APIs you didn't know you needed
Tags: api, productivity, fun
Published: 2019-01-29 19:07:06

---
title: APIs you didn't know you needed
published: true
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/tks5mbdgi6puilamwv79.PNG
description: The "not so useless" API list 
tags: api, productivity, fun
---

With everything recently being "as a service", there are a plenty of different data sources that can provide... stuff. Stuff as a service, of course. Behold a small collection of APIs you may or not have heard about.

## Yes or no?

https://yesno.wtf/#api

Making decisions is hard. Why won't you outsource this job to a third-party microservice to ensure that the they are as independent as possible? Returns "maybe" every 10.000th time as a bonus.

## Taco API

https://github.com/evz/tacofancy-api

Are you in love with tacos? Can't decide what kind to make today? One HTTP request will get you a full recipe (with optional ingredients and categories of your choice). 

## Corporate bullshit

https://github.com/sameerkumar18/corporate-bs-generator-api

Do you find it hard to talk to Highly Enterprise Customers? Does your manager's manager want you to present a new topic for a weekly "0.5% team effectiveness raise" meeting? This will get you covered.

## It's like this for that!

http://itsthisforthat.com/api.php

Another friend of yours quit the job and invested all the money and time into smart socks?

![It's like this for that](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/f4y4q5ub11q2ra1lavdq.PNG)


## ALL CAPS AS A SERVICE

http://shoutcloud.io/

SHOUTING IS 100% THE WAY TO COMMUNICATE WHEN THINGS ARE IMPORTANT.

Ruby gem, npm package and go libraries are also available.

## Automate things that are important

http://www.foaas.com/

Highly advanced and flexible RESTful API that accomplishes a common task of telling people to fuck off.

Custom names, signatures and loads of other options are available. Having a hard time communicating with disturbing foreigners? i18n is supported, as well as SHOUTCLOUD integration listed above. 

## Lorem Ipsum

If you are tired of the regular boring Lorem Ipsum filling your template layouts, take a look at [Bacon Ipsum](https://baconipsum.com/json-api/) - a meaty dummy text API. If you are vegetarian, [Skateboard-themed Ipsum](http://skateipsum.com/) or [Baseball](http://baseballipsum.apphb.com/Home/RestApi) one will get you covered.

And here is a [Markdown-flavoured](https://github.com/jaspervdj/lorem-markdownum#http-api) Ipsum generator as a bonus.

## Numbers

http://numbersapi.com/

We all love numbers. If you are in love with a particular number or date, you might as well want to know more about it. 78? A total number of gifts in the song The Twelve Days of Christmas. 

And if you are bored, it is your chance to write a Slack plugin for PR notifications.
```
[thepracticaldev/dev.to] Pull request opened: #3 Klingon Code of Conduct
Lines changed as much as the number of years in 235 lunations.
```

## Animals as a service.

The famous [Cat API](https://thecatapi.com/) paired with [Dog](https://dog.ceo/dog-api/) and [Shibe](
) API, as well as more lightweight random [fox](https://randomfox.ca/floof/), [cat](https://aws.random.cat/meow) and [dog](https://random.dog/woof.json) services will get you a heartwarming JSON response every time you need it.

## Donald Trump API

https://docs.tronalddump.io/

As the most acknowledged political figure of modern US, you can always expect people to keep record of what you said in a searchable database with an easy to parse output format. 

If you don't want to get political, there is also a simple [Ron Swanson](https://github.com/jamesseanwright/ron-swanson-quotes) quotes API. And, of course a good supply of [Chuck Norris facts](https://api.chucknorris.io/) that definitely comes in handy.

## Everything you ever wanted to CURL about the food

https://spoonacular.com/food-api

Recipes, ingredients, menu items, nutrition data. Mount a webcam inside your fridge, label your food with QR codes and automate your cooking suggestions based on what you have in stock.

## Dispose data with ease

https://devnull-as-a-service.com/code/

/dev/null in the cloud. Get rid of your unwanted bytes over POST requests. Free for up to 25GB/Month.

## Spice up your placeholders

Not exactly an API in the same way as the rest of the services mentioned previously, but something you can't easily walk past.


http://placekitten.com/
http://www.fillmurray.com/
https://www.stevensegallery.com/
https://www.placecage.com/

![Bill Murray placeholder](http://www.fillmurray.com/1000/400)

Got other services the world should know about?