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My Wi-Fi Was Faster Than Ethernet So I Fixed It

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzb7py2HeqA
1•iamflimflam1•7m ago•0 comments

An example of functional slop code

https://manemasters.vip/
1•AndrewKemendo•10m ago•1 comments

Driving

https://jzhao.xyz/posts/driving
1•wonger_•13m ago•0 comments

Groww beat every odd to get here. Now what?

https://the-ken.com/newsletters/two-by-two/groww-beat-every-odd-to-get-here-now-what/
1•vidyesh•26m ago•0 comments

AI Poop Analysis App Offered to Sell Me Database of Its Users' Poops

https://www.404media.co/ai-poop-analysis-app-offered-to-sell-me-access-to-its-users-poops/
1•tjek•27m ago•0 comments

Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

https://electrek.co/2026/05/14/tesla-solar-roof-promise-vs-reality-pivot-panels/
10•celsoazevedo•28m ago•0 comments

In Japan, we don't see robots as a threat: just a form of presence in the world

https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2026-05-16/takeshi-yoro-anatomist-in-japan-we-dont-see-a-...
1•pilingual•29m ago•0 comments

Danger Testing

https://www.dangertesting.com/
1•skogstokig•36m ago•0 comments

Anyone on the Internet Can Ring Your Doorbell

https://www.abgeo.dev/blog/anyone-can-ring-your-doorbell
1•jrdres•38m ago•0 comments

Coal Makes a Comeback, Fueled by War in the Middle East

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/coal-makes-a-comeback-fueled-by-war-in-the-middle-east-fb...
2•JumpCrisscross•39m ago•0 comments

Grok vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini Comparison 2026: Complete Guide (Tested)

https://aithinkerlab.com/grok-vs-chatgpt-vs-gemini-comparison-2026/
1•carlual•41m ago•1 comments

We refrigerated our way out of needing each other

https://pilgrima.ge/p/the-middleman
1•momentmaker•42m ago•0 comments

Achieving last-iterate convergence in a QNN via an autonomous Gmetric driver

https://github.com/unbconductor/psi.emergence
1•psiemergence•45m ago•0 comments

Grafana Labs internal source code accessed

https://twitter.com/grafana/status/2055827123236171827
7•jschorr•49m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Serene Bach – a Go weblog engine that runs as CGI or HTTP

https://github.com/serendipitynz/serenebach
2•takkyun•50m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Brokkr - Scalable cluster management for GPU/HPC workloads

https://github.com/jackthepunished/brokkr
1•bhdr26k•50m ago•0 comments

As the West Dries Out, a New Generation of Dams Rise

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-05-15/colorado-builds-new-dams-in-a-race-with-the-we...
2•divbzero•56m ago•1 comments

Learning to Write (Again)

https://jampa.bearblog.dev/learning-to-write-again/
1•tjampa•1h ago•0 comments

The latest X algorithm has been published to GitHub

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2055277918633562153
3•guiambros•1h ago•0 comments

A Tale of Two File Names

https://tomgalvin.uk/blog/gen/2015/06/09/filenames/
1•GranPC•1h ago•1 comments

Refray – ∞-way RW Git sync tool and auto conflict resolution, for leaving GitHub

https://github.com/MaigoLabs/refray
2•azaneko•1h ago•0 comments

Recent Developments in LLM Architectures: KV Sharing, MHC, Compressed Attention

https://magazine.sebastianraschka.com/p/recent-developments-in-llm-architectures
1•pretext•1h ago•0 comments

I Found Ultra-Pure Quantum Crystals in an Abandoned Mine in the Atacama Desert

https://medium.com/@breid.at/ultra-pure-quantum-crystals-from-an-abandoned-mine-in-a-mysterious-d...
1•vi_sextus_vi•1h ago•0 comments

We Built a Web That Consumes Us

https://gist.github.com/motyar/e53a2c23362a5d5a73a6895e79ee3d20
2•motyar•1h ago•0 comments

'News will find me' mindset makes people trust algorithms and online networks

https://www.psu.edu/news/bellisario-college-communications/story/news-will-find-me-mindset-makes-...
2•thunderbong•1h ago•0 comments

Async I/O in Zig 0.16, today

https://lalinsky.com/2026/05/11/async-io-in-zig-016-today.html
2•signa11•1h ago•0 comments

Reasons to Use Std:SIMD

https://github.com/NoNaeAbC/std_simd
2•quasigloam•1h ago•0 comments

AI Faceless Video Generator for TikTok, Shorts and Reels

https://faceless-video.com/
1•duanhjlt•1h ago•0 comments

Ultime Western

http://www.ultimewestern.com/
1•hyperific•1h ago•0 comments

Fourth Television Network

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_television_network
1•Ariarule•1h 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.
jcgrillo•1y ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
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/