<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">I did this as well (8 years ago?) for limited art prints, available at random times & always sold out within 3 minutes.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">My system quick-polled every 20 seconds
for the items desired by my "clients" (other employees in my dept who paid for this service). When the art was available, my system texted my clients, who had 5 web pages all loaded up and ready to buy the item. Most of those 5 timed out as demand spiked. Delays in texting lost us some buys as well; I guess blinking a light would have worked better, if our employer had allowed that type of device on their network.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">Fun times.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">-g</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:30 AM Alan Wiggs PE via TriEmbed <<a href="mailto:triembed@triembed.org">triembed@triembed.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto">To all my tech geek friends,</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"> I got this from a lawyer buddy, his nephew is in a tech area.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">A few years ago I looked at a Adafruit feather Huzzah project to do something like this.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin:0px"><span style="font-family:-webkit-system-font,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:-webkit-system-font,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif">J<br></span></div><div style="margin:0px"><span style="font-family:-webkit-system-font,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:-webkit-system-font,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif"><b>From my non-engineer nephew in Palo Alto</b><br></span></div><div style="margin:0px"><span style="font-family:-webkit-system-font,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:-webkit-system-font,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif">April 12, 2020 at 4:26:25 PM EDT<br></span></div><div style="margin:0px"><span style="font-family:-webkit-system-font,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:-webkit-system-font,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></div><br><div><span style="float:none;display:inline">Subject: He who cannot code, cannot eat</span><br><br><br><span style="float:none;display:inline">It's become apparent that it's virtually impossible to get a curbside pickup time slot at any of the local grocery stores. When one becomes available, it is literally snapped up within seconds. So quickly, in fact, that I came to the conclusion people must be using automation. This is just one more reason why it often sucks to live in the same vicinity as 100,000 other software engineers.</span><br><br><span style="float:none;display:inline">So, I joined the arms race, analyzed the underlying API of the store's website, and wrote a program that checks for available time slots every 15 seconds, and if any are found, reserves the first one instantly. Then it turns on a light in the bedroom to alert me that I have a reservation, and after that I have one hour to complete the checkout. I was walking around in circles in the yard last night when I saw the light come on, so I came in and discovered I have a time on Wednesday evening.</span><br><br><span style="float:none;display:inline">Pity those poor suckers in Silicon Valley who don't know how to code. Kind of darkly funny that it has finally come to this: if you can't program a computer, you can take your chances with COVID, or starve, I guess.</span></div></blockquote><div><div><span style="float:none;display:inline"><br></span></div></div><div><span style="float:none;display:inline">Be safe,</span></div><div><span style="float:none;display:inline"><br></span></div><div><span style="float:none;display:inline">Alan Wiggs</span></div></div>
</div>_______________________________________________<br>
Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list<br>
<br>
To post message: <a href="mailto:TriEmbed@triembed.org" target="_blank">TriEmbed@triembed.org</a><br>
List info: <a href="http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org</a><br>
TriEmbed web site: <a href="http://TriEmbed.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://TriEmbed.org</a><br>
To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto:<a href="mailto:unsubscribe-TriEmbed@bitser.net" target="_blank">unsubscribe-TriEmbed@bitser.net</a>?subject=unsubscribe<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Gregg Tracton: tired, retired & inappropriately unattired (PJ's)</div></div></div></div>