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Show HN: Cornifi split keyboard, a more staggered corne

https://github.com/v3lmx/cornifi
1•v3lmx•5m ago•0 comments

The Architecture of "Not Bad": Decoding the Chinese Source Code of the Void

https://suggger.substack.com/p/the-architecture-of-not-bad-decoding
1•Suggger•5m ago•0 comments

Django RAPID Architecture, a guide to structuring Django projects

https://www.django-rapid-architecture.org/
1•j4mie•6m ago•1 comments

"Where Winds Meet Guide – Complete Mechanics, Builds, and Flight Unlocks"

https://www.wherewindsmeetguide.com/
2•causalzap•6m ago•0 comments

Integrating Toon into Visual Studio Code

https://github.com/mateolafalce/toon-context-optimizer
1•lafalce•8m ago•0 comments

Pydantic-resolve: A solid tool for building graph-like data

https://github.com/allmonday/pydantic-resolve
2•tank-34•11m ago•1 comments

Cocaine widely detected in some of Northern Ireland's major lakes and rivers

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8r3vk8dvj2o
1•bookofjoe•11m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Share Useful Prompts

1•rando77•12m ago•0 comments

Disney making $1B investment in OpenAI, will allow characters on Sora AI

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/disney-openai-sora-characters-video.html
2•tiahura•14m ago•1 comments

Beginner friendly cyber security challenges

https://knox.sethmb.xyz
1•isaluki•15m ago•1 comments

Directory of Padel Apps: with features, estimates and KPIs

https://padel.productcrafters.io
1•oleg2014•16m ago•0 comments

Sid Meier: More Than Just Civilization

https://boilingsteam.com/sid-meier-more-than-just-civilization/
3•ekianjo•17m ago•0 comments

NATO's Rutte warns against a war on the scale of that seen by past generations

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/natos-rutte-warns-allies-they-are-russias-next...
2•vincent_s•17m ago•0 comments

You aren't gonna need it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it
2•nomilk•18m ago•0 comments

Turn any Android app into an API

https://revrse.ai/
1•arsrev•20m ago•0 comments

Skydiver suspended below aircraft after accidental reserve chute deployment

https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/news-items/2025/skydiver-suspended-below-jump-aircrafts-tailplane-a...
1•tailspin2019•20m ago•1 comments

AI optimism is a class privilege

https://joshcollinsworth.com/blog/sloptimism
1•todsacerdoti•21m ago•0 comments

The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

https://openai.com/index/disney-sora-agreement/
2•inesranzo•21m ago•2 comments

Ten key insights from development economics in 2025

https://voxdev.org/topic/ten-key-insights-development-economics-2025
1•alphabetatango•22m ago•0 comments

Quantum clues to consciousness: the brain may harness the zero-point field

https://phys.org/news/2025-12-quantum-clues-consciousness-brain-harness.html
3•stOneskull•25m ago•1 comments

The Architects of AI Are TIME's 2025 Person of the Year

https://time.com/7339685/person-of-the-year-2025-ai-architects/
1•lode•25m ago•0 comments

Blue Origin's Orbital Data Centers Signal a New Era of Power, Politics, and Risk

https://comuniq.xyz/post?t=602
1•01-_-•25m ago•0 comments

Why are my view transitions blinking?

https://piccalil.li/blog/why-are-my-view-transitions-blinking/
1•bk496•28m ago•0 comments

Linux Foundation Announces the Formation of the Agentic AI Foundation

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-the-formation-of-the-agentic-ai-...
2•svoit•28m ago•0 comments

A customizable agentic AI toolkit for e-commerce

https://upsidelab.io/tools/enthusiast
1•vast-alive•29m ago•0 comments

What happens when you add a new Teller?

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/10/21/what-happens-when-you-add-a-new-teller/
1•bschne•29m ago•0 comments

I built a browser tool that converts ANY file → Markdown

https://www.loom.com/share/d854af039e364fb28ca006d4654257ca
1•gavrielamati•32m ago•0 comments

Is GitHub Down?

5•henriquenunez•32m ago•2 comments

Twin suction turbines and 3-Gs in slow corners? Meet the DRG-Lola

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/11/an-electric-car-thats-faster-than-f1-around-monaco-thats-the...
1•PaulHoule•32m ago•0 comments

Two Elegant Use Cases for Go Build Tags

https://btema.net/blog/two-elegant-use-cases-for-go-build-tags/
2•machine424•33m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•7mo ago

Comments

thechao•7mo 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•7mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•7mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•7mo 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•7mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•7mo 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•7mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•7mo 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_•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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/