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Comment by sgu999 | Hacker News Reader

> for our farm robot

That peaked my interest, here's the video for those who want to save a few clicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFhTPHlPAAk

I absolutely love that they use bike parts for the feet and wheels.

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I have given some thought to a two-wheeled electric tractor for dealing with mud -- horse paddocks turn into basically a 1-foot deep slurry after heavy rain and it can be easier to deal with something small that sinks through the mud, down to solid ground than something using large floatation tires. Additional problem with large tires is that they tend to throw mud around, making everyone nearby even more dirty.

I haven't actually built anything (been paying attention to Taylor's work, though), but I came to the same conclusion that bike wheels & tires would probably be a good choice. It also doesn't hurt that we have many discarded kids' bikes all over the place.

Your description fit what I've seen for rice farming, whose machines usually use bike-like tires.

I’m curious there. I’ve seen rice paddies plowed in Vietnam and the tractors used wide paddle-like wheels. I saw two varieties: one with what looked like more normal wheels but much wider, and one which was of metal with fins, very much akin to a paddle steamer, though still with some kind of flat surface that must have distributed weight.

Would they be more effective with thin wheels? Both humans and cattle seem to sink in a few inches and stop; I don’t know what’s under the layer of mud and what makes up a rice paddy.

What I saw was in Taiwan, but I guess it must depends on the depth of the mud and the nature of what's below.

* piqued

yes, piqued. English, so weird! ;-)

(Although, interest peaking is possible!)

> English, so weird

Borrowed from just-as-weird French "piquer" - to stab or jab.

> Borrowed from just-as-weird French "piquer" - to stab or jab.

Literally «piquer» means “to sting” or “to prick” more than stab or jab, it's never used to describe inter-human aggression.

And piquer is colloquially used to mean “to steal” (and it's probably the most common way of using it in French after describing mosquito bites)

Edit: and I forgot to mention that we already use it for curiosity, in fact the sentence “it piqued my curiosity” was directly taken from French «ça a piqué ma curiosité».

As other more than 30% of English words [1]:

[1] Is English just badly pronounced French [video]:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40495393

No, French is badly pronounced French - the English (Norman) versions are often closer to the original pronunciation

All this reminds me of the now-famous quote about English "borrowing" words...

> The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

(quote swiped from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll)

It is kind of funny that both of the incorrect versions, peaked or peeked, sort of make more sense just based on the definitions of the individual words. “Peaked my interest” in particular could be interpreted as “reached the top of my interest.”

Way better than stabbing my interest, in a French fashion or otherwise.

I think it makes more sense if you consider the expression "this tickles my fancy".

Why do we use "tickle" there? Because a tickle is a type of stimulation, and "fancy" here means "interest", so one is effectively saying "this stimulates my interest".

If we then consult Oxford Language's definition of pique, we find:

> stimulate (interest or curiosity). "you have piqued my curiosity about the man"

The word "piqued" in "this piqued my curiosity" serves as something along the lines of: stimulated, aroused, provoked

This is aligned with the French word "piquer", as a "prick" or "sting" (much like a tickle) would stimulate/arouse/provoke.

Right, but that meaning isn’t quite right. To pique your interest is to arouse it, leaving open the possibility that you become even more interested, a possibility which peaking of your interest does not leave open.

However, in the case where someone means "This interested me so much that I stopped what I was doing and looked up more information," peaked is almost more correct, depending on how one defines "interest" in this context (eg. "capacity for interest"? probably no; "current attention"? probably yes).

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