frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

I built a project management tool because every alternative felt too complicated

https://www.simplegantt.net
1•maciekdebiec•40s ago•0 comments

Searching for Robots Is Surprisingly Hard

https://rohboter.com/
1•mrsamramirez10•1m ago•0 comments

Authoritative Dnsmasq in a MikroTik Container

https://op-co.de/blog/posts/mikrotik_authoritative_dnsmasq/
1•jandeboevrie•1m ago•0 comments

EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

https://www.wsj.com/tech/google-fined-1-02-billion-under-eus-tech-antitrust-rules-7e8ae1fb
2•1vuio0pswjnm7•6m ago•0 comments

Waymo Is Racking Up Thousands of Dollars of Parking Fines in Austin

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/waymo-is-racking-up-thousands-of-dollars-of-parking-fines-in-a...
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•9m ago•0 comments

RedHat 7.2 (2001), Abiword 1.0, & Sanger's Rule towards kernel development

https://inavoyage.blogspot.com/2026/07/redhat-72-2001-abiword-sangers-rule.html
1•initramfs•9m ago•0 comments

Brief Answers to Cosmic Questions (~2000)

https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/faq.htm
1•tempestn•10m ago•0 comments

F-14A Central Air Data Computer (CADC) FPGA Reconstruction

https://github.com/ATaylorCEngFIET/f14_CADC/
1•starkparker•12m ago•0 comments

Study: Curious robots mimic how children can learn to understand language

https://www.oist.jp/news-center/news/2026/7/24/curious-robots-mimic-how-children-can-learn-unders...
1•giuliomagnifico•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Rainslice – AI Employees for Home Services Businesses

https://rainslice.ai
1•edgware674•17m ago•0 comments

Keyboard Shortcuts are my Superpower

https://sightlessscribbles.com/posts/how-keyboard-shortcuts-are-my-superpower/
1•robin_reala•22m ago•0 comments

Amazon Music's Artist Conflation

https://www.jefftk.com/p/amazon-musics-artist-conflation
1•luu•22m ago•0 comments

China Chipmaker CXMT Jumps 472% in Debut After Blockbuster IPO

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-26/china-memory-champion-cxmt-set-to-debut-after-...
2•magnio•23m ago•0 comments

Antares: Highly Efficient Open Weight AI Models for Vulnerability Localization

https://blogs.cisco.com/ai/introducing-antares-the-most-efficient-open-weight-ai-models-for-vulne...
1•chillax•25m ago•0 comments

SecretSpec 0.17: Scopes, secrets caching, SOPS, age, and systemd credentials

https://secretspec.dev/blog/secretspec-0-17-scopes-secrets-caching-age-and-systemd-credentials/
1•domenkozar•30m ago•0 comments

Open dataset of i2c addresses and voltages for 50 common boards

https://github.com/i2c-net/i2c-address-dataset
1•chzburgrz•36m ago•0 comments

TIRx: An Open Compiler Stack for Evolving Frontier ML Kernels

https://tvm.apache.org/2026/06/22/tirx
2•EvgeniyZh•44m ago•0 comments

3D Printed Nuclear Reactor [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwRWRDrfrvA
1•flitzofolov•48m ago•1 comments

Tell HN: Leaving your country is your only real leverage

4•julienreszka•50m ago•6 comments

Show HN: Spur solver – Z3-backed model-finder solved values for coding agent

https://github.com/getspur/spur/tree/main/crates/spur-solver
1•mf_kevintruong•50m ago•0 comments

Basilisk: Fast 100% PEP compliant Python type checker

https://www.basilisk-python.dev/
1•theusus•51m ago•0 comments

Psion Emulator – classic Psion palmtops in your browser

https://joehaines.com/psion/
1•randkyp•59m ago•0 comments

The most official water costs $120k a gallon

https://signoregalilei.com/2026/07/26/the-most-official-water-costs-120000-a-gallon/
3•srijan4•1h ago•0 comments

AI Workspace for Your PC

https://stuard.ai
1•Ifesol•1h ago•1 comments

Verisign Cooperative Agreement

https://www.ntia.gov/program/verisign-cooperative-agreement
5•themaxdavitt•1h ago•0 comments

Nvidia in Talks with OpenAI to Guarantee $250B Financing for Data Center

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-in-talks-with-openai-to-guarantee-250-billion-financing-for-da...
5•taurath•1h ago•1 comments

Show HN: 3D music visualization on Apple Vision Pro

https://old.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1v5llv9/3d_music_visualization_on_apple_vision_pro/
1•linxy97•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Watch random code typed out on an MS-DOS IDE

https://hackerman.specr.net/
2•vunderba•1h ago•0 comments

Sand battery: Finland's answer to a renewable energy headache

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/25/finland-sand-battery-renewable-energy-storage.html
7•coderintherye•1h ago•1 comments

Why AI Doesn't Replace Software Architecture – It Makes It More Valuable

https://wilburhimself.github.io/blog/65-why-ai-doesnt-replace-software-architecture/
2•wilburhimself•1h ago•1 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