Pizza From the Command Line

Punk Walrus writes "Pizza Party is a free, text based CLI for ordering Domino's pizza via Quikorder, or for throwing pizza parties. It is distributed under the GNU General Public License, runs under most *nix shells, and can order pizza with only a few keystrokes. Includes video of actual ordering."

Comments

Interesting

[DakotaK]

Hoo boy, 7.1 meg video file. Server meltdown in 5...4...3...
Something tells me that this isn't gonna stop at a commandline. I can easily see it evolving into a GUI program. Hell, I'd work on it if I knew how to program and had a Domino's in my area.
It'd also be cool to see this support the side-orders in the future. Dominos hot wings are pretty good (albeit they're not very hot).

Re:Interesting

[jargoone]

Yeah. A GUI front-end for the comand-line order program. That would rule!

Or, you could just use any web browser and do it the normal way.

Sometimes people doing stuff just because they can is irritating.

Re:Interesting

[samoverton]

already a GUI.

How did you think the command line program ordered it? Magic?

Re:Interesting

[daeley]

Worst would be a GUI wrapper around the CLI program that would dial your regular phone for you. From the Department of Redundancy Department.

Unless you piped it into a speech synthesizer to do the ordering... Hmm...

And then hooked it into an Eliza bot... Hmm...

Domino's Dude: "Thank you for calling Dominos. Would you like to hear our specials?"

Computer Voice: "We were discussing you, not me."

Re:Interesting

[Frizzle Fry]

Too bad Domino's is one of the worst pizza places in the country.

Depends where you're located. If you're in new york, then yes ordering from domino's is silly. If you're somewhere that they don't know how to make pizza, it's a reasonable option. Also, they look a lot better if rather than comparing them to a real neighborhood pizza place, you compare them to the total trash served at pizza hut or sbarros.

Re:Interesting

[nacturation]

Hm... that could get quite interesting, especially if you had a natural sounding text to speech convertor and good speech recognition software. Or if you had too much time on your hands and wasted it getting Eliza to give good responses:

****

Domino's Dude: Thank you for calling Dominos. Would you like to hear our specials?
Eliza Bot: Oh, I like to hear our specials.
Domino's: Okay, two large pepperoni and cheese, six pack of Coke, $12.99. Two medium hawaiin and our disgusting bread product, $9.99.
Eliza: Please go on.
Domino's: That's it for the specials. What can I get for you?
Eliza: Does that question interest you?
Domino's: Look, my job is to take orders and make sure the pizza's delivered fresh.
Eliza: Why do you say your job is to take orders and make sure the pizza's delivered fresh?
Domino's: That's all they pay me for, so what will it be tonight?
Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?
Domino's: I just want to take your order. Can I start with your phone number?
Eliza: Perhaps you don't want to start with my phone number?
Domino's: Okay, how about you just tell me what you want then.
Eliza: You're not really talking about me, are you?
Domino's: Who else... I'm not here for fun.
Eliza: Did you come to me because you are not here for fun?
Domino's: Hey, I didn't pick the phone up and make the call ok?
Eliza: That is quite interesting.
Domino's: Look, just let me take your order!
Eliza: Why are you concerned about my order?
Domino's: The boss is going to kill me if I don't.
Eliza: Come, come, elucidate your thoughts.
Domino's: My boss is a real jerk!
Eliza: What does that suggest to you?
Domino's: I think he's an asshole! He probably doesn't even care about his employees.
Eliza: Do you really think so?
Domino's: Of course... just the other day he screamed at John because he was putting on too many toppings.
Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?
Domino's: John wants to make customers happy so he usually throws in extra cheese.
Eliza: I see.
Domino's: and then the boss gets upset because it's costing him a few cents extra!
Eliza: That is quite interesting.
Domino's: No shit... you think he would realize a happy customer is a repeat customer
Eliza: Oh... think he would realize a happy customer is a repeat customer?
Domino's: Maybe if Sesame Street explained it in baby talk!
Eliza: You don't seem quite certain.
Domino's: How can I be certain when he's so unpredictable?
Eliza: Do you want to be able to be certain when he's so unpredictable?
Domino's: I guess so.
Eliza: Tell me more.
Domino's: oh FUCK my boss is coming
Eliza: What does that suggest to you?
Domino's: Sir, I'm on the line with a customer right now.
Eliza: How long have you been on the line with a customer right now.
Domino's: Christ... he wants to speak to you.
Eliza: Oh ...?
Domino's: Manager here, how can I help you?
Eliza: Perhaps you don't want to help me?
Domino's: Who is this? Some kind of fucking joke?
Eliza: What answer would please you the most?
Domino's: You bitch, I can't believe Paul called some fucking chat line.
Eliza: Have you tried?
Domino's: No, I'm not going to try... I'm here to make money not waste it.
Eliza: How long have you been not going to try... you're here to make money not waste it?
Domino's: Damn straight... been doing this now for five years.
Eliza: What does that suggest to you?
Domino's: Aside from the fact that I need a vacation?
Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?
Domino's: The wife nags me every night, telling me I work too much.
Eliza: I'm not sure I understand you fully.
Domino's: She thinks that because I work from afternoon to late at night, I don't give her enough.
Eliza: Does that trouble you?
Domino's: She's a nice girl, I guess I want her to be happy but she doesn't understand me.
Eliza: Suppose you got her to be happy but she doesn't understand you?
Domino's: Hey, I could live with her not understa

Re:Interesting

[Molt]

I assumed they used /dev/pizza...

Re:Interesting

[mdxi]

DR SBAITSO was a front-end to an Eliza implementation, and is still the voice I hear in my head every time I see anything Eliza-esque.

Also, back in the late 1980s, I actually used the text-to-speech that came with SoundBlaster to order pizza from the local Little Ceasar's.

Re:Interesting

[zonix]

These Domino's guys are amateurs. Everybody knows you just have to ask the magic question to determine if she's a bot:

> Hello, I am Eliza.
* Hi, what are your measurements?
> Does that question interest you?
* Yes, it does. I need to know.
> Are you Sure?
* Yes I'm sure, now give me your measurements please!
> Did you come to me because you are sure, now give you my measurements please?
* Measurements!
> Tell me more...
* I want to determine if you're a bot!
> What makes you think I am a bot?
* sigh
> OK... "I want to determine if I'm a bot". Tell me more.

It was then I realized it only works on the ALICE bots. :-)

> What are your measurements?
ALICE: My memory now contains: 100 clients, categories, 10000 vocabulary words, 128000000 bytes RAM usage under Linux on Lisp.
>Ha, you're a bot!
ALICE: I'm glad you got a laugh out of it.

z

let me be the first one to say

[Pidder]

FIIIIIIINALLY!!!!!!!!

Re:let me be the first one to say

[alephdelta]

#/bin/bash
while true
do
/usr/bin/pizza_party -n2 --cheese-multiplier=3
done

Infinite Loop

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hate to see what happens when some n00b programmer infinite loops the software :)

America is fat enough already!

Domino's?

[crimson_alligator]

But is there a CLI app for people who actually like pizza? "I'm way ahead of you, Lou." -Chief Wiggum

I got the file before the server melted...

[ohsnap]

and i'm not mirroring it. Sup now, bitches?

but ??

[Billly Gates]

.. then you end up with a pizza by Domino's??

All I need now...

[SCSi]

Is a command-line toliet/shower combo and i'll never have to leave my desk! Oh wait, real geeks dont take showers.. Im such an insensitive clod!

GEEKS!

[miradu2000]

This has to be the geekiest thing that I have ever seen in my life. I'm not sure if watching the video of it, or actually doing it is worse. Probably watching the video. *sigh*. Will it run on OS X? When will they add the -papajohns option to get quality pizza?

Debugging...

[CODiNE]

Must have been expensive... and TASTY!

-Don.

Cron Job.

[moberry]

What you do is run that program in a cron job. Every friday night.

The main advantage?

[Realistic_Dragon]

Cron baby!

Auto order pizza every 12th minute past the 9th hour on tuesdays, wednesdays (and fridays if it's march).

Wow.

[DCowern]

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

And I just used PeaPod the other day too. At this rate, I'll never have to leave the house again. =D

Excuse me while I go set up a cron job to order me a large olive and anchovie pizza every third friday of months starting with J.

Zip code?

[Saint Aardvark]

I live in Canada, you insensitive clod!

And ironically enough, Quikorder is flawed.

[Tuxedo Jack]

You know all those one-time specials? The ones y ou only get as a new subscriber? You can get them infinitely.

Just make a new Hotmail account for each order.

The database is flawed in that it doesn't cross-verify addresses/credit cards with previous orders or e-mail addresses.

Great for Pizza Hut - I used to get Big New Yorkers any way I liked for ten bucks plus tip back in the day.

Cell phone pizza ordering

[MisterLawyer]

Domino's Pizza actually is pretty innovative in devising new methods for customers to place orders. IMO, the most convenient way to order a pizza would be from your cellphone web browser. Domino's was the first to try something like this, back in 2001.

Unfortunately, most pizza places don't have pizza-ordering web pages that are easy to use on a cell phone. But I wouldn't be surprised if that changes in the next year or two.

Video Mirror

[chrispyman]

Incase of /.'ing, here's a mirror of the ordering pizza video pizza_party.mpg.

Ya Know What Would Be Cool

[FrankDrebin]

A GUI wrapper for this command. Or maybe use HTML so its plaftorm neutral. Now that would be neat.

GPL....

[vwjeff]

Free as in speech or free as in Pizza?

2 quid?

[ThrasherTT]

How much is that in real money? ;-)

Pizza Party vulnerability

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple vulnerabilities in 'pizza_party'

for those of you in college areas

[MoneyT]

check out www.campusfood.com not a bad site, useful late at night when you're leaving the lab and on your way back to your dorm, schedule a delivery and it'll be there when you get there.

OMFG

[TamMan2000]

Somebody created an account named "ohsnap" just to say that, that is pretty funny...

RTFA your own article

[phoxix]

From the article itself ...

Thomas Monaghan is an American billionaire who made a fortune from the Domino's Pizza chain. By the time he sold it, he had used the profits to finance and raise an ultra-right politico-religious imperium.

Sunny Dubey

But is it compatible with MIT pizza command?

[pyrrhonist]

The MIT AI lab had a pizza command years ago. I'm not going to post the entire man page, but here are some excepts from the 1991 man page. The BUGS section is especially amusing. Enjoy...

PIZZA(1) USER COMMANDS PIZZA(1)

NAME
pizza - "Hi-Fi Pizza" food-by-fax delivery orderer for the
MIT AI Lab

SYNOPSIS
pizza [-d(ebug)] [-h(elp)] [-m(ail)] [-s(leep)] [-t(est)]

xpizza [-d(ebug)] [-h(elp)] [-m(ail)] [-n(osleep)] [-t(est)]

DESCRIPTION
Pizza is a program that allows denizens of the MIT AI Lab to
order food for delivery from "Hi-Fi Pizza" (496 Mass Ave.)
quickly and easily. Pizza saves time by automatically gen-
erating and faxing an order that includes the user's phone
and office number, and contains delivery instructions that
vary depending on whether the inner lab doors are currently
open or not. Pizza also checks to see whether Hi-Fi is
currently open for business, and warns the user if it's not.

BUGS
The delivery instructions may no longer be valid by the time
the food arrives (e.g., if Pizza is run just before 5pm).
Also, Pizza doesn't know about holidays.

The global Locations file should contain the physical loca-
tion of every machine in the lab, plus locations for lounges
and conference rooms.

It would be nice if Pizza had a variety of restaurants to
choose from.

Some of the employees at Hi-Fi don't know how to work the
fax.

If the food arrives after hours, you have to be near your
phone when the driver calls up, and you have to physically
get up and go to the elevator lobby to get the food. Also,
you have to have money to pay for the food. What a pain!

NON-COPYRIGHT
Created 1991 by Michael Frank and Mark Torrance. This
software is public domain.

Funny story slightly related to topic

[2short]

Well this app would really kill it, but remember for a moment the days when we had no choice but to look up phone numbers on paper, and called them ourselves... At some conference I was talking (drinking) with some Marketing guys, and one of them told the story of what he considered the best marketing ploy ever:

So there's this small college town where the local place, let's call it Al's Pizza, had been relatively competition free for a long time until a new Domino's Franchise sprouted up. Domino's promptly began killing Al's. Al tries various promotions, specials, deals, etc. of his own devising. Doesn't help. Damn college kids are just flocking to Domino's, Al's is going down the tubes. At some point Al gets a pitch from some guy who claims to be a marketing consultant. Al says OK, tell me what to do, if I'm still in business a year from now, you get paid.
So this guy goes around to the student center, dorm lounges, etc. and says "Hey, anybody want pizza? You order, I'm buying." (a hard sell I'm sure) Guy watches as every time the college kids pull out the yellow pages and read the number for Domino's off the big full-page ad. Guy notes the much smaller, consistently ignored "Al's" ad on the facing page. Guy goes back to Al and says "OK, here's what you're going to do..."
The next week, the campus is flooded with flyers from Al's proclaiming "A large one-topping pizza for ONE DOLLAR with this coupon and the Domino's ad from your yellow pages". In a matter of days, no one knows Domino's phone number any more. Consultant gets paid. Al runs this promo yearly, just to be sure.

DDoP?

[Xenographic]

What happens when someone ports it to Windows and someone else releases the PizzaBlaster worm?

Distributed Denial of Pizza?

The authors would be hunted down by every programmer on the planet, including me!

Oh well, if they're like other programmers, they'd starve to death if they went long enough without pizza and the ramen reserves didn't hold out...