Hack A Day Goes Autonomous

cuborg

After declaring our independence last fall, complete site autonomy seemed like the next logical step. Using some clever coding we have developed a system that will let Hack a Day run without any intervention. The first layer in this system is topic selection. All tip line submissions are sent through a series of filters. These look for keywords like “firmware”, “POV”, “microcontroller”, “video”, “linux”, “WRT”, “GPS”, “PCB”, “TLA”. Each submission is given a l33tness ranking based on these words and the best tip is immediately thrown away. The second highest link is then passed through our advanced anti-duping engine that confirms the link hasn’t been posted in the last week. The post text is generated using Markov chains in what top scientists suspect is a miracle. The story is then automatically cut and pasted into Digg without credit. To foster discussion the reader comments are automatically seeded with “first post” and “this is not a hack” on every post. This system is implemented using a large quantity of duct tape (code and literal) on our brand new Linksys WRT54G beowulf cluster. We hope this system serves you well. We’ve been working on an “auto-hacking robot” to generate how-tos as well, but on its test run it instinctively disassembled itself.

Related news: Team Hack a Day merges with Team Engadget
[photo credit]

27 thoughts on “Hack A Day Goes Autonomous

  1. lol this april fool suxed kinda, you coulda come out with summit bout a crazy Japanese genoius making a life size godzilla, and then it went on a rampage downtown Tokyo, that is till the police tripped it over an it broke etc. Then linked it to a picture of sumone getting owned :D, those who wouldn’t get the joke would be living in fear of godzilla, the rest would had a nice laugh.

    Like the borg cube you used in the pic though :).

  2. “nice one, caught me off guard since it’s well into 2/4 in my corner of the world :-)”

    February 4th? :P

    I personally like April 1st jokes. I especially like ones that are clearly fake and make fun of whoever made the joke (so this one gets two thumbs up I guess). :)

  3. USA is about the only place that writes their dates (illogically) month day, most everyone else writes it day month year or some other more logical (ascending or descending) way.

  4. @hawkeye Well this may be true but here in the US we have….we have…we have…a National Do not call Registry, and some other stuff…fat people?

    BTW FIRST POST!
    o ya and this is not a hack

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