I'm surprisingly intrigued by this. It sounds really fun!
It is until it buys "Fifty shades of grey" and a XXL baby doll.
Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
11–20 of 102 posts
Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#12Off topic: I'm wondering when HN users will figure out how to get permalink of a Tumblr post. Everybody is linking to blog home except companies hosting their blogs on Tumblr.
Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#13This was done a few years back as the result of an XKCD, the original article is gone, but there's a few articles about it: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-11/09/xkcd-packages... http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20022153-1.html it's a cool idea. Not sure if I'm imagining it, but I think that someone built this into a web service that you could subscribe to and it would buy things for you every day. Does a…
I'm the guy who built the original XKCD-inspired bot -- the original blog post is still around at http://bieh.net/wordpress/2010/11/08/xkcd-576/, though the images have since broken.
Possibly the web service you mean is http://www.eachdayisagift.com/ ?
Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#14This was done a few years back as the result of an XKCD, the original article is gone, but there's a few articles about it: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-11/09/xkcd-packages... http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20022153-1.html it's a cool idea. Not sure if I'm imagining it, but I think that someone built this into a web service that you could subscribe to and it would buy things for you every day. Does a…
I'm the guy who built the original XKCD-inspired bot -- the original blog post is still around at http://bieh.net/wordpress/2010/11/08/xkcd-576/ , though the images have since broken. Possibly the web service you mean is http://www.eachdayisagift.com/ ?
Yes, that's it! Thanks. Here's the related show HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3825524
re: blog post, the wired article (http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-11/09/xkcd-packages...) links to http://bieh.net/2010/11/08/xkcd-576/ which is broken (missing the wordpress I think)
Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm the guy who built the original XKCD-inspired bot -- the original blog post is still around at http://bieh.net/wordpress/2010/11/08/xkcd-576/ , though the images have since broken. Possibly the web service you mean is http://www.eachdayisagift.com/ ?
Yes, that's it! Thanks. Here's the related show HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3825524 re: blog post, the wired article ( http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-11/09/xkcd-packages... ) links to http://bieh.net/2010/11/08/xkcd-576/ which is broken (missing the wordpress I think)
Yeah, I phased out the blog a year or so back, hence why it's not on http://bieh.net any more. I wish I'd worked a bit harder not to break the links now :)
Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#16I hope the bot buys an ebook about horses.
In this (amusing) context, I presume?
Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#17This is a really cool idea - and it shouldn't be too hard to get it to talk to recommendations, personalisation & wishlist if those APIs still accessible as a web service? However, I haven't used the E-commerce service for a long time and I think it might have been turned off or replaced with something more advertising-oriented.
I think that's what it does: http://randomshopper.tumblr.com/post/35454415921/randomized-...
It also bought him a Chomsky book on Linguistics and a electronic music CD. And if the bot did that on it's own that'd be a little too spooky.
Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#18Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#19If you look at what he's doing from an art perspective, he's engaging in Generative art, art that is created by process outside the control of the artist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_art
I usually think of John Cage when I think of generative art, and the way he let the environment or random events become part of his music.
One of the coolest things I've learned about recently in this realm is Joseph Nechvatal's Viral Symphony, a musical work composed by a C++ program that seems similar to Conway's Game of Life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_symphOny
Re: Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon
#20If you look at what he's doing from an art perspective, he's engaging in Generative art, art that is created by process outside the control of the artist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_art I usually think of John Cage when I think of generative art, and the way he let the environment or random events become part of his music. One of the coolest things I've learned about recently in this realm is Joseph Nech…
"If you look at what he's doing from an art perspective"
What exactly is an art perspective? I buy stuff every month from Amazon to serve different purposes, so that they are pseudo-random if looked from outside without context. That doesn't make me an artist, at least not in my book.
I don't want to start a modern art flame fest, but where do we draw the line? I mean, it seems like nowadays anything is or can be art. And if I say that I don't get it, well, then it is my problem for not looking at it from the right perspective.