Working random fact generator

wget randomfunfacts.com -O - 2>/dev/null | grep \<strong\> | sed "s;^.*$.*$.*$;\1;" | while read FUNFACT; do notify-send -t $((1000+300*`echo -n $FUNFACT | wc -w`)) -i gtk-dialog-info "RandomFunFact" "$FUNFACT"; done

extension to tali713's random fact generator. It takes the output & sends it to notify-osd. Display time is proportional to the lengh of the fact.

By: mtron

2010-04-02 09:43:32

grep read sed wc wget Shell programming bash Linux sed wget grep unix shell redirection pipes cygwin bsd

2 Alternatives + Submit Alt

Working random fact generator

Though without infinite time and knowledge of how the site will be designed in the future this may stop working, it still will serve as a simple straight forward starting point. This uses the observation that the only item marked as strong on the page is the single logical line that includes the italicized fact. If future revisions of the page show failure, or intermittent failure, one may simply alter the above to read. wget randomfunfacts.com -O - 2>/dev/null | tee lastfact | grep \<strong\> | sed "s;^.*$.*$.*$;\1;" The file lastfact, can then be examined whenever the command fails.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
13

wget randomfunfacts.com -O - 2>/dev/null | grep \<strong\> | sed "s;^.*$.*$.*$;\1;"

tali713 · 2010-03-30 23:49:30 83
Working random fact generator

This is a working version, though probably clumsy, of the script submitted by felix001. This works on ubuntu and CygWin. This would be great as a bash function, defined in .bashrc. Additionally it would work as a script put in the path. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
The only letter not appearing on the Periodic Table is the letter "J".
```
0

lynx -dump randomfunfacts.com | grep -A 3 U | sed 1D

xizdaqrian · 2009-05-05 07:52:10 12

What Others Think

Very handy neat command.It works so well I saved it on a file now it runs as a cron job after every 5 Minutes.

nssy · 746 weeks ago

rahimhh21 · 110 weeks and 4 days ago

Perfecthomepugs · 102 weeks ago

pugpuppies95 · 64 weeks and 1 day ago

yeneba6574 · 19 weeks ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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