Anyone know anything named DX?

[Alex Martelli]

Leif K-Brooks <eurleif at ecritters.biz> wrote:

> Roger Binns wrote:
> > I did actually send an email to Google labs suggesting they come
> > up with an "naming" tool where you could suggest what style of
> > name you wanted (eg scientific, Italian, computery) and it would
> > generate random strings of that form with no entries in the
> > index.  They never responded.
> 
> That actually wouldn't be very hard to do on your own. You'd just have
> to get long word (phrase?) lists for each type of name (and maybe a 
> general list that'd be used for all types), then use Markov Chains to
> generate a name from one of the lists. Then check how many results you
> get from the Google API, and generate a new one if there are any.
> 
> Maybe I'll try it next time I'm in the mood to code something random...

There's a recipe for the first part of this (generating
non-totally-ranom passwords by pastiche, i.e. Markov Chain) in the 1st
printed edition of the Cookbook -- it would be neat to add a back-end
for the second part, the check with the Google API...


Alex