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Bot written to buy random things each month from Amazon

219 points| dmarinoc | 13 years ago |randomshopper.tumblr.com | reply

95 comments

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[+] jaysonelliot|13 years ago|reply
If 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

[+] elteto|13 years ago|reply
"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.

[+] nextstep|13 years ago|reply
Generative? I think a better term, in this case, would be Consumption Art. I wouldn't consider buying something to be "generation" of anything.
[+] tubelite|13 years ago|reply
You know what would be really cool? Write a mini-me program, with enough money that hosting can be funded on interest, with a little left over for gifts.

Then, you die (painlessly, after a long and happy life, etc. etc.)

The program keeps running, tracking your descendants over time and gives them little random, appropriate gifts from the ghost of great^n grandpa or grandma.

I wrote about this in 2007 (https://tubelite.wordpress.com/2007/09/10/autonomous-softwar...). Perhaps Facebook is in the best position to do this, help people plan and create their ghosts.

[+] rijoja|13 years ago|reply
Let's say that you save 10'000 $ in an account with 5% interest, then you'll have 500 $ a year to spend on presents. If every child has two children the amount children in a generation is 2^n. When they grow up we stop giving them presents for mathematical simplicity. Then it's possible to give every child in the 9th generation a $1 gift a year. Which is quite neat. If we have a generation length of between 25 and 30 years this will be between 225 and 270 years in the future.
[+] zaidmo|13 years ago|reply
However, the site will never keep the API's the same. The mini-program may stop functioning a few years after the person's death, and there will be nobody to change it
[+] citricsquid|13 years ago|reply
This 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 anyone remember this? I can't find anything via HN search, but I'm sure it was a show HN at some point.

[+] drcube|13 years ago|reply
Cool. You could use this to set up a "Random Amazon Purchase of the Month Club" and have a decent side business.
[+] alpb|13 years ago|reply
Off 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.
[+] omaranto|13 years ago|reply
Just to be clear, this is off topic because here the intention probably was to link to the entire blog (all of which is about the bot in the submission title), right?
[+] Zolomon|13 years ago|reply
Being a native Swede very much into electronic music I was very interested in learning about Ákos Rózmann! He was a complete stranger to me until now. Thank you very much.
[+] jrabone|13 years ago|reply
This 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.
[+] zdgman|13 years ago|reply
How is he actually completing the amazon purchase solely via a bot? I know there is no API to automagically buy an item from Amazon.

Would love to see a write up of how this is accomplished.

EDIT: Noticed he is using PhantomJS and running the process through a browser. Very interesting.

[+] jastr|13 years ago|reply
Apparently http://zinc.io does provide an API for placing orders on Amazon.
[+] j2kun|13 years ago|reply
I'm surprisingly intrigued by this. It sounds really fun!
[+] kyllo|13 years ago|reply
Good for a conversation piece at parties, if nothing else. "Hey, you guys won't even believe what I got from my random shopper bot this week!"
[+] anabis|13 years ago|reply
I can see this buying spare parts for things you do not have.
[+] jQueryIsAwesome|13 years ago|reply
It is until it buys "Fifty shades of grey" and a XXL baby doll.
[+] jastr|13 years ago|reply
Really funny idea. Are you using http://zinc.io to ship the stuff from Amazon?
[+] dariusk|13 years ago|reply
Nope, I'm using PhantomJS, a headless web browser that's mostly used for test automation. I programmed it to log in to the Amazon account, fill out the various forms, and buy/ship the stuff.
[+] filipeximenes|13 years ago|reply
dxRoulette uses an non automated, but similar approach. Although you have to manually buy, it still very fun to sort the item wait for it to arrive in a random date since the product comes from china. http://www.dxroulette.com/
[+] JaggedJax|13 years ago|reply
Hmm, no mater how many times I try, I always get a V for Vendetta mask as the result.
[+] stevewillows|13 years ago|reply
The two purchases are fascinating. I am curious as to what other purchases of his suggested the CD.
[+] sounds231|13 years ago|reply
I will be writing a bot to buy me random things from musiciansfriend.
[+] adv0r|13 years ago|reply
you have no respect for the value of money, time and our planet. You better use your spare time write a bot to feed 80 human beings in poor country. :\ disappointed how this can get so high on HN. Srsly, you guys are loosing it.
[+] johngalt|13 years ago|reply
And you spend your time commenting on work you don't respect. Why weren't you out farming?
[+] ksikka|13 years ago|reply
? if anything, he is stimulating the american economy
[+] cncool|13 years ago|reply
losing, not loosing