Inspiration from Borges maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lottery_in_Babylon (it's in the highly entertaining Ficciones collection)
Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
61–70 of 187 posts
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you know when someone isn't on Facebook? ;)
Is there a site to sign up on so people can find you and find out that you are not on facebook? That would be great! Maybe facebook could integrate those results into there people search. "John Smith, Anytown, USA isn't on facebook. Try emailing him".
Well joke's on us because they could already do this. The Facebook knows about my existence. It knows my name, my face, and my friends. My email too. I'd have to avoid contact with all people that use the Facebook to prevent this. Infeasible.
They just don't publish the data because they have little to gain from it and there's no reason to needlessly antagonize people. They sell it without telling anybody.
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#63This is an awesome idea. I've spent a lot of energy making apps to automate my life and management my schedule. Now I'm tempted to also have it throw in something random now and again. I couldn't go to these extremes (I couldn't pick up and move to another country for instance) but it would be cool to say do things less extreme... like pick a random place for dinner or watch this random Netflix movie.
I built an app a few years ago that does this for bars. Bar Roulette. It's free in the app store...give it a try. I've had a lot of fun using. http://barroulette.cool/
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Random dinner location is certainly worth a try, for dipping a toe in the shallow end, so to speak: http://www.restaurantgenerator.com
Similarly, Netflix randomizer sites already exist. I've had good experiences with https://netflixroulette.net/ , for example.
How does this work? I though Netflix shut down their public API?
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#65I actually met Max while we both happened to be in Thailand in 2015. We spent the day on bicycles following the directions his script told him, without hesitation. Regardless of where it was in the city, that's where we went next (a laundry mat, daycare, cafes, and the zoo iirc). Nothing was skipped, because it was what the software told us to do. Here are some pictures from that day https://goo.gl/photos/gyCNRz2rs7z…
Just stay alert, in some parts of the world it can end tragically: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/07/british-woman-...
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#66I actually met Max while we both happened to be in Thailand in 2015. We spent the day on bicycles following the directions his script told him, without hesitation. Regardless of where it was in the city, that's where we went next (a laundry mat, daycare, cafes, and the zoo iirc). Nothing was skipped, because it was what the software told us to do. Here are some pictures from that day https://goo.gl/photos/gyCNRz2rs7z…
The app took you too a daycare? Where people leave their children? Did you actually enter it, or just move on? I'd feel pretty uncomfortable with a random stranger and his friends showing up to my kid's daycare. I hope the apps have gotten better location filtering in place since 2015.
Would you feel uncomfortable if the author was a woman?
It is sad that in today's society men are immediately perceived as a potential threat to a child.
The fear mongering is getting ridiculous.
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#67Ah, but what was his source of randomness? Perhaps he didn't have enough entropy and now he's got to do the last few years all over again ;) I think I naturally do a bit of that myself: whenever I have some empty time, I fill it with something "random", only instead of choosing randomly I often choose the cheapest option. For example, I once booked a flight to Iran departing hours after I bought the ticket, simply be…
> I once booked a flight to Iran departing hours after I bought the ticket, simply because it was the cheapest option for an interesting place to fly (under $180 round-trip.) ... ... I'm trying to decide which part of this sentence is the least surprising part. It's definitely not the part where you could fly to Iran and back for a grand total of $180? I don't think it's the part where you figured out that this was a…
When I arrived in Iran I knew zero words of Farsi, or Arabic. (In Iran I learned about 80 words of Farsi but have since forgotten most.) I was flying from Amsterdam, on a budget airline with a long layover in Ukraine, so that contributed to the low price, although that was a remarkably low fare. My only "connection" so to speak was that a friend is Iranian, but he hasn't been back to Iran in many years and can't go back without facing execution.
I am also a white American of European descent, although I'm a dual Dutch-American citizen, so my Dutch passport was what I used to enter the country.
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Random dinner location is certainly worth a try, for dipping a toe in the shallow end, so to speak: http://www.restaurantgenerator.com
Similarly, Netflix randomizer sites already exist. I've had good experiences with https://netflixroulette.net/ , for example.
:/ This was exactly what I was looking for but doesn't seem like it's location aware. Every movie so far it has suggested is not on UK Netflix.
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#69Anyone who's interested in more ideas along these lines should look at Tyler Cowen's list of how to be less complacent: http://tylercowen.com/complacent-class-quiz/
It said I was a trailblazer. Doesn't sound like me at all. I guess not being American might throw it off.
Re: Eager to Burst His Own Bubble, a Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I once booked a flight to Iran departing hours after I bought the ticket, simply because it was the cheapest option for an interesting place to fly (under $180 round-trip.) ... ... I'm trying to decide which part of this sentence is the least surprising part. It's definitely not the part where you could fly to Iran and back for a grand total of $180? I don't think it's the part where you figured out that this was a…
When I arrived in Iran I knew zero words of Farsi, or Arabic. (In Iran I learned about 80 words of Farsi but have since forgotten most.) I was flying from Amsterdam, on a budget airline with a long layover in Ukraine, so that contributed to the low price, although that was a remarkably low fare. My only "connection" so to speak was that a friend is Iranian, but he hasn't been back to Iran in many years and can't go b…
Well, that answers one question, it would not have been $180 to fly from the USA!