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I was in the US and want to immigrate to Canada because of US broken H1B immigration system ( for me it will take 9 years to get a greencard). Here is what I di
by makr99 9y ago
I was in the US and want to immigrate to Canada because of US broken H1B immigration system ( for me it will take 9 years to get a greencard). Here is what I did -
The immigration website of Saskatchewan province opens up randomly to apply for immigration. I missed it many times because there is no indication other than the "Apply" button being enabled and a small text in their homepage which says "Applications are now 'open' ". They will close the application intake when they have reached X number of applicants. So timing is very important.
So I hacked up a script which diffs their home page every 10 minutes for "open" regex. When there is an "open" keyword in the diff, the python script calls twilio API to make a phone call to me along with an SMS.
So this script was running in AWS for many weeks and one day I got the call. Logged in to Saskatchewan's immigration homepage and applied. Now I am in Canada as a permanent resident. Thanks to Twilio.
edit: add H1B to make clear which type of immigration is broken IMO.
- gregorymichael 9y agoGreg from Twilio here. Congrats on your immigration! Glad we could play a small part in that journey, but credit goes to you for your courage and creativity. Would love to hear more of your story. Would you mind dropping me a note at gb@twilio.com?
- nodesocket 9y agoSounds like an amazing case study. Just looked/stalked your profile and ended up watching your talk on "Developers, entrepreneurs and depression"[1]. Really inspiring and awesome! [1] https://vimeo.com/78419167 https://vimeo.com/78419167
- fapjacks 9y agoThat's along the lines of what I do when I am waiting for a dedicated machine from OVH, since they list all of their clearance machines on a special page and you have to keep checking them. So I just used my script with Twilio to send me SMS when it's available to buy. Done that all three times I needed a box. I would not call it "hacking" though.
- ganoushoreilly 9y agoI think hacking in a sense of having a problem and piecing together a solution is the context they were going for (much like hackernews) vs traditional escalation type hacking.
- fapjacks 9y agoSure, but the term for this is "problem solving" and calling it "hacking" is disingenuous. I am not a big fan of the crowds that co-opt terminology for sort of superficial (e.g. marketing) reasons. I'm a bit hypocritical about it, because I think rms has historically done extremely well with this tactic, pushing ideals that I agree with. But there are other groups which do this that grinds on my soul.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- problems 9y agoWarning you now - that strategy on Kimsufi boxes at least is extremely popular. If you're willing to pay a little more check out their "SoYouStart" line - they seemed more readily available.
- e12e 9y agoNice story, and great that Twilio worked out for you - but this really is the sort of thing that email alerts (or IM alerts, or IRC alerts) should also work fine for. I would argue that the fact that you find SMS/phone calls a more urgent alert is a fault with your phone/communication setup - and twilio is an interesting hack around that. But there really should be an easy way to make just as much ruckus from a simple email, based on topic/sender filtering... (hm, maybe there's a nice side project for an app in there...).
- problems 9y agoYeah, this isn't really a major Twilio win or a hack - it's a basic scraping technique. I found a house for myself and a friend in a similar way, reverse engineer mobile app from MLS, scrape all listings once a day to get new stuff as it hits the market and you can now be far more selective than the crappy search on the MLS site allows.
- hbk1966 9y agoYeah you can sends texts to your phone just like sending an email.
- murukesh_s 9y agoHow to do that?
- _sbrk 9y ago> because of US broken immigration system Immigration is working just fine: It is a rate-limiting mechanism to prevent massive immigration of every "me too" person from other random countries. You're just like everyone else, and everyone else wants to get in, too. Just like a lifeboat, the US can't let everyone in at once or we'd sink. Buy a parka and enjoy Canada!
- cgmg 9y ago"Just like a lifeboat, the US can't let everyone in at once or we'd sink." Actually, the consensus among economists is that immigration makes your own economy better off. It has a net positive effect on productivity and prosperity. In other words, your "rate-limiting" analogy makes zero sense. You want more immigration, not less.
- _sbrk 9y ago» In other words, your "rate-limiting" analogy makes zero sense. You want more immigration, not less. How's that working out for Germany?
- BeetleB 9y agoWorking well, generally: http://fortune.com/2015/09/08/germany-migrant-crisis/ http://fortune.com/2015/09/08/germany-migrant-crisis/ >The 6.6 million people living in Germany with foreign passports paid $4,127 more in taxes and social security on average than they took in social benefits in 2012--generating a surplus of 22 billion euros that year, according to one report More recently: https://qz.com/901076/what-effect-did-the-record-influx-of-refugees-have-on-jobs-and-crime-in-germany-not-much/ https://qz.com/901076/what-effect-did-the-record-influx-of-r...
- peculiar 9y agoI have no idea how that's working out for Germany. But I was under the impression that Europe gives away social benefits to the refugees (at least at the initial stage). While the author of the parent comment (I expect) is self sufficient from day 1 (otherwise, he / she wouldn't be allowed in, right?). It's not like the government of the US is spending people's taxes on him / her. He / she paid for the interview with the embassy, paid for the visa, then was paying taxes and spending money locally buying food / clothes / etc. (thus creating / supporting new jobs).
- patmcc 9y agoWe're always glad to have more hackers in Canada, welcome! (If you've got your PR this was probably a while ago, but still)
- makr99 9y agoThank you. I got my PR some months back. My spouse can work now. We are very happy than being in the US where she was not authorized to work. We enjoy the real freedom here.
- danudey 9y agoWelcome to Canada! Also: it's not all like Saskatchewan, most of it is really nice. ;)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gnopgnip 9y agoThe distill browser add-on will work for this too, except for the phone call. SMS is a paid feature but email and popup notifications are free.
- balladeer 9y agoAnd maybe also the fact that the computer and browser has to be open all the time, right? I believe OP did this by running a cron or so on an always-on server.
- pm90 9y agoDid you manage to keep your compensation around the same? Or did you have to give up on it somewhat? Canada does seem more attractive than US. However, there are definitely a lot more jobs in technology, and a lot more software engineers here in the US.
- telesilla 9y agoI got tickets to a certain-to-sell-out concert doing the same thing. My friends were shocked I got them A-class seats. I'm teaching their kids to know that they will have more control over their world than they might imagine.
- WalterBright 9y agoThis works until the technique gets popularized, then it won't anymore.
- grecy 9y agoMay I ask what PR stream you applied under that "opens randomly"? After years of hard work I successfully got in via Provincial Nomination.
- Jugurtha 9y agoI did something similar for a job offer on LinkedIn. I had to go out with friends so I polled the site every minute (not as gentlemanly as you) looking for the apply button. I was going to use Twilio for I had just signed up for a trial, but the internet was unreliable and I ended up using Gammu with a 3G dongle and a local SIM card to send an SMS. I was surprised to see the number of applicants increase without the button having ever become available (no SMS received and I had logging to confirm). It was fun, nonetheless. It's made me want to make something like this to diff arbitrary things and send notifications to people who're watching them, but I didn't sit down to do it, and sitting down to do it is all that matters.