11 ms·
How I won $2,750 using JavaScript, AI, and a can of WD-40
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoDid 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 2y agoMeasure twice, cut once
- dangsux 2y ago[flagged]
- echelon 2y agoIt just got to the front page of HN, which includes a large percentage of users who buy and use WD-40 [1]. That alone might be worth the price of admission. You could also think about this as a collab between WD-40 and Javascript, which is pretty funny. The author is presumably posting this video and blog everywhere, which only further amplifies WD-40's outreach. And they themselves now have a positive brand association with WD-40. [1] I just used WD-40 last night. I'm actually shocked the author had to go and buy a can of it.
- davekiss 2y agoI had a little tiny can in the garage, but it didn't show as well on camera
- echelon 2y agoSmart use of a prop! I also didn't think about how an older can might not look as good on camera as a brand new can.
- BoingBoomTschak 2y ago> I'm actually shocked the author had to go and buy a can of it. Some fancy people are on the Ballistol team, I'll have you know!
- cmiller1 2y agoMaybe he just needed to buy a small can to open up his normal can of WD-40 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9PFZTPSOkdY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9PFZTPSOkdY
- rfl890 2y agoWD-40 is never financially recovering from this
- ycombinatrix 2y agoHow WD-40 successfully launched an indie marketing campaign with only $2750
- mmanfrin 2y agoHow do you figure? They wanted people to make videos demonstrating what WD-40 can do, he made videos doing just that. What about this do you consider a scam?
- ThrowawayTestr 2y agoThe rules explicitly state that multiple entries are allowed.
- TrackerFF 2y agoMan, there are people raking in hundreds of thousands, to millions, doing exactly the same thing on youtube. They have tens and tens of (list) channels where all the vids are generated, AI voiceover, AI script, AI images, etc. - don't think OP hacking his way through a contest is too bad.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- knodi123 2y agoMore like "How a guy took a non-guaranteed one-off freelance marketing gig for WD-40!"
- jabroni_salad 2y agoDo you know what a marketing firm would cost to generate this kind of footage? OP is the one getting fleeced. At least they had fun with it.
- j0hnyl 2y agoPlease explain how wd40 is the victim here.
- micromacrofoot 2y agoThe WD-40 Company made $53m in income in 2017 If anything, they should be derided for using free labor in the form of a contest to produce marketing content.
- cjidjdj 2y ago[flagged]
- davekiss 2y agoAw man, sorry this one wasn't for you!
- readthenotes1 2y agoOdd. I didn't find it tedious at all
- thekevan 2y agoI 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 2y ago"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 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.
- fsndz 2y agoThis 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-and-profits https://www.lycee.ai/blog/large-language-models-productivity...
- sickblastoise 2y agoHad a similar idea, https://pypi.org/project/ai-alchemy/ https://pypi.org/project/ai-alchemy/
- TheRealPomax 2y agoThat'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 2y agoThe 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoHahaha 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 Gdańsk or Warsaw? :)
- TrackerFF 2y agoI love that 75% of the post was OP checking the math on whether or not he should join the contest.
- j45 2y ago..and let the math shed some light on what to create and why.
- nadis 2y agoYes, 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 2y agoI'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 2y agoI 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.
- justinsaccount 2y agoLubricating 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoIt 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 2y agoFor 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.
- awoimbee 2y agoThat 8th entry pouring loads on WD40 on trees is just crazy, that thing is petroleum distillate !
- davekiss 2y agoDon't worry, this is a stump that's been dead for years, isolated to a very small garden bed in my yard
- a1o 2y agoYou chose papyrus too, I think that was the most damning.
- davekiss 2y agoFairies literally only use papyrus
- cinntaile 2y agoI'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 2y agoWell there is the water table too. But that said weed killer is poured all over everywhere
- thinkingemote 2y ago"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.
- pcthrowaway 2y agoI 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 2y agoSigh… 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 2y agoI 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 2y ago> 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.
- nickspacek 2y agoI 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 2y agoI assumed it was just a bad look dumping WD-40 straight into the environment
- shermantanktop 2y agoIt’s a floor polish! It’s a dessert topping! And apparently a shingle sealer too.
- edm0nd 2y agoI too think it was that combined w the fact of hurting insects with it perhaps.
- lobsterthief 2y agoYeah, I’m assuming that was the reason too.
- garciasn 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/shorts/9PFZTPSOkdY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9PFZTPSOkdY
- neontomo 2y agoI'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 2y agoAs a person who is also in the art scene, this is reasonable and inspiring.
- neontomo 2y agoi 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 2y agoEverybody 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.
- tmaly 2y ago[flagged]
- noboostforyou 2y agoAs soon as you listed the full set of prizes I was really hoping to see that gallon jug haha. Nice job!
- a1o 2y agoHey can you tell me which sling are you using and weight of the baby?
- jrflowers 2y agoHow 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoI'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 2y agoThere’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 https://davekiss.com/consult
- michaelcampbell 2y ago> There’s a bit of a difference between a fiction book and a 3000+ word ad for consulting services[0] Not in the context of the post. Regardless of what it is, it's not required to be "useful". Just enjoying the content, for whatever reason, whatever its intent, has a "use" to some.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mlsu 2y agoIncredible. 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 2y agoHey, 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 2y agoyeah if anything this is a good example of using AI to speed up work that's typically fairy tedious
- Tyr42 2y agoHaving done voice overs, it takes time and it doesn't feel as creative as the rest of the job.
- IanCal 2y ago> 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoGenius 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 2y agoYeah but one’s balls are pretty sensitive to topicals.
- wiredfool 2y agoWD-40 isn't really a lubricant, it's more like a de-greaser and water remover.
- singleshot_ 2y agoWater displacer, hence the name, right?
- analog31 2y agoIt's a mixture of light mineral spirits and mineral oil. Oil displaces water, who knew?
- anamexis 2y agoIt 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/ https://www.wd40.com/myths-legends-fun-facts/
- djhworld 2y agoReally interesting and amusing post thanks for taking the time to write it and share it.
- mhb 2y agoIs 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 2y agothe goal here is probably "get X pairs of eyeballs on <product> for $Y" more than it is "create and administer a fair competition".
- raincole 2y agoThe main point of this article is that most competitors are not that competitive (for some reason).
- thaumasiotes 2y agoThe 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 2y agoOr that artists aren’t very compliant with direction.
- cubano 2y agoLove 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 2y agoA 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q6yPcUwatg
- wrsh07 2y agoIn 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 2y agoBe grateful we didn't end up with the w10b.
- treve 2y agoIt's also way fewer syllables!
- thenickdude 2y agoHere "www" is read "dub dub dub", which is at least only one syllable per character instead of "double-u double-u double-u"
- ruthmarx 2y agoWhere is 'Here'?
- thenickdude 2y agoNew Zealand
- hi_hi 2y agoOh no, its the AWD vs 4WD thing all over again. Is WD-40 a lubricant? Apparently, again, it depends!
- teruakohatu 2y agoAny 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 2y agoRight, 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 2y ago> 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 2y agoI think their point was ‘and then use a proper chain lube on the chain or you’ll regret it very quickly’.
- sedatk 2y agoWhen 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 2y agoIt’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 2y agoLuck is where preparation meets opportunity.
- beng-nl 2y agoOr, at the risk of being redundant, but from the wonderful lecture by Richard Hamming, “Luck favors the prepared mind.”
- ravenravenpl 2y agoI wish someone has taught me that. It really boils down to that most of the time.
- aneeshnl 2y agoMe 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_ 2y agoThis 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.
- zadokshi 2y agoWhat 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).
- bryanrasmussen 2y agodoing 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 2y agobro, it's not just about the money. He's promoting himself, building up a portfolio, learning new skills and entertaining himself.
- bryanrasmussen 2y agoif 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 2y agoSo it's two days of work for a chance at two days of pay.
- davekiss 2y agoEh, 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 2y agoI 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 2y ago$2750 USD is 2 days of pay? In what world? That's some parts of the world yearly gross.
- 8organicbits 2y ago$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 2y agoIt 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 2y agoVery 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 2y agoTL;DR: submitting multiple entries increases your chances of winning.
- LeanneSchneck 2y ago[flagged]
- joeyagreco 2y agoThis is awesome! Is there somewhere that contests like these are tracked? Would be awesome to browse.
- andrybak 2y agoIt'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 2y agoOne 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 2y agoGreat 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/10209469246dde21b2550747add577e8 https://gist.github.com/davekiss/10209469246dde21b2550747add...
- andai 2y agoThis 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.
- troyvit 2y agoOf 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-companies-comprehensive-updated-index-1236101707/ https://variety.com/vip/content-owner-lawsuits-against-ai-co...
- ruthmarx 2y agoWeirdest 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 2y agoWait, 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 2y agoPro-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.)
- LeanneSchneck 2y ago[flagged]
- LeanneSchneck 2y ago[flagged]
- LeanneSchneck 2y ago[flagged]