai wrote:
| For me it's about making money in ways that don't feel like
| work.
| troyvit wrote:
| Of the three AI tools the author talked about, two of them
| (OpenAI and Sumo) are facing lawsuits for copyright stuff[1].
| That by no means invalidates what he's done, but more speaks to
| the interesting times we live in. These tools both saved him time
| and improved his product. I hope we find a way to have our AI
| cake and still feed our originators of content.
|
| [1] https://variety.com/vip/content-owner-lawsuits-against-ai-
| co...
| ruthmarx wrote:
| Weirdest thing about this to me is this guy apparently enters
| online competitions enough that he has a strict filtering
| criteria for them. It's a hobby I wouldn't have even dreamed of
| someone having, yet it seems it can be quite profitable.
| somastoma wrote:
| Wait, wait, wait! He actually BELIEVED that they would judge the
| entrees as stated? They could EASILY have just used the opinion
| of the marketing guy responsible for this, and ignored the actual
| "judging of the entries based on the following.." yeah, right.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Pro-Tip: WD-40 isn't a very durable lubricant or a very useful
| penetrant oil. It was designed for aerospace purposes but DIY
| users cargo-culted it and it became a product.
|
| For lubrication, use a more appropriate lubricant like lithium or
| graphite grease, motor oil, cutting oil, or dry lubricant in
| dusty environments.
|
| For a penetrant oil, 50-50 (by volume) acetone & ATF is one of
| the best for rusty ferric materials. (And, in general, you should
| be using an anti-seize compound orthreadlocker, and/or surface
| coatings to prevent rust.)
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