About the web image sampler

What's the idea?

Early 2001 or late in 1999, we were sitting in a very nice pub and there was a projector showing a random selection of interesting images on the wall. And somehow the thought came out: maybe that projector could be picking images from the web.


What does it do?

We have a program that runs every day. If picks a few random works, then heads off to a search engine to find web sites related to those works. From the web sites, images are randomly selected. You're seeing a selection of the images we've found.

We used to use Google to find interesting web sites, but they don't like us doing that, so we now use the Open Directory.

We have heuristics (rules of thumb, guidelines) for the images we select to try to keep out navigation bars and the like. We're working on making those better. If you have any suggestions let us know.