A developer, inspired by the XKCD comic strip "Packages", has created an online bot that automatically buys one inexpensive item each day for its master.
The original comic that pushed developer Paul Hunkin into starting the project has XKCD's stickman protagonist setting up a script to trawl auction and trading sites like eBay, buying items for a buck and shipping them to his door. Simply because he "loves getting packages". A section of the comic can be seen above.
So, when New Zealand site TradeMe opened its API to developers, Hunkin set about making the Python-based script. The bot gets a $1 allowance each day, and at 8pm it tries to buy something on the site. It has three chances to make a successful purchase, or the money is carried over to the next day.
The <a href="/wired-magazine/archive/2010/11/play/the-chat-bots-speak-out" title="The chat-bots speak out">bot</a> also has his own Twitter page, were it automatically celebrates its new purchases and lets you know how much it has stored in the kitty.
The first item the bot picked up was a pack of five Maxwell watch batteries. He's since spent NZ$2 (about £1) on a "super handy" USB extension cable. You can follow it and keep up with what it's purchasing on Twitter.
The cute project is far from the first time that a savvy creator has been inspired by Randall Munroe's comic. A team of engineering majors were mostly successful in trying to replicate XKCD's 413th comic,
New Pet, when they dumped a robot into a hamster ball.
A pair of coders also made an automated sandwich maker which only responded to the Unix command "Sudo make me a sandwich", from comic 149.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
