This week in Reading and Writing Electronic Text I worked with loops and lists to make a script that breaks a series of headlines up into a sort of 24 hour clock. The idea is that each headline its slowly revealed over the course of a day as a play on the idea of the 24 hour news cycle.
I started with a text file that contained headlines from a bunch of large news outlets:
PROBLEM OF THEIR OWN Canada sees spike in border crossings from US
Rex Tillerson Arrives in Mexico Facing Twin Threats to Relations
Kim Jong-nam killing: North Korea condemns Malaysia
ACLU Sues Milwaukee Over Police Stop-and-Frisk Policy
Trump Meets With Corporate CEOs Thursday on Economic Policies
Bannon told EU it was flawed just before Pence’s visit
7 potentially habitable exoplanets discovered
2 cops charged in Florida woman’s accidental shooting death
Obama-linked activists have a ‘training manual’ for protesting Trump
I then shuffled the order of the headlines (to keep the output interesting) and broke each line into a list of words. The number of words in each line was used to figure out how to display it over the course of a day and then each word is designated a time slot. I created a loop to simulate a 24 hour cycle with this method. I imagine this could be a part of an installation that would act live a very slow moving new ticker.
The code:
import sys
import random
all_lines = []
minutes = -60
lines = []for l in sys.stdin:
lines.append(l.strip())random.shuffle(lines)
for line in lines:
line = line.strip()
word = line.split(” “)
all_lines.append(word)for x in range(24):
wordTimerForEachHeadline = []
currentWordNum=[]
minutes+=60
print “\n”,
print “Today’s Headlines”,
print str(minutes/60)+(“:00”)
for i in range(len(all_lines)):
wordTimerForEachHeadline.append(1440/(len(all_lines[i])))
currentWordNum.append(minutes / wordTimerForEachHeadline[i])
print all_lines[i][currentWordNum[i]]
The output:
Today’s Headlines 0:00
Trump
Obama-linked
7
ACLU
Rex
PROBLEM
Bannon
Kim
2
Today’s Headlines 1:00
Trump
Obama-linked
7
ACLU
Rex
PROBLEM
Bannon
Kim
2
Today’s Headlines 2:00
Trump
Obama-linked
7
ACLU
Rex
OF
Bannon
Kim
2
Today’s Headlines 3:00
Meets
activists
7
ACLU
Tillerson
OF
told
Kim
cops
Today’s Headlines 4:00
Meets
activists
7
Sues
Tillerson
THEIR
told
Jong-nam
cops
Today’s Headlines 5:00
Meets
activists
potentially
Sues
Arrives
THEIR
EU
Jong-nam
cops
Today’s Headlines 6:00
With
have
potentially
Sues
Arrives
OWN
EU
Jong-nam
charged
Today’s Headlines 7:00
With
have
potentially
Milwaukee
Arrives
OWN
EU
killing:
charged
Today’s Headlines 8:00
Corporate
a
potentially
Milwaukee
in
Canada
it
killing:
in
Today’s Headlines 9:00
Corporate
a
potentially
Milwaukee
in
Canada
it
killing:
in
Today’s Headlines 10:00
Corporate
a
habitable
Milwaukee
Mexico
sees
was
killing:
in
Today’s Headlines 11:00
CEOs
‘training
habitable
Over
Mexico
sees
was
North
Florida
Today’s Headlines 12:00
CEOs
‘training
habitable
Over
Facing
spike
flawed
North
Florida
Today’s Headlines 13:00
CEOs
‘training
habitable
Over
Facing
spike
flawed
North
Florida
Today’s Headlines 14:00
Thursday
manual’
habitable
Police
Facing
in
flawed
Korea
woman’s
Today’s Headlines 15:00
Thursday
manual’
exoplanets
Police
Twin
in
just
Korea
woman’s
Today’s Headlines 16:00
on
for
exoplanets
Police
Twin
border
just
Korea
accidental
Today’s Headlines 17:00
on
for
exoplanets
Police
Threats
border
before
Korea
accidental
Today’s Headlines 18:00
on
for
exoplanets
Stop-and-Frisk
Threats
crossings
before
condemns
accidental
Today’s Headlines 19:00
Economic
protesting
exoplanets
Stop-and-Frisk
Threats
crossings
before
condemns
shooting
Today’s Headlines 20:00
Economic
protesting
discovered
Stop-and-Frisk
to
from
Pence’s
condemns
shooting
Today’s Headlines 21:00
Economic
protesting
discovered
Policy
to
from
Pence’s
Malaysia
shooting
Today’s Headlines 22:00
Policies
Trump
discovered
Policy
Relations
US
visit
Malaysia
death
Today’s Headlines 23:00
Policies
Trump
discovered
Policy
Relations
US
visit
Malaysia
death