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The missing call-assign operator

https://kevincox.ca/2022/06/25/call-assign-operator/
1•fanf2•13s ago•0 comments

Show HN: NetHack agent harness with benchmarks and livestream

https://glyphbox.app/
1•kenforthewin•52s ago•0 comments

I used Claude to negotiate $163,000 off a hospital bill

https://www.businessinsider.com/claude-helped-negotiate-hospital-bill-discount-medicare-ai-assist...
1•hackernj•1m ago•0 comments

Bay Area men sentenced for their part in $2.5M DoorDash scheme

https://localnewsmatters.org/2026/02/12/doordash-fraud-bay-area-men-sentenced/
2•randycupertino•2m ago•1 comments

Something AI Isn't Good At

https://hidden.computer/blog/something-ai-isnt-good-at.html
2•voidsnax•2m ago•0 comments

The 12-Factor App – 15 Years later. Does it Still Hold Up in 2026?

https://lukasniessen.medium.com/the-12-factor-app-15-years-later-does-it-still-hold-up-in-2026-c8...
2•todsacerdoti•3m ago•0 comments

Show HN: 7-day jam became a 14-month build. satirical gun dating SIM (free)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4220820/Polyarmory_High_Calibre_Love/
2•seainthetrees•3m ago•0 comments

OpenClaw's memory extracted, plug-and-play for any agents

https://milvus.io/blog/we-extracted-openclaws-memory-system-and-opensourced-it-memsearch.md
2•Fendy•4m ago•1 comments

What Drives Stock Market Returns?

https://outlookzen.com/2018/10/27/where-do-stock-market-returns-come-from/
3•whack•5m ago•0 comments

Consumer Rights Wiki

https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page
3•FLpxpyJ•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: RapidPhoto – Native Mac app for private, offline bulk image editing

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rapidphoto-batch-crop-edit/id6758485661?mt=12
2•om202•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Datesky

https://datesky.app
2•ChicagoDave•6m ago•1 comments

ZIO-OpenFeature – Feature Flag Evaluation for Scala with ZIO

https://github.com/EtaCassiopeia/zio-openfeature
1•zainalpour•7m ago•1 comments

Show HN: A Working Python VM Written Entirely in PL/PgSQL

https://github.com/cykim8811/pgthon
1•cykim8811•7m ago•1 comments

OpenClaw bot calls out maintainer when its PR got rejected

https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/2026-02-11-gatekeeping-in-open-sour...
1•abhisek•8m ago•0 comments

Nigeria makes big gains in fight against neglected tropical diseases

https://www.semafor.com/article/02/13/2026/nigeria-makes-big-gains-in-fight-against-neglected-tro...
2•stareatgoats•10m ago•1 comments

Hiding Information Inside Images

https://nullonerror.org/2026/02/13/hiding-information-inside-images/
1•delduca•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Libgd-GIS – Render maps and GIS data directly in Ruby (GeoJSON → Image)

https://ggerman.github.io/libgd-gis/
1•ggerman2025•13m ago•0 comments

We still can't design credit card machines

https://attainablefelicity.mattkirkland.com/20260213/we-still-cant-design-credit-card-machines.html
1•matt_kirkland•14m ago•0 comments

Heads of 20 nations: Who is attending India's mega AI Summit

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/heads-of-20-nations-delegations-from-45-countries-who-i...
1•rustoo•14m ago•0 comments

MiniMax M2.5 weights

https://huggingface.co/MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M2.5
3•tosh•15m ago•0 comments

NYT: 'We're All Polyamorous Now. It's You, Me and the A.I.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/opinion/ai-relationships.html
2•coffeefirst•16m ago•1 comments

Fine-Tune Moe Models 12x Faster with Unsloth

https://unsloth.ai/docs/new/faster-moe
1•gmays•17m ago•0 comments

Executable Data Contracts

https://github.com/sodadata/data-contract-template
1•santiviquez•17m ago•0 comments

Tachyum forced to shutter R&D office due to unpaid rent, wages, and taxes

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/tachyum-forced-to-shutter-r-and-d-offic...
1•pinewurst•17m ago•0 comments

Product vs. Market vs. Team: Why the market always wins

https://www.techfounderstack.com/p/market-always-wins
1•makle•18m ago•0 comments

My AI now drives my apps and checks its own work in 50ms loops

1•sebringj•20m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AI Dev Hub. 75 free AI and dev tools

https://aidevhub.io/
1•orbydx•21m ago•0 comments

Delphi is 31 years old – innovation timeline

https://blogs.embarcadero.com/delphi-innovation-timeline-31st-anniversary-edition-published-get-y...
2•andsoitis•22m ago•0 comments

Let Me Ask AI for You

https://letmeaskai.fyi/
3•dmitrysergeyev•24m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•9mo ago

Comments

thechao•9mo 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•9mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•9mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•9mo 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•9mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•9mo 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•9mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•9mo 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_•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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/