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Show HN: Widefleet – Open-source platform for agent-built apps and workflows

https://github.com/widefleet/widefleet
2•jonathan_laib•1m ago•1 comments

Hi Fellow Furries

1•Illoko•3m ago•0 comments

Swarmfile: A streaming version-control system

https://swarmfile.com/blog/swarmfile-a-streaming-version-control-system/
1•EngineeringStuf•5m ago•0 comments

Pierre Brassau, Monkey Artist

https://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/pierre_brassau_monkey_artist
1•fallinditch•5m ago•0 comments

Jonathan Blow Made 500 Hours of Puzzles to Explode Your Mind

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/arts/jonathan-blow-order-of-the-sinking-star.html
1•jonas21•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: This hotel is hella AI-ready. Book directly from AI without MCPs

https://cadent.studio/
1•eddyariki•7m ago•0 comments

Open Codenames: a new way to benchmark LLMs

https://github.com/attilatorda/open-codenames
1•AttilaT•7m ago•1 comments

What Will Happen to Indian IT?

https://asteriskmag.com/issues/15/what-will-happen-to-indian-it
1•indiantinker•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Fabrika, Opinionated Software Factory

https://tatiyants.com/fabrika/
2•atatiyan•9m ago•0 comments

Contentful Agent Template

https://github.com/vercel-labs/eve-contentful-agent-template
1•flashbrew•10m ago•0 comments

Ely Office: An office suite built in Rust based on LibreOfficeKit

https://github.com/ZacharyZhang-NY/ElyOffice
1•nogajun•10m ago•0 comments

An Ion Storm, Part 1: The Ascent to Gamer Paradise

https://www.filfre.net/2026/10/an-ion-storm-part-1-the-gamers-penthouse/
1•doppp•14m ago•0 comments

Several major bugs in OpenAI's Math release

https://blog.ohaithe.re/post/829974396980641792/id-like-to-alert-people-that-several-of-the
1•unprovable•16m ago•1 comments

We gave an AI a phone and asked 1000 SF businesses a question

2•ymarkov•16m ago•1 comments

Spec-Forge – Zero-config OpenAPI mock server with strict validation&MCP stdio

https://spec-forge.dev2share.com
1•gorlak-town•17m ago•0 comments

Spotify Technology

https://technology.spotify.com
2•dovyski•17m ago•0 comments

Gaia Sky – open-source 3D Universe visualization platform

https://gaiasky.space/
1•ghgr•17m ago•0 comments

Netflix trailer for miniseries about Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange

https://www.engadget.com/2281997/netflix-the-altruists-sam-bankman-fried-trailer/
1•andsoitis•18m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Pulsar – Qwen3.8-27B at 148 tok/s writing code on M5 Max

https://github.com/loopai-hq/pulsar
1•darkbatman•18m ago•0 comments

Design for Agent GUIs

https://lexifina.com/blog/agent-guis
1•alansaber•19m ago•0 comments

Maryland law requires radiologists inform patients of heart disease warning sign

https://www.npr.org/2026/10/08/nx-s1-5993782/new-maryland-law-requires-radiologists-inform-patien...
1•bookofjoe•19m ago•0 comments

Republican data center support collapses locally when sites are in GOP counties

https://pressaudit.org/f/community/posts/9c163c6e-53b7-46a3-b052-2e3c6954c04f
3•SLHamlet•21m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Fix for Xbox controllers that connect but don't work in Bevy on macOS

https://github.com/angx1/bevy_apple_gamepad/tree/main
1•angxl•22m ago•0 comments

Senator Demands Info About White House's License Plate Surveillance Program

https://www.404media.co/following-404-media-investigation-senator-demands-info-about-white-houses...
4•mikelgan•24m ago•0 comments

Cloudping: Measure latency from the browser to various cloud provider regions

https://www.cloudping.info/
1•bobbiechen•25m ago•0 comments

City Regrets New Religious Liberty Law Allowing Prayer at City Council Meeting

https://www.404media.co/it-is-done-hail-satan-city-immediately-regrets-new-religious-liberty-law-...
4•Refreeze5224•25m ago•1 comments

Show HN: A daily F1 quiz: 10 questions, 12 seconds each

https://the-daily-grid.vercel.app/l/CKAU3G4
1•leonagano•27m ago•0 comments

Max severity SonicWall SMA1000 flaw now exploited in attacks

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/max-severity-sonicwall-sma1000-flaw-now-exploited-...
1•sbulaev•27m ago•0 comments

Two-Way Doors: Don't Code Yourself into a Corner

https://testing.googleblog.com/2026/10/two-way-doors-dont-code-yourself-into.html
1•birdculture•28m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Coolphabets – Teaching kids to read and write in their mother tongue

2•samdung•29m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•1y ago

Comments

thechao•1y ago
I've always wanted to build (distinct) mechanical computers out of the following kinds of elements:

1. Spur-gear differential; and,

2. Shishi-odoshi.

Both of these are saturating mechanical devices that can be used to build NAND gates; the latter, I think, would be very pleasing, if exceedingly slow.

For the spur-gear differential, you'd need to up-scale the output by a factor of 2 (since the output is half-speed), and use a locking wedge to build a one-way gear out of one of the spur-gear differentials. However, it has the nice property that the logic is made entirely out of a single element: the spur-gear differential.

Similarly, for the shishi-odoshi: you're going to have to do a bit of analysis (drilling a hole in the bottom part of the bamboo ladle), to figure out the in-flow and out-flow to build the basic AND gate, and then balancing out the NOT gate, to build your basic NAND. This is, obviously, very finicky; but, I supposed, that'd be quite a bit of the charm of a Zen computer garden?

hnlmorg•1y ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•1y ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•1y ago
Has any computer been built out of spur-gear differentials? Like maybe some sort of adder circuit, not necessarily a full instruction executing computer. The only uses I could find was what seems to me like the differentials being part of some sort of analogue computer.
thechao•1y ago
Spur gear differentials are naturally adders (with carry!); so, traditionally they've only ever been used for analogue logic. They're overly complicated for digital logic: you need two spur gears to build a single gate (NAND) to perform a single binary operation. If you want any sort of reasonable lash characteristics you're going to need ~60 teeth. At that point, two 60 teeth spur gears give you a 3600-valued adder. That'd take something like 300+ spur gears in binary: it just doesn't make any damn sense.

I think the last time I looked at this, if I used the cast spur gears available I needed a staged approach to "start" the computer and a 1100 hp motor to run it.

rightbyte•1y ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

Oh, ye that sounds impractical. A really big truck engine more or less.

thechao•1y ago
Convincing Mrs. thechao that we needed to drop 80000$ on a blown V8 to build a 4b 3 function calculator didn't workout, BTW.
rightbyte•1y ago
Well I want to be on your side but I think one need to keep the dreams not within grasp but at least in sight.
byronknoll•1y ago
I built some logic gates using water and a 3D printed "seesaw" that tilts to the left or right: https://byronknoll.blogspot.com/2022/06/water-computer.html
thechao•1y ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•1y ago
the shishi-odoshu seems like the more promising avenue. The key question in mechanical computing is never designing gates, its designing power amplifiers.
eccentricwind•1y ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•1y ago
I just smile hearing the term "Millihertz Computer". I'd love it if building and designing mechanical and analog computers grew as a hobby/educational activity as I find them both fascinating and somehow satisfying.

Also, this 1950s Naval Training film explaining the fundamentals of how mechanical fire control computers work to solve complex problems is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4

256_•1y ago
I was incredibly surprised to find that this actually is a computer. Normally when you hear about a "computer" constructed in an unusual medium, it turns out to just be a binary adder or an analogue computer. I've learned to expect disappointment.
ryukoposting•1y ago
About 8 years ago I visited TU Chemnitz and they had a lab making similar things to this. It wasn't clear to me what the goal was, but it was very cool nonetheless.
ogogmad•1y ago
Is anyone going to produce a proof-of-concept Analytical Engine?

Will robots (which will hopefully soon be available) be able to do it?

tenthirtyam•1y ago
This brings to mind two stories: Exhalation by Ted Chiang (short story), and the Three Body Problem (specifically the human computer) by Cixin Liu (novel length).

Exhalation really gets me thinking about what it means to be sentient & self-aware. If the neurons in our brains could, even in theory, be simulated by logic gates then, equally in theory, a Turing machine could be sentient. I can even imagine a bunch of rocks being sentient: https://xkcd.com/505/

jcgrillo•1y ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem