Bored? Have a random IM conversation...

[KenWittlief]

Interesting. This sounds like the internet version of Amateur Radio.

If you have a ham radio license you would get on the air, pumping out 100 to 1000W, calling "CQ CQ CQ" (which is short hand for 'anybody out there?")

and you would get random replies from people all around the world

another similarity, radio waves skip across the atmosphere and propagate depending on weather conditions, the time of day, the amount of sunlight... for any given frequency. So the average amount of time you might be able to talk to someone thousands of miles away was about 20 minutes.

very cool! Now I have to try this.

of course, only people that you tell about RandomProxy will know about RandomProxy, so it could take quite a while for this to become a truely global random function. I suspect there is a high probability most IM contacts will be CD'ers?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I just tried this. I got someone from metafilter, whatever that is. Then they stopped talking to me. Potentially pretty fun, I'll tell my friends about it. The 4 that I have on my buddylist.

[KenWittlief]

Sooooo... this is like having an imaginary random friend on your buddy list?

[thegathering]

Originally Posted by AtalanteStar25

It tells me that I've been paired with someone and that I can begin my conversation, but nothing happens after that. Is it just that the other person is inactive or is it that I'm using Gaim?

I'm not getting anything on trillian. Maybe nobody likes us

[Morgan Gillespie]

Worked on Gaim on Xubuntu (linux), I had a 20 min conversation with someone about Starcraft, mmorpgs, oblivion, and other assorted nerdy topics.

And for the past 8 tries I got connected to the same person... who I was also talking to in another IM window... heh...

[thegathering]

I've still yet to be able to talk to another person

[Kristian Calhoun]

Originally Posted by Mercury Rising

And for the past 8 tries I got connected to the same person... who I was also talking to in another IM window... heh...

Make that about 10 times. Every five minutes I think I am going to get to talk to a new person, but alas it is to no avail, and I end up talking to Morgan [Mercury Rising].

Now I just tried again, and I end up talking to Alexa [AtalanteStar25], who I was also talking to in another IM window, at the same time that I was telling her about repeatedly getting paired up with Morgan...

Oh the irony...

[Jeremiah Johnson]

LMAO... I tried to talk to myself but it didn't work.

[Morgan Gillespie]

I have got the same people over and over again, Kristian, Alexa and a crazy guy from MetaFilter. Yet Alexa got Michelle, and Kristian got a few other FRC people. Sigh...

[Bill_Hancoc]

Ive gotton 2 frist people and 2 non first people...kinda fun...this is really a great idea

[SamC]

Is the bot not live anymore? I added it/her/him to my buddy list on AIM and it says its not on!

[Eric Finn]

What language is it programmed in?
If it's Perl, then I have a small (Well, maybe not so small...) problem with my AIM bot.

[SamC]

Originally Posted by Eric Finn

What language is it programmed in?
If it's Perl, then I have a small (Well, maybe not so small...) problem with my AIM bot.

You wrote an AIM bot aswell? Thats pretty cool!

[Eric Finn]

Oh, it looks like I just fixed both of the problems I was having by eliminating regexes from a certain part of the code.
If anybody wants to talk to my bot, its AIM screenname is goatsgomooBOT.

"help" is the only command you'll need.