DEV Community

Cover image for πŸ€– The Sensational Machine - Mail to Headlines!
JT
JT Subscriber

Posted on • Edited on

πŸ€– The Sensational Machine - Mail to Headlines!

This is a submission for the Postmark Challenge: Inbox Innovators.

πŸ’‘ What I Built

Have you ever had a moment where something you once said came back to you in the wildest, most unexpected way? πŸ˜…
Or noticed how clickbaity headlines on news sites often barely reflect the actual content? πŸ“°

Introducing The Sensational Machine; a whimsical simulator that cranks the sensation dial up to 11! πŸŽ›οΈβœ¨

TSM (not to be confused with the Travelling Salesman Problem, poor guy’s still trying to reach his destination 🧭) is a creative display that shows how a simple message can morph through a chain of reinterpretations, miscommunications and loss of context thanks to interpersonal communication (much like a game of telephone) until it becomes unrecognizable, even to its original sender. 🀯

And the best part? You can try it yourself! πŸŽ‰
(As long as the free tier of the AI model or Postmark quota hasn’t been exhausted πŸ˜…)


πŸ“¬ Try It Yourself!

Send any message to πŸ‘‰ sensation@gotta.trysomething.fun (limited to 2000 characters, should be more than enough to make truly sensational headlines πŸ˜‰)

The Sensational Machine will reply with:

  • A series of chain-distorted messages πŸ”—πŸŒ€
  • Some wildly sensationalized headlines πŸ—žοΈπŸ”₯

βœ‰οΈ Example Replies:

Chain of messages generated by The Sensational Machine

Sensational headlines generated by The Sensational Machine


πŸ› οΈ How I Built It

This project turned out way weirder (and way more fun!) than I expected. Here's the delightfully bizarre stack I ended up with:

  • πŸ“© Postmark β€” For receiving and sending emails
  • 🌐 IFTTT Webhooks β€” To bridge Postmark and Google Apps Script
  • 🧠 Google Apps Script β€” For parsing and handling the logic
  • πŸ€– Google Gemini API β€” To synthesize message chains and headline drama

πŸ™Œ Special Thanks To:

  • 🎨 EmailBuilder.js β€” For the email template
  • πŸ§‘β€πŸŽ¨ Random Users β€” For the avatar images
  • πŸ’¬ ChatGPT β€” For the icon synthesis

Top comments (0)