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Magic History and Assistant

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Revision as of 13:56, 4 January 2017 by Jpecore (Talk | contribs)

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Ask Magic History, is an Alexa Skill developed by User:Jpecore

The skill can be enabled at http://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html#skills/dp/B01N0C2BK8

It knows about:

  • Magic related events that happened on any day of the year, as recorded by MagicPedia.
  • What was the cover of Genii Magazine for a specific month and year.
  • A magic quote of the day.
  • How to brainstorm a new card effect (a la Fitzkee the Trick Brain).

Example Utterances (questions to ask)

Magic related events in history

  • User: Alexa, ask Magic History what happened on August thirtieth
  • Alexa: For August thirtieth: In 1829, George Heubeck was born. In 1924, Ed Voorhees was born. In 1952, The annual convention of The Texas Association of Magicians starts at the Hilton Hotel in Fort Worth. In 2006, Igor Kio dies.
  • User: Alexa, ask Magic History what was the cover of Genii for October, 1962
  • Alexa: Harry Houdini was the cover for Genie magazine for October 1962.


Alternate kinds of phrasings:

  • ask Magic History what happened today?
  • ask Magic History what happened yesterday?
  • ask Magic History to get events for October 1st.
  • ask Magic History what happened? (returns today)

Quote of the day

  • User: Alexa, ask Magic History for the magic quote of the day.
  • Alexa: Conjuring is the only absolutely honest profession a conjuror promises to deceive and does. Karl Germain

Daily dose of magic

Get the events that happened today, the daily quote and a random genii cover all in one command.

  • User: Ask Magic History to give me my daily dose of magic.
  • Alexa: For August thirtieth: In 1829.....; The quote of the day ....; The Genii cover 10 years ago was ....

Brainstorm a new card effect

Suggest a new random card effect to create by randomly selecting an effect/method/object (ala Fitzkee's Trick Brain generating idea but using Giobbi's Card Magic Classification published in Genii Magazine.

  • User: Ask Magic History to brainstorm a new card effect
  • Alexa: Try to create a new Hypnosis & Hallucinations card effect, using Card Counting / Clocking, with a marked deck.
  • User: Ask Magic History to brainstorm a new card effect
  • Alexa: Try to create a new Coincidences card effect, using Black Art, with a gaffed card


Suggestions for new ideas:

  • Add options to Brainstorm effects for Fizkee's Trick Brain and Freer's categories. Code already written, just need to add voice commands to call them.
  • what books where published in {year}
  • what information do you have on the magazine The Gen?
  • what happened in {year. e.g. 1962}
  • what is in the news?
  • about {topic}
  • who was born in {year}
  • who died in {year}
  • what are the latest MagicPedia articles created ?
  • what are the latest MagicPedia articles updated?
  • what are your latest MagicPedia statistics? (number of pages, number of users, .etc.)
  • Si Stebbins stack practice (or any other sequential stacked deck like Eight Kings). Have Alexa say the name of a card and ask user what the next card in the sequence is. Do same quiz for memorized stacked stacks, but ask for number/cards.



Feel free to add any suggestions would like to see added to this skill.