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A pretty looking web for a quantum mechanics tool

https://github.com/Jamessfks/mace
1•Jamessfks123•1m ago•0 comments

The Atlantic AI Watchdog

https://www.theatlantic.com/category/ai-watchdog/
1•fortran77•4m ago•0 comments

Poll: How do you think LLMs will affect the job market for software developers?

1•bwestergard•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Engram – Memory for AI coding agents (2.5K installs, 80% on LOCOMO)

https://www.engram.fyi
1•tstockham•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Openpista – AI Agent for OS Control via Telegram/CLI in Rust

https://github.com/openpista/openpista
1•pista_chio•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I put Claude Code inside a Telegram bot for voice memos

https://github.com/baryhuang/ai-meeting-notes-agent
1•buryhuang•11m ago•0 comments

We Built a Video Rendering Engine by Lying to the Browser About What Time It Is

https://blog.replit.com/browsers-dont-want-to-be-cameras
2•darshkpatel•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Userscript to Display Age/Karma of HN Users

https://gist.github.com/m4chinations/f6d58711a94077d96cf4157665b0bab3
1•linksbro•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A POST only back end framework

https://nile-js.github.io/nile/
1•HusseinKizz•17m ago•0 comments

Anthropic and Palantir Bring Claude to U.S. Intelligence and Defense (2024)

https://investors.palantir.com/news-details/2024/Anthropic-and-Palantir-Partner-to-Bring-Claude-A...
1•notRobot•17m ago•0 comments

Latest progress helping Qwen3-4B Learn

https://github.com/kibbyd/adaptive-state
1•kibbyd1985•34m ago•0 comments

Casting SALT like Metal – What Happens? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaY-gvgS6JY
1•rmast•35m ago•0 comments

Using Git While Trans

https://code.curly.kiwi/2026/02/27/using-git-while-trans/
4•grandsham•36m ago•0 comments

Elliptic Curve Cryptography

https://growingswe.com/blog/elliptic-curve-cryptography
1•subset•39m ago•0 comments

How many AA batteries does it take to power a PC setup? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5lskFXDbWs
1•rmast•41m ago•0 comments

I built an AI tool to replace hiring agencies

https://hire-flow-io.netlify.app
1•enima•43m ago•1 comments

Berkshire Hathaway – 2025 annual letter [pdf]

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2025ltr.pdf
2•kamaraju•45m ago•0 comments

Why Your Laptop May No Longer Be Where Work Happens

https://clouddataandai.substack.com/p/why-your-laptop-may-no-longer-be
1•mitul_suthar•45m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Word-doodle – browser-based generative doodle text art engine

https://github.com/j-ncel/word-doodle
1•koalux•48m ago•1 comments

Show HN: SpecLock – AI Constraint Engine that stops AI from breaking locked code

https://github.com/sgroy10/speclock
1•sgroy10•55m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A GFM+GF-MathJax/Latex HTML formatting adventure

https://github.com/scottvr/phart/blob/main/docs/GHM-LATEX.md
1•ycombiredd•56m ago•0 comments

Diffusion Models (2024)

https://andrewkchan.dev/posts/diffusion.html
1•vinhnx•58m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built a free AI study tool– paste notes, get flashcards in 10 seconds

https://prepareyourself.app
1•digi_wares•59m ago•0 comments

Josh Collison and Dwarkesh Patel Interview Elon Musk [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXbuik3dgA
3•surprisetalk•1h ago•0 comments

Human brain cells on a chip learned to play Doom in a week

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2517389-human-brain-cells-on-a-chip-learned-to-play-doom-in-...
5•alex_young•1h ago•0 comments

Malm Whale in Gothenburg

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/malm-whale
2•thunderbong•1h ago•0 comments

Plugtest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plugtest
2•dhorthy•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: EmCogni Code, the context engine for the "why" behind your codebase

https://www.emcogni.com/
1•ssbodapati•1h ago•0 comments

Simple Made Inevitable: The Economics of Language Choice in the LLM Era

https://felixbarbalet.com/simple-made-inevitable-the-economics-of-language-choice-in-the-llm-era/
1•puredanger•1h ago•0 comments

Idiot Plot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_plot
1•treetalker•1h ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•10mo ago

Comments

thechao•10mo 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•10mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•10mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•10mo 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•10mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•10mo 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•10mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•10mo 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_•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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/