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Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by dmd on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:25AM (#42780403)
> I'm particularly excited about the AI integration possibilities. Instead of yet another chat interface, you can have AI generate content that exists in the physical world – artwork, poems, todo lists, custom receipts, etc.

Incredible. Instead of just creating online trash that nobody wants to read, it can create physical trash too! For maximum art, it can feed directly into a shredder.

Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by lionpixel on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:38AM (#42780559)
Totally get the resentment. However, I'm particularly excited about the benefits this could bring, especially for people like my grandma with dementia. She could say, "Print my shopping list," or "Can you write down my son's phone number?" Only thing missing for now is smarter home assistant devices as Alexa is too dumb to handle such requests. :/
Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by lnenad on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @10:07AM (#42780905)
It's sad how jaded hn can sometimes be. I love the idea and I think there are so many ways it could be useful.
Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by prmoustache on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:51AM (#42780717)
The results could be interesting...

Mom? Are you cooking crystal meth at home, what is all this for? And why did you bought 500 boxes of condoms?

Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by heeton on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:30AM (#42780463)
Extremely shortsighted take.

I currently use a local LLM to scan my notes, meeting transcripts, todo list and calendar. I currently have an iPad that displays some items (e.g. if I have important personal tasks to do today that I might have forgotten) and I would love it to be printed out like this.

Nothing to do with generating novel text, it's just used as a flexible API to my existing text and items.

Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by d1sxeyes on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @10:02AM (#42780851)
Is that handwritten notes? What LLM are you using for that and what level of accuracy do you get?
Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by heeton on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @07:23PM (#42787079)
No, just computer notes. Currently on llama3.2 text-only 3B, running on an M3 Macbook Pro.

Accuracy is good for my limited use case (extracting context, giving me links and reminders).

It's not yet good enough (for me) at summarising larger notesets, it might miss out useful / pertinent things in a way Claude does not.

I'd also like it to be better at inferring partial context from audio transcriptions. But hey, it's an open source 2GB model running on my laptop, it'll get better.

Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by voidUpdate on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:53AM (#42780735)
Why use ai to feed trash nobody wants to read into a shredder when you can use real people? https://youtu.be/SpNlp6AtTOE
Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by lionpixel on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @10:37AM (#42781261)
haha :D
Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by sondr3 on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:33AM (#42780502)
Which then again could have AI integrations of its own! Imagine the endless possibilities of AI shredding.
Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by badgersnake on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:54AM (#42780757)
A shredding company that automatically scans and uploads your documents before securely disposing of them. The scanned text is then used to train AI. It’s like the physical equivalent of ignoring robots.txt.

I’m sure YC will fund it.

Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by redleader55 on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:54AM (#42780749)
We, as a society, are at the point where we can afford to waste resources in this dumb way "for art". I personally find this obscene.

I wouldn't worry though, I have a feeling this is going away by the end of the decade.

Re:Show HN: Printercow – Turn any thermal printer into an AP... by sphars on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @09:34AM (#42780514)
> For maximum art, it can feed directly into a shredder.

A dumpster fire works well too: https://gizmodo.com/watch-your-feelings-about-2020-burn-in-a...