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Whats the most surprising business process you've automated with OpenClaw?

1•dhruvkar•2m ago•0 comments

List of Common Misconceptions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions
1•thedrexster•5m ago•0 comments

Human brain operates near, but not at, the critical point

https://phys.org/news/2026-03-human-brain-critical.html
1•yoquan•8m ago•0 comments

Fedora 44 will automatically make your Windows games run faster

https://www.xda-developers.com/fedora-44-will-automatically-make-your-windows-games-run-faster-no...
1•Alupis•10m ago•0 comments

WTO reforms talks stalled amid U.S.-India digital services taxation deadlock

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/wto-talks-stalled-going-into-final-day-amid-us-india-e-commer...
2•alephnerd•14m ago•0 comments

Hertz and Hearts – PC HRV biofeedback for chest-strap ECG (OpenHRV fork)

https://github.com/JoelAtHome/HertzAndHearts
1•J_Kobe•17m ago•0 comments

Apple issues urgent lock screen warnings for unpatched iPhones and iPads

https://securityaffairs.com/190109/security/apple-issues-urgent-lock-screen-warnings-for-unpatche...
2•WaitWaitWha•20m ago•0 comments

Emergency Microsoft, Oracle patches point to wider cyber issues

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640648/Emergency-Microsoft-Oracle-patches-point-to-wider-c...
1•smurda•21m ago•0 comments

Pentagon prepares for weeks of ground operations in Iran

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/28/trump-iran-ground-troops-marines/
2•Jimmc414•22m ago•1 comments

ReadyPC – open-source Rust PC Optomizer

https://github.com/Gloom-Team/ReadyPC/releases/tag/Latest
1•asdadaZ•22m ago•0 comments

Improving My C Build System with Zig

https://louislefebvre.net/tech/zig-gcc-replace/
1•louislef299•22m ago•0 comments

OpenYak – An open-source Cowork that runs any model and owns your filesystem

https://github.com/openyak/desktop
3•wangzhangwu•30m ago•1 comments

The Fastest Man Alive? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R7OoEXaOVY0
1•SilentM68•30m ago•0 comments

How to Do Any Work

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1wurJsO1vZYiynrTxDLroiQX2fBnKmldo&export=download
1•waseyjamal•33m ago•1 comments

Generalized Linear Model

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalized_linear_model
1•azhenley•35m ago•0 comments

Data Centers Under Fire: A Systemic Security Challenge

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/physical-security/data-centers-under-fire-a-growing-critical-...
1•WaitWaitWha•35m ago•0 comments

Mark Zuckerberg texted Elon Musk to offer help with DOGE

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/28/mark-zuckerberg-texted-elon-musk-to-offer-help-with-doge/
2•toomanyrichies•39m ago•0 comments

Thinking in the Margins

https://theamericanscholar.org/thinking-in-the-margins/
1•SegfaultSeagull•53m ago•0 comments

The Revenge of the Data Scientist

https://hamel.dev/blog/posts/revenge/
1•prabal97•55m ago•0 comments

Eval-Driven Development: Applying TDD Principles to AI Agent Prompts

https://iris-eval.com/blog/eval-driven-development
1•iparent•56m ago•0 comments

Vanilla Claude vs. GitAuto Test Generation

https://gitauto.ai/blog/vanilla-claude-vs-gitauto-test-generation
1•nishiohiroshi•58m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Phantom – Let AI use your API keys without leaking them

https://github.com/ashlrai/phantom-secrets
1•masonwyatt23•1h ago•0 comments

Wikipedia officially bans AI-generated content

https://nypost.com/2026/03/28/tech/wikipedia-officially-bans-ai-generated-encyclopedia-entries/
8•1vuio0pswjnm7•1h ago•0 comments

Can You Guess What Tests a Calculator Needs?

https://gitauto.ai/blog/can-you-guess-what-tests-a-calculator-needs
1•nishiohiroshi•1h ago•0 comments

What Are Adversarial Tests and Why We Run Them

https://gitauto.ai/blog/what-are-adversarial-tests
1•nishiohiroshi•1h ago•0 comments

Indonesia Starts First Southeast Asia Social Media Ban for Kids

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-28/indonesia-starts-first-southeast-asia-social-m...
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•1h ago•0 comments

Indonesia's social media curbs for under 16s take set to start

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/indonesias-social-media-curbs-kids-set-saturday-fe...
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•1h ago•0 comments

Nice Graphs – Text to chart in one click

https://nice-graphs.com/pt
1•domiuau•1h ago•1 comments

Elon Musk's last co-founder reportedly leaves xAI

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/28/elon-musks-last-co-founder-reportedly-leaves-xai/
4•SilverElfin•1h ago•2 comments

A n00B PM's guide to vibe coding kernels from scratch

https://www.ddmckinnon.com/2026/03/28/a-n00b-pms-guide-to-vibe-coding-kernels-from-scratch/
2•dmckinno•1h ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•11mo ago

Comments

thechao•11mo 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•11mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•11mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•11mo 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•11mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•11mo 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•11mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•11mo 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_•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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/