frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Accidentally Turing-Complete

https://beza1e1.tuxen.de/articles/accidentally_turing_complete.html
25•bschne•11mo ago

Comments

panstromek•11mo ago
Nice list. Some of those are arguably not accidental, TypeScript type system seems kinda obvious to be turing complete when it tries to describe dynamically typed langauage.
WalterGR•11mo ago
x86 MOV instruction: “The mov-only DOOM [game] renders approximately one frame every 7 hours, so playing this version requires somewhat increased patience.”
a_cardboard_box•11mo ago
Rule 110 is only Turing-Complete if you have an infinitely large array of cells, and are able to initialize it with an infinite repeating pattern. If I'm not mistaken, HTML+CSS can only do a fixed-sized array.

With a Turing-Complete language, if a program runs out of memory on one machine, you can run the same code on a bigger machine without modifying it, and it can use the additional memory. With fixed-length rule 110, you need to modify the code if you want to use more memory.

256_•11mo ago
This is addressed in the second paragraph of TFA:

"Stuff which is somehow limited (stack overflows, arbitrary configuration, etc) is still considered Turing complete, since all "physical" Turing machines are resource limited."

In my opinion, worrying about infinite memory, in regards to Turing completeness, makes the task of implementing computation much less interesting.

Also, I'm pretty sure CSS only does one generation (or a finite number of them) before stopping anyway.

256_•11mo ago
Logic in Doom is particularly interesting to me. Apparently you can fit ~64k logic gates in a map (using the method described). From [1]:

"As the DOOM engine was not designed to be an interpreter, there are some constraints on our programs written against it. The biggest one is how large our programs can be. Since each gate uses at least one tag, we can use this as a metric to derive an upper-bound on the size of a program. As the DOOM engine uses 16-bit tags, this means we can have, at most, 65535 gates. This is not a particularly large number. We may be able to implement a very small CPU but this limit will be hit pretty quickly I believe."

The z80 had ~8,500 transistors. The 8086 had ~29,000 (checking Wikipedia). You could get far fewer if you use a 1-bit microarchitecture, I'm sure. I think there was a DEC (PDP?) computer that used that trick to have a really low transistor count, but I don't remember what it was called.

The real problem is RAM; for this you may as well cheat and modify Doom's code to add a RAM chip, and I/O while you're at it.

You could create a CPU in Doom implementing an architecture for which a C compiler exists, capable of compiling Doom, and run it in the CPU in Doom. For "reasonable" speed you'd have to do more than one simulation step per frame render (in the host Doom). If you ran it for long enough maybe you could get a full frame of Doom in Doom.

[1]: https://calabi-yau.space/blog/doom.html

karmakaze•11mo ago
Doom running in TypeScript static type checker[0].

> half trillion lines of types totaling 177 terabytes ran through the type checker around the clock for 12 days to get the first frame

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43184291

karmakaze•11mo ago
My favorite one is Conway's Game of Life. It's perhaps the least surprising one, but it's also the most visually appealing. Really like this video that leads up to making the Game of Life in itself[0]. It's something you can show a non-technical person and they can get a sense of how crazy it is that something so simple can do anything.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk2MH9O4pXY

WordPress Security Checklist: 15 Checks That Matter (and 12 That Don't)

https://novaheaven.io/en/novapulse/wordpress-security-checklist-that-matters
1•SephX•1m ago•0 comments

Oasis EXtensible Access Control Markup Language TC FAQ

https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xacml/faq.php
1•stmw•3m ago•0 comments

AI Agent Traps

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6372438
2•baxtr•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Agentjail – Self Hosted Freestyle.sh

https://github.com/bugthesystem/agentjail
1•ziyasal•4m ago•0 comments

Humanoid robot beats human world record in half marathon

https://thenextweb.com/news/humanoid-robot-half-marathon-beijing-world-record
1•hochmartinez•5m ago•1 comments

Apollo 11 code open-sourced by NASA – Command Module and Lunar Module code repos

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/original-apollo-11-code-open-sourced-by-nasa-original-comma...
1•gnabgib•5m ago•0 comments

Chat with any live MCP server iMessage style

https://dialtoneapp.com/top-sites/www.visioforge.com/mcp
2•fcpguru•7m ago•0 comments

Anti-Amyloid Antibodies for Alzheimer: You Already Know

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/anti-amyloid-antibodies-alzheimer-you-already-know
2•merksittich•8m ago•0 comments

The Ancient Weapons Active in Your Immune System Today

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-weapons-active-in-your-immune-system-today-20260415/
2•tzury•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Nyx – multi-turn, adaptive, offensive testing harness for AI agents

https://fabraix.com
7•zachdotai•10m ago•2 comments

Psxsplash – Build PlayStation 1 Games in Unity

https://psxsplash.github.io/
1•spicyjpeg•11m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Dewobble – Filter out phantom clicks and mouse jitter

https://github.com/skorotkiewicz/dewobble
2•modinfo•12m ago•0 comments

AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks and Emails

https://www.forbes.com/sites/annatong/2026/04/16/ais-new-training-data-your-old-work-slacks-and-e...
1•gnabgib•13m ago•0 comments

Independent bookstores make quiet comeback as big chains dominate retail

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/19/independent-bookstores-comeback
1•mykowebhn•23m ago•0 comments

Why every security awareness training has false positives

https://kindssecurity.com/blog/why-every-phishing-simulator-has-false-positives-except-one
2•paulwalkerSEC•25m ago•0 comments

Duolingo's CEO Backtracks Due to Backlash Over Performance Reviews

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/duolingos-ceo-changing-how-he-measures-employee-perfor...
1•gpi•26m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Qapir – Generate API tests automatically from docs

https://app.qapir.io/
2•gradnichkovski•29m ago•1 comments

We beat Google's zero-knowledge proof of quantum cryptanalysis

https://blog.trailofbits.com/2026/04/17/we-beat-googles-zero-knowledge-proof-of-quantum-cryptanal...
1•rayhaanj•30m ago•0 comments

What's Your Favourite Amiga Games?

https://old.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/1spxiu8/whats_your_favourite_amiga_games/
1•doener•30m ago•0 comments

How are you handling security for AI agents that use MCP tools?

2•bdhobson•32m ago•1 comments

The demand for local AI could shape a new business model for Apple

https://9to5mac.com/2026/04/19/apple-local-ai-server-hosting-new-business-model/
1•omer_k•32m ago•0 comments

MLX vs. CoreML on Apple Silicon: A Practical Guide to Picking the Right Back End

https://blog.ivan.digital/mlx-vs-coreml-on-apple-silicon-a-practical-guide-to-picking-the-right-b...
1•ipotapov•33m ago•0 comments

Tearing down a car telematic unit (and finding an accident on Facebook)

https://blog.quarkslab.com/tearing-down-a-car-telematic-unit-and-finding-an-accident-on-facebook....
3•breve•33m ago•0 comments

A Free and Open Source Orbital Flight Computer

https://gitlab.com/supernovalabs/pan-solar-nav
1•supernovalabs•34m ago•1 comments

Showcase: Kylrix; stop switching apps, your productivity suite all in one place

2•nathfavour•35m ago•0 comments

The fastest way to match characters on ARM processors?

https://lemire.me/blog/2026/04/19/the-fastest-way-to-match-characters-on-arm-processors/
1•mfiguiere•39m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Newsmaps.io a map of how news topics are covered by different countries

https://www.newsmaps.io/
2•mkoh•41m ago•0 comments

How Music Works [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbfKFa-reBE
2•gmays•41m ago•0 comments

Context.ai seemingly cause of Vercel breach

https://twitter.com/jaimeblascob/status/2045960143209152981
2•bearsyankees•41m ago•0 comments

EFF pushes back on Google data scandal response: 'Google screwed up'

https://www.androidauthority.com/eff-pushes-back-on-google-exception-claim-3658264/
2•donohoe•41m ago•0 comments