https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot

There was even an entire standards document drawn up (as a practical joke), called the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP 1.0). To this day though, there the server status response 418 - I'm a teapot still exists. It was defined as part of HTCPCP as the error code returned when you tried to get a teapot to brew coffee :)

Web nerds took their coffee seriously! Or maybe they didn't? Does doing up an entire standards document as an april fools joke count as serious or unserious?

So it wasn't porn?

Java?

Guys working with computers in this era didn't know any girls.

Hot coffee in your area!

1991-2001... Holy shit, this coffee pot has a longer lifespan than most Google products!

That's serious unseriousness, or in other words German humor

Humorous RFCs and protocol proposals are an ancient internet tradition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day_Request_for_Comments

Engineering humour of this sort actually goes back even further --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_encabulator

Nerdy humour has probably been around as long as there have been engineers.

worth noting, e-mail however was... If I recall ascii porn was among the first things sent.

German humor is nothing to laugh at.

At first I thought why not use a float level, then I thought oh right that'll be disgusting to have floating in the shared coffee.

German... what now?

This was before movable coffee pots became common.

You can/could also find Coffee HOWTO in your distro's HOWTO package. (I found a reference back to v0.5 of the document in 1998.)

Has simple schematics to get you started for the hardware, using the parallel port to toggle relays.

It's a very neat little document, and inspired me to write a simple kernel module so I could echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/whatever/coffee0 to turn pin 0 high on the parallel port. (This is silly, and it's much easier to just do things in user space!)

Google also has this little easter egg: https://www.google.com/teapot

I have a camera aimed at my stove so I can check if I accidentally left the stove on. It never happens but it does give me peace of mind whenever I leave the hoose and get paranoid.

Ah, but you see, ASCII porn doesn't need a girl.

You know I replaced that with a static image years ago, right?

Geeking out over the origins of HTTP 418 kinda got me a job once. But that was back when that kind of stuff, connecting interpersonally with the humans that you work with, mattered during hiring.

Anzeige ist raus

Does doing up an entire standards document as an april fools joke count as serious or unserious?

It's impossible to know until you observe them. They're Shrödinger's Nerds.

whenever I leave the hoose

Canadian, eh?

The Trojan Room coffee pot camera existed before the web existed. Before the web it was a client/server protocol on a local network. They only made it into a webcam after the web was invented and started supporting images.

What I remember is that when the first web browsers capable of displaying images were launched, people found a way to sample a single frame from a camera and load it into an image tag to get an extremely slow frame rate camera. People had been trying to make video calling a thing since the 1960s, and I think the first "webcams" were new attempts to demonstrate that. They basically came out at the same time as XCoffee being available on the Internet, but they had more publicity behind them. IMO, what made the coffee pot special was that it was so clearly useless to everybody except a few people in a lab in Cambridge. It was revolutionary that bandwidth and camera hardware was so cheap that someone could allow anybody on the planet to just check out the level of their coffee machine on demand at any time.

connecting interpersonally with the humans

You could've stopped right there and it would've still made sense, which is sad.

I was thinking to install a "smart" power outlet for the very same purpose, but stoves don't have exactly standard plugs ;)

Then again, we just moved to a flat with induction stove, where it's not really a big deal.

I am. How could you tell? /s

Our stove is gas unfortunately. It came with the place and it's wasteful to replace it if it works so I'm stuck with it for a while :/

So, you're not Scottish then...

Edit:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wioh5qUj7fM

I just love those old OS designs. Mostly Windows 3.11 and AmigaOS 3.2

I put a Shelly uno in mine on the wire that runs thru the control lock buzzer. I used it to turn on the exhaust fan, but you could also set up an alert.

If your range doesn't have the buzzer, you could retrofit the switches with ones that have the contacts for it.

https://www.geapplianceparts.com/store/parts/spec/WB18T10454

The wurst.

Learning about computer science and finding all the subtle jokes embedded in the naming conventions is peak. These nerds had humor!

This looks like motif which IMO is comfy asf

I got a 360° one to fuck with my cat >:)

I don't, but this one is a exception. Not too much visual clutter and also more accessible than most modern themes.

Why do modern stoves/ovens have in multiple ways problematic smart stuff, but no proximity sensor?

Just use a laserpointer and the surface refracting properties of water, like any hacker?

Nerds making joke standards is nothing unique.

See also: IETF RFC 1149 and IPoAC

I don't understand why they don't just accept free walks

Me and My 3d printer thank you

Lol, found a non dev

Amiga 3.2 is a quite new release (although it still looks much like 3.1)

If it was physical I'd understand. As an engineer I'll takr any excuse to build something. But I also need my boss off my ass about taking another walk, I can't think sitting still

TIL

Another example of such an attack

Yet another invention driven by laziness - just like the remote control. Where would we be without that?

Isn't that also where "HTTP 418: I'm a teapot" came from?