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I invited strangers to message me through a receipt printer

aschmelyun.com

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Re: I invited strangers to message me through a receipt printer

#51

Post by codazoda »

aschmelyun wrote: post #30
why_at wrote: post #27

I'm surprised they didn't mention anything about preventing spam. The biggest thing that deters me from doing something like this is the idea that not long after I opened it up it would get hammered by bots so much that it would make the whole thing unusable.

Hey it’s me, the author! That was intentional as I honestly enjoy the trolling. There’s a basic rate limiter set up to prevent misuse, and a character limit, but beyond that I just kind of wanted to see what people would send. It’s been surprisingly chill, and I’ve only had to handle a few nonsensical text dumps or garbage messages.

How does the rate limiter work? IP?

Maybe tangential, but I just added a little 3-second delay to my stats counter. I’ll find out if that worked for the specific bots I’m trying to avoid in a couple days.

I might have to do this with my printer the Raspberry Pi 400 in my bedroom.

Re: I invited strangers to message me through a receipt printer

#52

Post by trenchpilgrim »

thousand_nights wrote: post #39
intheitmines wrote: post #25

If you do this be sure to buy BPA free receipt paper Handling receipt paper is what turned out to be the cause of the high BPA numbers when boba tea was tested https://x.com/natfriedman/status/1899641377002025252

this one time when i was young and dumb and into smoking weed, i remember running out of rolling paper so i rolled a joint using a supermarket receipt i had and smoked it this was like 20 years ago, still makes me shudder after i learned about the BPA stuff

A few years ago my friend's mother started using medical marijuana for pain management. My friend had to explain that no, you should not make a pipe out of a coke can because of the plastic liner, go to a head shop and buy a glass pipe like a normal person!

Re: I invited strangers to message me through a receipt printer

#53

Post by dylan604 »

b0rbb wrote: post #6

There was a REALLY cool project by the design firm Berg in the UK about ~13 years ago. Cute little thermal printer with online services that allowed you to have scheduled printouts of things like weather reports, horoscopes, etc. And... oh my goodness, I was looking for pictures of it and it turns out some kind person decided to put work in on having a way to do onprem services for it! [Check it out here]( https://no…

I know someone that this would be perfect for, but sadly too niche to have survived. It's a neat idea being able to get little "tickets" for various daily tasks for those that do better with those types of things compared to using a digital calendar

Re: I invited strangers to message me through a receipt printer

#54

Post by CaptainOfCoit »

trenchpilgrim wrote: post #52
thousand_nights wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this one time when i was young and dumb and into smoking weed, i remember running out of rolling paper so i rolled a joint using a supermarket receipt i had and smoked it this was like 20 years ago, still makes me shudder after i learned about the BPA stuff

A few years ago my friend's mother started using medical marijuana for pain management. My friend had to explain that no, you should not make a pipe out of a coke can because of the plastic liner, go to a head shop and buy a glass pipe like a normal person!

> you should not make a pipe out of a coke can because of the plastic liner

I'm fairly sure it doesn't make much of an health impact considering the hot smoke you pull into your lung, but when I was kid and we made pipes out of cans in "emergencies" we'd use the outside of the can as where you put anything with fire, you don't have to turn it inside out to be able to smoke out of it.

Re: I invited strangers to message me through a receipt printer

#56

Post by Animats »

aschmelyun wrote: post #29
Animats wrote: post #28

Somebody did that back in the 1980s. They put a small printer into a phone that had the same form factor as a Western Electric model 500.[1] This connected to a PBX and printed "While you were out" slips. It was a real product, but did not catch on. Anyone remember that thing? I saw ads, but never one in person. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone

I have a rotary phone, a voip adapter, and have been writing a local SIP server for another experiment. I am insanely tempted to replicate this.

Why not, as a fun thing?

The problem with a production product is refilling all those little rolls of printer paper. They will always run out when no one is available to answer the phone, of course.

Re: I invited strangers to message me through a receipt printer

#57

Post by kleinishere »

For the many posters recommending BPA free paper - does anyone have suggestions / a link for a reliable seller?

I looked on Amazon after another receipt printer post on HN but couldn’t find anything that provided confidence in the BPA characterization. ULINE is quantities are absurd for personal use. Imagine their most be a decent alternative but never see any named.

Re: I invited strangers to message me through a receipt printer

#59

Post by toomuchtodo »

kleinishere wrote: post #57

For the many posters recommending BPA free paper - does anyone have suggestions / a link for a reliable seller? I looked on Amazon after another receipt printer post on HN but couldn’t find anything that provided confidence in the BPA characterization. ULINE is quantities are absurd for personal use. Imagine their most be a decent alternative but never see any named.

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/bpa-and-bps-in-...

(scroll to "Use alternative receipt paper": "Companies that offer phenol-free alternatives")

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