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IAMF: Immersive Audio for a New Decade (2025)

http://aomedia.org/blog%20posts/IAMF-Immersive-Audio-for-a-New-Decade/
1•breve•6m ago•0 comments

Reasoning models encode tool choices before they start reasoning

https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01202
2•diwank•8m ago•0 comments

ClawTrak – free tool to check if your AI product is invisible to AI agents

https://clawtrak.com/
1•pixelfamiliar•12m ago•0 comments

Day Counter

https://xkcd.com/3228/
1•mitchbob•12m ago•0 comments

Meta lays off hundreds as tech giant pushes forward with AI investment

https://nypost.com/2026/04/03/business/meta-lays-off-hundreds-after-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-said-ai-c...
2•1vuio0pswjnm7•20m ago•0 comments

As Slow as Possible

https://pippinbarr.com/as-slow-as-possible/
2•brianzelip•22m ago•0 comments

Pre-1900 LLM tries to solve Relativity

https://twitter.com/hla_michael/status/2039768483018489994
2•coppertrack•25m ago•0 comments

Reliable Vibe Coding Process – Automation Without Intention Is Just Faster Chaos

https://markhuang.ai/blog/automation-without-intention-is-just-faster-chaos
2•zh_code•28m ago•0 comments

Odiusfly Studio (Indie Development)

https://odiusfly.com/
2•red369•29m ago•0 comments

What do you use as preview environment?

1•Escafati•30m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What's the most repetitive thing you do with AI that you wish it just re

1•chloecv•35m ago•1 comments

Anthropic open-sourced claude-code

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code
12•tylerdane•37m ago•0 comments

Scaling tool orchestration data will emerge different intelligence and LLMs

2•arkariarn•38m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Cj – jc rewritten in Rust, 230 parsers, 10x faster

https://github.com/zhongweili/cj
1•zhongwei2049•39m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Analysis of credit card receipts to show one does not buy alcohol

1•bryanrasmussen•39m ago•0 comments

Delve Removed from Y Combinator

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/delve
3•carabiner•43m ago•2 comments

50 years of Apple with the only original employee still there

https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/02/inside-50-years-of-apple-with-the-only-original-employ...
1•canucker2016•47m ago•0 comments

Heisuke Hironaka, Groundbreaking Mathematician andFields Medalist, Is Dead at 94

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/science/heisuke-hironaka-dead.html
2•bookofjoe•48m ago•3 comments

Apple's Fitness Chief, Who Was Accused of Harassment, Is Retiring

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/technology/apples-fitness-chief-who-was-accused-of-harassment-...
2•canucker2016•50m ago•1 comments

Artemis II Orbit Simulator

http://orbitsimulator.com/gravitySimulatorCloud/simulations/1775087816554_artemis_ii_p.html
3•mxfh•58m ago•0 comments

The Case for Economic Growth as the Path to Human Wellbeing

https://lantpritchett.org/the-case-for-sustained-rapid-inclusive-enough-economic-growth-as-a-focu...
2•barry-cotter•59m ago•0 comments

New Advances Bring the Era of Quantum Computers Closer

https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-advances-bring-the-era-of-quantum-computers-closer-than-ever-2...
1•gmays•1h ago•0 comments

NHS staff resist using Palantir software

https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/03/nhs_staff_against_palantir/
5•abdelhousni•1h ago•0 comments

Extracting System Prompt and Model Identity from Telegram's AI. It's Qwen 3.5

https://medium.com/@metraoklam/extracting-system-prompt-model-identity-from-telegrams-ai-feature-...
2•armalko•1h ago•0 comments

The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1 – ICIJ

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/the-story-that-rocked-the-world-ten-years-of-th...
2•abdelhousni•1h ago•0 comments

Trump wants to slash $707M from CISA's budget

https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/03/trump_cisa_budget/
13•abdelhousni•1h ago•1 comments

UN chief tells Trump 'war is not a game show' after US bombs civilian targets

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iran-war-trump-un-us-civilians-b2951408.html
12•hkhn•1h ago•1 comments

Thomistic prompt chain jailbreaks Gemini self-recognition-12 steps, no code

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeGkdDygfe4
3•jcamlin•1h ago•0 comments

Void: Video Object and Interaction Deletion

https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.02296
1•jonbaer•1h ago•0 comments

Trump budget seeks $1.5T in defense spending alongside cuts in domestic programs

https://apnews.com/article/trump-2027-annual-budget-congress-defense-f95715d838be17afd9799208cd31...
10•clausewitz•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/