An IRC-Enabled Lawn Mower (2021) | Hacker News Reader

An IRC-Enabled Lawn Mower (2021)

jotunheimr.idlerpg.net

124 pointsrickcarlino26 comments

> Now, I grew up in a rural area of the southern US, and I had never been out of the South, but on Undernet, I met people in other states, other countries, even other continents! I made friends all over the world and learned a great deal about other cultures and ideas.

This was one of the greatest things about early Internet.

Strapping a Pi to a lawn mower for silly reasons, plus a bonus cat at the end. This is what I want in my internet.

You forgot to mention the hypnotizing video. You can get people to do anything for you after letting them watch it in repeat for more than half an hour.

In the 'just make it stop' sense, not in the 'oh, I'm so suspectible now' sense.

Which is the only form of hypnosis that I know for sure MAY work.

Agreed. I love that this happened, and on IRC!

Two discussions about Larry Ellison battling it out for 14th and 15th place:

14. An IRC-Enabled Lawn Mower (idlerpg.net)

15. OpenMower – An Open Source Lawn Mower (github.com/clemenselflein)

It’s nice to have a break from LLM talk for a bit, isn’t it?

Well, it was :).

Check out http://openmower.de ... You could go all the way and make the mower be controlled over IRC.

You would need to have a reasonable amount of trust with the people you let control it, or you may have some... questionable designs mowed into your lawn haha

Where does it keep the trout?

Attached to the handle bar, ready for slappin'!

This went a slightly different direction from what I first assumed. For some reason I had hoped for an IRC server, connected to EFNet running on a robot lawn mower.

Still an enjoyable read and a fun project.

The actual IRC discussion (first part of article) that led to this project is majestic. Captures the culture of IRC so beautifully.

So how resistant could IRC be to chat control? Lets say we use SSL as well as authentication.

I assume they would come after whoever is managing the server as its not end to end encrypted?

If the server runs outside their jurisdiction (and not in a friendly one) then they would probably just block the dns / IPs like they do with video streaming?

most irc networks have many linked servers so that gives a range of operating ips. i think if even they blanket blocked, performming a netsplit on ops to takeover (if not chanserv etc) or disable channels is probably easier

Modern electric battery lawnmowers probably have processors that can run DooM; putting an IRC server directly on one would be fun.

The cheaper Chinese off-brands are probably pretty hackable.

Most modern electric mowers use ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers that could run a lightweight IRC client with minimal modifications to the firmware and a simple WiFi module addition.

IRC in 2021? Is IRC still a thing?

yes, very much so. libera.chat is alive and well.

Yup.

I'm still connected to EFnet 24/7. mIRC still gets updates and is still running from the same old code base, so it's ridiculously lightweight by today's software standards. Wouldn't be surprised if the latest versions still run on Windows 95.

Slack is basically IRC-as-a-service, complete with modern (janky) web UI and gifs (since they haven't yet figured out how to sell a tiktok-style feed)

Slack it's more bound to Jabber than IRC.

IRC = public stuff, tech stuff, hackers. Yes, /query exists but it was mainly used to met skilled but unmet people together.

Jabber = IM, mostly private messaging with people you already knew. Groups where just built from people with close friendships, and, yes, often it would be made from IRC.

But, now, Slack and Discord try to do all (even a replacement from forums), and, worse, with propietary protocols and silos. If Discord dies, say goodbye to your content. Forever.

I think of Slack as "Discord for Professionals". Alternatively, Discord is "Slack for Gamers".

Both of them really are just IRC for a modern audience.

Still the best solution for group chats that you can get.

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