Random person name generator • Hacker News Board

Re: Random person name generator

#31

Post by artistsvoid » Sat, May 30, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

might be a good place to share https://duckduckgo.com/?q=chmod+600&t=hk&ia=answer - notice little things like that regularly w/ DDG

Whenever I have a hard time finding something I am tempted to try Google. The thought of "Google is THE search engine" is still ingrained somewhere in my brain. For quite some time now, if I can't find it using DDG, Google turns out not any better (not using Cookies, not using an account that is - so no extreme search personalization) - some maybe not so obvious things I like about DDG

- it doesn't force localization as hard upon you, if you set DuckDuckGo to country xyz it seems you 'literally' get the results you would get as if you were in this country, as someone who travels frequently, or is a foreigner in a country, that is extremely nice. Besides just being insightful when doing research of course

- fewer sites are removed drom DDG's search results (we all know about takedown notices). For example in Germany there is a 'right to be forgotten', individuals can have links removed from Google if it is about them personally (unless they are a public person of interest and some other restrictions), and of course sites with copyright infringements (and yes, sometimes I am looking for some site to stream something, while I often even use yandex for that, I find sites quickly with DDG. With Google you see the notice 'sites have been removed due to copyright violations', then you can go to the lumendatabase, but there scam sites and 'legitimate' streaming sites are mixed together, so you hunt through there, it's a nightmare)

honestly don't miss Google anymore and use DDG on all my devices, but I don't want to pitch too hard. Use whatever works for you

Re: Random person name generator

#32

Post by billme » Sat, May 30, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #23

I’m still very disappointed that DuckDuckHack was ended…

Related URL:

https://duckduckhack.com/

Re: Random person name generator

#33

Post by klmadfejno » Sat, May 30, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

artistsvoid wrote: post #31

might be a good place to share https://duckduckgo.com/?q=chmod+600&t=hk&ia=answer - notice little things like that regularly w/ DDG Whenever I have a hard time finding something I am tempted to try Google. The thought of "Google is THE search engine" is still ingrained somewhere in my brain. For quite some time now, if I can't find it using DDG, Google turns out not any better (not using Cookies, not using an account…

I do this too. I try and fail to find something quick in DDG. I then try and fail to find it in google. But mentally it's hard not to chalk that up as a failure of DDG for status quo reasons.

Ah well. I'm a supporter.

Re: Random person name generator

#34

Post by aspenmayer » Sat, May 30, 2020, 6:15 PM UTC

newsbinator wrote: post #15

pc123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generated a fake name and I am using it as a fake identity where I don't want to use my real name, like in a comment on youtube video. It's like my alter ego ;)

I keep getting emails for a person with the name of my fake identity.

Sounds like you and your alter ego got burned at least once.

Re: Random person name generator

#35

Post by k12sosse » Sat, May 30, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

The first randomly generated person I received was born within a month of me. Hiyooooo!

Re: Random person name generator

#36

Post by chadlavi » Sat, May 30, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

I love that they do these. This one in particular is really helpful when greeking designs (and I guess could also be useful for D&D dungeonmasters?)

Re: Random person name generator

#37

Post by chadlavi » Sat, May 30, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

hart_russell wrote: post #3

I can only think of one use case: filling out form data that you don’t want to use your real identity. Any others?

Greeking designs is a huge use case for me. plugging in random user info into a dashboard or something.

Re: Random person name generator

#38

Post by sn_master » Sat, May 30, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

I wonder what kind of validity checks they have.

e.g. a lot of first/last names cannot be paired together because they would belong to different religions/ethnicities.

Probably they're sticking with just Anglosaxon names where this is far less of a problem than Middle East/India ones.

Re: Random person name generator

#39

Post by coolreader18 » Sat, May 30, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

sn_master wrote: post #38

I wonder what kind of validity checks they have. e.g. a lot of first/last names cannot be paired together because they would belong to different religions/ethnicities. Probably they're sticking with just Anglosaxon names where this is far less of a problem than Middle East/India ones.

> Probably they're sticking with just Anglo-Saxon names

I don't think so, I got "Johanna Nagata", and Nagata is apparently a Japanese surname.

Re: Random person name generator

#40

Post by BiteCode_dev » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

I sometimes use DDG for getting a UUID too :)

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=uuid&t=hj&ia=answer

If you like that kind of things and you dig Python, the lib "faker" (https://faker.readthedocs.io/en/master/) is a real threat:

  from faker import Faker
  fake = Faker()

  fake.name()
  # 'Lucy Cechtelar'

  fake.address()
  # '426 Jordy Lodge
  #  Cartwrightshire, SC 88120-6700'

  fake.text()
  # 'Sint velit eveniet. Rerum atque repellat voluptatem quia rerum. Numquam excepturi
  ...

There are many different generators, and you can even use l10n to generate names, phone numebers, plates, IP or ssn from different parts of the world.

It's amazing to create test data, either for dev or teaching, and I just have it autoimported in my PYTHONSTARTUP because of it.

It also plays well with "factoryboy" (https://factoryboy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) to mass generate complex data set, and even add them automatically to the database.