The Shrine

Trying to design a website to randomly generate a list of restaurants, to figure out what you want to eat.

This idea has been done before, but not on this level. Most "Lunch Generators" are basically just plug in a zip code and it picks something. There is no customization.

I have a personal app, which is basically just a (weighted) list of restaurants that a Perl script just randomly picks three of. I now want to make this into a public website, since the need for something like this on the Net seems to be pretty large.

Replay wrote:http://chowhound.chow.com/

Uhhh, okay. Random website. Where's the generator?

Its like a random picker of a list of restaurants. You know when youre at work, and no one can decide on a place to eat. This picks one for you, BUT it does it on a whole different level using google, weighted system, groups, etc

I originally picked the noms one, but as Shellie mentioned that's not as broadly appealing...

Random Eats
Nomerator
Lunch Roullette

Uhm... can't think of any more, it's a Friday


Don't forget to make an iphone app for it later

Sine's already going to make it mobile accessible so its available to ALL phones, not just iphone

Seraphina wrote:Its like a random picker of a list of restaurants. You know when youre at work, and no one can decide on a place to eat. This picks one for you, BUT it does it on a whole different level using google, weighted system, groups, etc

Whenever this happens I always pick McDonalds to break the impasse but then everyone objects to it, proving that they were lying when they say 'anywhere is fine' that led to the impasse in the first place.

Well this way you push a button and you go there because it takes everyones interests into account

Ohhh, I didn't understand it was a phone app too. I get it now.

Lunch Roulette is good.

A few other ideas:

*Gastronome (Gastronome is a synonym for "gourmet", and it kind of sounds like various tools too)

*Lucky Lunch

*Random Repast

*Eatify (or Foodify)

Keep in mind that there has to be a .com available, otherwise I love gastronome and lucky lunch

How about LuckForLunch.com? Seems to be unclaimed.

Seraphina wrote:Its like a random picker of a list of restaurants. You know when youre at work, and no one can decide on a place to eat. This picks one for you, BUT it does it on a whole different level using google, weighted system, groups, etc

Isn't that just copying a app for the iPhone?

I like "Random Eats." It's easy to say and descriptive of what you're trying to do.

Zeus wrote:Isn't that just copying a app for the iPhone?

The app, like most other versions, only picks a zip code and gives you a random restaurant. It would be like comparing the Ticketmaster search for concerts to Pollstar (which can be customized with artist lists and city radius). Besides, I had my program well before somebody thought of an app.

This one will work for EVERYTHING. You can create a weighted list via Google Maps data, share it with friends, create groups that factor in the lists of all of the people in that group (including picking who's available today and a custom "acceptance" level), blacklist a restaurant for a few days (in case you've already ate there recently), and then roll the dice for the random three picks, including filters for types of food, price range, etc.

Kupek wrote:I like "Random Eats." It's easy to say and descriptive of what you're trying to do.

I was partial to "Eat Randomly" myself. I think GenerEATER might win out, but I still worry about spelling mistakes on that one. It's catchy, but hard to spell and hard to pronounce if somebody looks at it fast.

SineSwiper wrote:It's catchy, but hard to spell and hard to pronounce if somebody looks at it fast.

Hard to spell and hard to pronounce are no-nos for app names. You need something that's easy to say, spell and remember. You also want something that sounds good when verbed.

I think GenerEater has too many syllables. GenEater is better - but I'm still partial to Random Eats.

I ended up registering EatRandomly.com and EatRandom.com (in case they forget about the -ly.)

Anyway, thanks for the ideas.

Aww but I thought GenerEATER was ingenious!

SineSwiper wrote:I ended up registering EatRandomly.com and EatRandom.com (in case they forget about the -ly.)

Anyway, thanks for the ideas.

But GenerEater won the poll.....

He's a dictator, what can I say.

Seraphina wrote:He's a dictator, what can I say.

Why ask for a poll if you already know what you want to do?

Just to get a good sampling. Random Eats and Eat Randomly got a total of 3, so it was still up there on the lists. Ultimately, it comes down to readability and making it easy to type on an address bar.

Im not a fan of putting random in there at all. Isnt that the purpose of your app? To not be random?

Its a weighted random.

Which is still random! I think that in colloquial use, the word "random" implies "uniformly random," which is not the case in technical use. That is, a quantity coming from a distribution that's not uniform is still "random."

Which is why GenerEATER is much more clever. Use it. Don't Think. Do it.

GenerEater is nice, rolls off the tongue nicely, and easy to remember.

GenerEater implies there's advanced technology back there that reaches the decision on where to eat... Random Eats just makes it sound like you match up random numbers to a list of places.

In other words-- GenerEater, I believe, better describes what the site does... random has a negative connotation in this regard and cheapens what your site is trying to do, which is far from random.

Tessian wrote:random has a negative connotation in this regard and cheapens what your site is trying to do, which is far from uniformly random.

That is, it's not picking from a set of places where each place is equally likely. But it's still a random process - at least that's my understanding based on Sine's description.

I'm getting back into coding this site again. I was surprised how far I went and I just stopped for a while. Should have a working alpha version in the next few days. I'll re-post the link when I'm done.

Only a few hours shy of exactly 1 year between posts. A little more than "a while" :-)

Kid happens.

Well, that and I worked on it for quite a bit and just got de-motivated. I had to renew the domain a few days ago, and thought I should go ahead and finish it up. Didn't realize that I already had most of the leg work done for at least getting things started.

Seraphina wrote:Kid happens.

Hey, I got #3 comin' in a month. I know all 'bout that :-)

Well geez, thanks for saying something about it!! Congrats!

Seraphina wrote:Well geez, thanks for saying something about it!! Congrats!

Thanks.....but I haven't mentioned it here before? I was pretty certain I did a while ago. Sorry if I didn't. Wife's due on June 22, I'll let ya know what the sex is. I know, we're crazy for not finding out but my wife and I don't see a reason to find out and we like the surprise.