Alan's Random Insult Generator (1999) | Hacker News Reader

Alan's Random Insult Generator (1999)

alanbellows.com

I'm partial to this complaint generator, on the internet since 1994 and semi-regularly updated since: https://www.pakin.org/complaint

here's a 1 paragraph complaint about Dang (which will be different on every load): https://www.pakin.org/complaint?title=&firstname=Dang&middle...

https://www.pakin.org/complaint?title=Mr.&firstname=Anderson...

Amazing, 100% real human complaint according to a state of the art* AI detection method!

*: Ranked 2 on the google proxy I used, as the best SEO optimister just refused to return a result at all.

I found this in a dusty corner of my code archive, and it made me laugh, and thought it might do the same for others. I wrote this when I was first learning a fancy new language called "Javascript." Apologies for the juvenile humor. Sometimes NSFW.

Reading Damn Interesting every day, I had no idea. Someone used your insults on AOL, or something like that, repeatedly. Thank you for the laughs.

This is great! I remember being extremely impressed by Boris Johnson's "great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies" insult. How does one come up with such a string of words? I would've used this as a study resource.

>> How does one come up with such a string of words?

By spending all day thinking about them instead of running a country.

The modern web seems to know nothing about it at this point, but back when CGI scripts were a new curiosity, there was a Shakespearean Insult Generator which was popular and quite a lot of fun.

Altho' it be not a living CGI script, mayhap the Internet Archive shall regale us with nigh-on 250 bespoke insults, plucked from the very copper tendrils of ye olde webbe: https://web.archive.org/web/19990515000000*/http://www.webwe...

  Thou unmuzzled sheep-biting ratsbane !

See perhaps Shakespearean Insults Mug:

* https://philosophersguild.com/products/shakespearean-insults...

* https://www.amazon.com/Shakespearean-Insults-Coffee-Mug-Shak...

Wow. It's been probably 20 years since I thought of that thing . . .

Hey, don’t copy my daily affirmations

I wrote a conversational insult generator in AppleSoft BASIC, inspired by a program called "Abuse" that I saw advertised in a magazine, and of course by Eliza.

I won't link it, here (the last time I did, it got flagged), but look up Guy Macon's Insult File.

Not a single word that would have tripped the content filters of the time.

While it has now be retired, I was also partial to the "Theo" mode in mg for insults.

https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/checkout/src/usr.bin/mg/Attic/the...

I wrote this many years ago:-

https://apps.repebble.com/rude-time_543459b072a84da55500004c

Y2K Certified too!

They have a nice ring and cadence. One could string some of them along into a Pythonic poem to be recited from castle tops.

I know we could easily code this by scraping but I would like to see an official REST API for this inspired service.

So glad to see this preserved.

It was sad to discover zombocom finally died an undignified death earlier this year.

Zombo still works

The domain was purchased and redesigned. It still exists but lost something ineffable in the process.

Along with all the other wonderfully, nonsense, single-purpose sites we've lost over the years. Some documented here: https://theuselessweb.com/sites-we-lost/

Presaged the President of the United States, 27-years ago.

Now that's what I call programming.

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