In a similar way, we use Kimono for tracking changes to a few sites, which don't have an RSS or an API. I am pleasantly surprised to see Kimono can deal with hairy forum html.

I think our team uses kimono with zapier to trigger an email alert (similar to the OP using twilio to alert himself).

I'm really happy with Kimono!

I wonder how much of the human side of this process could be automated. Would be cool to see something like this where it automatically sends message to potential sellers, etc -- and you're only notified when there's actually a possible purchase to be made.

There is a question of at what point is this against the spirit of Burning Man, as the author mentions. Not really sure where to draw that line myself--maybe it's at the point of communicating with other burners?

how do you figure? I would ask the author the same question.

To me, building a robot to get yourself a Burning Man ticket is the definition of radical self-reliance.

I get the non-commoditification, gifting economy as a goal, but the demand for tickets outstripped the supply long ago. If you want to go, you have cleverness alone to get to the front of the pack. I'd feel building a robot to get the jump would be worlds better than allowing a scalper to profit from the purchase.

Automating the Web like this is pretty awesome. This is going to be something we see more and more of from here on out.

Yes - totally agree!