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🤖 The Sensational Machine - Mail to Headlines!

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

💡 What I Built

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

Introducing The Sensational Machine; a whimsical simulator that cranks the sensation dial up to 11! 🎛️✨

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! 🎉
(As long as the free tier of the AI model or Postmark quota hasn’t been exhausted 😅)


📬 Try It Yourself!

Send any message to 👉 [email protected] (limited to 2000 characters, should be more than enough to make truly sensational headlines 😉)

The Sensational Machine will reply with:

  • A series of chain-distorted messages 🔗🌀
  • Some wildly sensationalized headlines 🗞️🔥

✉️ Example Replies:

Chain of messages generated by The Sensational Machine

Sensational headlines generated by The Sensational Machine


🛠️ 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:

  • 📩 Postmark — For receiving and sending emails
  • 🌐 IFTTT Webhooks — To bridge Postmark and Google Apps Script
  • 🧠 Google Apps Script — For parsing and handling the logic
  • 🤖 Google Gemini API — To synthesize message chains and headline drama

🙌 Special Thanks To:

  • 🎨 EmailBuilder.js — For the email template
  • 🧑‍🎨 Random Users — For the avatar images
  • 💬 ChatGPT — For the icon synthesis

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