Wiki Famous People -*- mode: org -*-

Wikipedia Semi famous person downloader

The Python Script:

Wikidata

Get a set of random people from Wikidata that meet the following criteria:

1. Born on the year provided by rand()
2. Has a pic on file
3. Is not a sports figure
4. The associated wiki article has a minimum of 20 inbound inter-wiki site links

Wikipedia

After getting the list from Wikidata it will then use the Wikipedia API to get the text version of the article. For the blurb only the first 2 sentences are retained. Dump this into a txt file with the corresponding name.

After that, it will request a specific size image from Wikipedia so that we don’t get huge pictures and we have a set column with for later.

Using Image Magick, convert the pictures in SIXEL format for the terminal.

Image Magick

because I might want to add a border or post processing later

The Bash Script:

YOU NEED A TERMINAL THAT CAN DISPLAY SIXEL IMAGES

1. Looks in ./wiki_pis for SIXEL
2. Pick one from random
3. CAT the corresponding txt file with TPUT
4. CAT the SIXEL

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS???

The idea for this Frankenstein python script came from the fact that I wanted something like neofetch for interesting Wikipedia people. That way when ever I open my terminal I have a new interesting person to learn about.

TODO:

1. Check if ./wiki_pics is there
2. Comment so stuff
3. Format the blur better
4. Add link to the blurb
5. Make it fancier with imagemagick

Here it is in action!