Anyone know anything named DX? (was Re: Announcing PyCs)

[Mark Hahn]

On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 03:26:48 -0400, Leif K-Brooks 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...

I remember way back in the '60s a public relations firm working for the
Atlantic Richfield Company made a big deal about using the latest computer
technology to generate thousands of potential names for new gas stations
that their client was going to open.  After all that the Atlantic Richfield
Company chose "ARCO".  :-)