Random Huggles (II)

[Angel]

Hug #666, eh? Does that make it a demonic hug?

That's cool! Thank you, modelincard! 

[xHaZxMaTx]

i hug....techmaster glitch!

Was that random?

I doubt it. He purposly mentioned that I am the 666th to be 'random' huggled.

Lucas, don't get me wrong or take this the wrong way; the gesture is greatly appreciated, really, but there is a reason this is called the 'random' huggles thread, and hugs don't count if they aren't random.

What do you mean 'they don't count'?  It's like like it's an illegitimate hug, it just won't be counted toward the roster.

[techmaster-glitch]

it just won't be counted toward the roster.

That's what I meant

[xHaZxMaTx]

Go-go gadget random hug!   Snuggles get huggles!

[Gabi]

From the lack of reply I will assume Lucas's hug wasn't random.

And Mashi gets a new random hug.

[lucas marcone]

it was random....i just don't check the thread often.

[techmaster-glitch]

But how did you choose?

[Faerie Alex]

fesworks gets tonight's huggle.

[Tiger_T]

Like Haz said, we all act autonomously, and give out huggles on a more or less daily basis. (Obviously, since we're only humans, we miss a few days here and there.)

Tiger_T gets my random huggle tonight.

Thank you, modelincard!
*hugs back*

Bet you didn't expect that one.

[Gabi]

Dard gets a new hug.

[Faerie Alex]

Like Haz said, we all act autonomously, and give out huggles on a more or less daily basis. (Obviously, since we're only humans, we miss a few days here and there.)

Tiger_T gets my random huggle tonight.

Thank you, modelincard!
*hugs back*

Bet you didn't expect that one.

Heh, not from that far off. Thanks though.

'Kay, Random.org seems to be broken tonight. I had to resort to banging on my number pad (with my eyes closed, so it's all good ). Doing that, spartanrahl gets tonight's huggle.

[xHaZxMaTx]

DigitalMan get analog hugs.  I wonder if they're compatible.

[Gabi]

Hey, people, remember you can use this if Random.org isn't working. It uses LavaRnd. Or, of course, you can use LavaRnd directly.

By these means, Metal Juggernaut gets a hug today.

[Faerie Alex]

Thanks, I've bookmarked it for later, should Random.org break down again.

Paladin Sheppard gets tonight's huggle.

[rt]

"Thanks, I've bookmarked it for later, should Random.org break down again"

But isn't it more fun to find new and random ways to give the random hugs ?

[RobbieThe1st]

Ok, perhaps I am missing something, but in most programing languages, there is this very cool function usually called rand(); which produces a random number(well, as close to random as you can get with a computer). PHP certainly has this function.

Because I was sorta bored, I created two scripts:

One:

This script will display a new random name and id # each time you load the image(or page the image is in). It checks for the current number of members, so new members will never be left out.
If that ever fails, you have number two:
http://robbiethe1st.ktserv.com/scripts/rand.php (gives 100 random numbers between the values you set, so set the minimum to 1, and the max to the number of members)

Hope that helps your script problems!


-Robbiethe1st

[xHaZxMaTx]

Ooh, nifty, lemme give it a whirl.  Using that, Akisohida gets tonight's hug.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

One:

This script will display a new random name and id # each time you load the image(or page the image is in). It checks for the current number of members, so new members will never be left out.
If that ever fails, you have number two:
http://robbiethe1st.ktserv.com/scripts/rand.php (gives 100 random numbers between the values you set, so set the minimum to 1, and the max to the number of members)

Feature request: Exclude the numbers of the folks who don't want to be huggled, automatically.
Second feature request: Automatically skip the folks who haven't logged in in the last month.
Third feature request: Print the names of the folks who you've skipped, and reasons.


*cough* sorry...

[Faerie Alex]

I like the new black box number gen. But I have another suggestion: Automatically skip numbers for which the member has been deleted.

@llearch: 1 & 2 sound useful, but 3 I could take or leave. On the one hand, it might be interesting to see who/why was skipped, but what good would it do?

Anyways, using the new member generator, terrycloth gets tonight's huggle.

[RobbieThe1st]

Well, in the interest of speed and not running whoever pays for bandwidth for this site into bankruptcy, I don't think it would be practical to skip anyone not active in the last month, at least as long as I am using forum pages to get the information.  If I had access to the DB itself, it would be more practical.

List wise, I could stick a manually-updated list which would be password protected, and you could add a member number to, and if the script generated that number, it would simply find a different number. That could be done. However, I don't have access to this list, and if it was on a forum post, it could be done, but still, thats one more page the script has to load, each time it creates the image.

-RobbieThe1st

[Reese Tora]

Well, in the interest of speed and not running whoever pays for bandwidth for this site into bankruptcy, I don't think it would be practical to skip anyone not active in the last month, at least as long as I am using forum pages to get the information.  If I had access to the DB itself, it would be more practical.

List wise, I could stick a manually-updated list which would be password protected, and you could add a member number to, and if the script generated that number, it would simply find a different number. That could be done. However, I don't have access to this list, and if it was on a forum post, it could be done, but still, thats one more page the script has to load, each time it creates the image.

-RobbieThe1st

You could run a one-time site-grab of the members pages to find out who has what member numbers, as there are only 600 or so members, but some people have member numbers over 1000 due to deleted accounts.  As there are 60 members to a page (in the DMFA theme, anyway) you would only need 11 page loads to capture all user ID to user name pairings.  A reader script that doesn't have to load any graphics or CSS or scripts would cut down on bandwidth for checking if a user is active.

[Gabi]

Ok, perhaps I am missing something, but in most programing languages, there is this very cool function usually called rand(); which produces a random number (well, as close to random as you can get with a computer). PHP certainly has this function.

*Points to the bolded part.* That's the problem. It's not truly random. Close enough for no one to notice in practice, but if you want true randomness, LavaRnd and Random.org are the way to go (I recommend that you check those sites and read how they achieve true randomness, it's interesting, at least for me).

Feature request: Exclude the numbers of the folks who don't want to be huggled, automatically.
Second feature request: Automatically skip the folks who haven't logged in in the last month.
Third feature request: Print the names of the folks who you've skipped, and reasons.


*cough* sorry...

I'm glad you didn't make those requests to me. While it's technically possible to do that to my randomizer, it would take more time than I can dispose of. If I had access to the forum database it would be much easier and make the program much faster too (because I wouldn't have to load all the pages I'd need in order to get member names and inactivity periods), but that's not something I can expect to get.

Am I missing something or does this new number generator do nothing that the others didn't do?

Ok, 2 hugs today.

The first one goes to Forestcat.
And the second one goes to  Aisha deCabre.

2 hugs for 2 nice and friendly girls.

[xHaZxMaTx]

Raist gets the hugs tonight.   I decided to continue using Random.org, though.  I'm just used to it.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Feature request: Exclude the numbers of the folks who don't want to be huggled, automatically.
Second feature request: Automatically skip the folks who haven't logged in in the last month.
Third feature request: Print the names of the folks who you've skipped, and reasons.

I'm glad you didn't make those requests to me. While it's technically possible to do that to my randomizer, it would take more time than I can dispose of. If I had access to the forum database it would be much easier and make the program much faster too (because I wouldn't have to load all the pages I'd need in order to get member names and inactivity periods), but that's not something I can expect to get.

Heh. I forget you guys only have access to this list and not this one, which means you've got to lead each profile to figure out when they last logged in - the second link, in the admin section, lists the last time they logged in as well.

Ewps.

Erm. Notwithstanding that, I'd expect the "who logged in last" list to be an update daily thing, not "every single time you open it" - in fact, what I had in mind was "create random number, compare to list of disallowed numbers, if pass, load profile from forum, if that succeeds (and doesn't contain 'The user whose profile you are trying to view does not exist.'), then check the last active date from there, if it passes, print the name, else goto start"

Which is a touch complex, but covers all the bases. More or less.

If you want to extend it, you can add a database (with update time on it) containing all the ones you've checked that -have- logged in, and if the datestamp on it is older than 12 hours or so, increment all the names by one day, or some such. But that's starting to get interesting, and I'm not pushing for that. :-)

As Robbie says, adding a skip list is doable - I'd say the admin page is overkill, however, since at present the skip list is only two people, as I recall - Zina and one other, no?

Am I missing something or does this new number generator do nothing that the others didn't do?

Nothing that I'm aware of. The only saving grace is that it's convenient. :-]

@llearch: 1 & 2 sound useful, but 3 I could take or leave. On the one hand, it might be interesting to see who/why was skipped, but what good would it do?

Nothing. It's just interesting info - in the same way that folks seem to keep posting "I missed x, y, and z, to get w. W gets a hug today!" Utterly irrelevant information, but interesting nonetheless.

[Faerie Alex]

Corronis gets tonight's random(.org) huggle.

[RobbieThe1st]

Feature request: Exclude the numbers of the folks who don't want to be huggled, automatically.
Second feature request: Automatically skip the folks who haven't logged in in the last month.
Third feature request: Print the names of the folks who you've skipped, and reasons.

I'm glad you didn't make those requests to me. While it's technically possible to do that to my randomizer, it would take more time than I can dispose of. If I had access to the forum database it would be much easier and make the program much faster too (because I wouldn't have to load all the pages I'd need in order to get member names and inactivity periods), but that's not something I can expect to get.

Heh. I forget you guys only have access to this list and not this one, which means you've got to lead each profile to figure out when they last logged in - the second link, in the admin section, lists the last time they logged in as well.

Ewps.

Erm. Notwithstanding that, I'd expect the "who logged in last" list to be an update daily thing, not "every single time you open it" - in fact, what I had in mind was "create random number, compare to list of disallowed numbers, if pass, load profile from forum, if that succeeds (and doesn't contain 'The user whose profile you are trying to view does not exist.'), then check the last active date from there, if it passes, print the name, else goto start"

Which is a touch complex, but covers all the bases. More or less.

If you want to extend it, you can add a database (with update time on it) containing all the ones you've checked that -have- logged in, and if the datestamp on it is older than 12 hours or so, increment all the names by one day, or some such. But that's starting to get interesting, and I'm not pushing for that. :-)

As Robbie says, adding a skip list is doable - I'd say the admin page is overkill, however, since at present the skip list is only two people, as I recall - Zina and one other, no?

Am I missing something or does this new number generator do nothing that the others didn't do?

Nothing that I'm aware of. The only saving grace is that it's convenient. :-]

@llearch: 1 & 2 sound useful, but 3 I could take or leave. On the one hand, it might be interesting to see who/why was skipped, but what good would it do?

Nothing. It's just interesting info - in the same way that folks seem to keep posting "I missed x, y, and z, to get w. W gets a hug today!" Utterly irrelevant information, but interesting nonetheless.

Hm. Script wise, I was thinking of doing that.
Llearch, do you have access to the database directly? What would be best would be to stick a simple page in the forum directory which would list all the information, I would then grab that with my script, and sort what I want out of it. It would only take a couple KB to get all the data, and only one page-load.

My scripts don't load images or anything other than the main page, so you are talking about 2-30kb or so of code.
As it is now, I think you will find that if the user does not exist, the name will not show up...

Random wise, is it worth the trouble of loading random.org, taking an extra bit of time, and wasting bandwidth. Plus, if the site is down, nothing works. I think, for our purposes, rand() should give us close enough to random for our purposes.

edit: Of course, that being said, I just rebuilt it, and now it goes to the number if the latest member, and it also checks if the person exists, and if they do not, recalculates. You can now see the number of attempts it went through to find a member that exists.

-RobbieThe1st

[Saist]

wait? Zina is being skipped in the huggle list? That can't be! even Zinacats need huggles!

[Tapewolf]

wait? Zina is being skipped in the huggle list? That can't be! even Zinacats need huggles!

Well, she's being skipped because she put up a big rant on her DeviantArt journal last November against being hugged/petted online.

[xHaZxMaTx]

Actually, she's being skipped because she requested it.

[Saist]

Actually, she's being skipped because she requested it.

oh...