wikimedia-illustrations
=======================
Hypothesis
----------
We hypothesize that if we download some random public-domain images from
Wikimedia Commons and inject them randomly into a text, it'll make just
about any text look more interesting.
Apparatus
---------
* Python 2.7.6 (probably works with older versions too)
* [requests](http://docs.python-requests.org/)
* [BeautifulSoup](http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/)
* [Pillow](http://python-pillow.github.io/) (it might work with PIL too)
* ImageMagick
* some kind of input text (uses lorem ipsum for now)
Method
------
* Get URLs for all images from all pages of a Wikimedia Commons category,
such as `PD_Gutenberg` or `PD-Art_(PD-Japan)`, and write that list of
URLs to an index file.
* Select _n_ images randomly from that index and download them.
* Convert them to PNGs and resize any that are wider than 400 pixels
downward
* Inject those images as illustrations in a given text.
Observations
------------
NOTE 1: to stay (IMO) well within Wikimedia's [Terms of use](http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use),
this script sleeps for 8 seconds after making any major HTTP request.
NOTE 2: just because an image is categorized as _public domain_ on Wikimedia
Commons _does not_ mean it is necessarily in the public domain. It's always a
good idea to double-check.
$ ./wikimedia-illustrations.py mkindex "PD-Art_(PD-Japan)"
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PD-Art_(PD-Japan)
http://commons.wikimedia.org//w/index.php?title=Category:PD-Art_(PD-Japan)&filefrom=KitawakiI+Rioanji.jpg#mw-category-media
grabbed 2 category index pages
$ mkdir art
$ ./wikimedia-illustrations.py random 4 art/ Wikimedia-Commons-Category-index-PD-Art_\(PD-Japan\).txt
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kawanabe_Kyosai_Renshishi2.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Kawanabe_Kyosai_Renshishi2.jpg --> art/Kawanabe_Kyosai_Renshishi2.jpg
[...]
$ ristretto art/
This is all pretty crazy and a piece of lab equipment should really be broken
off of it.
But anyway, this is what the end result looked like (for me), using
illustrations taken from the PD-Gutenberg category. It should give you an
idea of what to expect.
