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Private equity firms acquired more than 500 autism centers in past decade: study

https://www.brown.edu/news/2026-01-07/private-equity-autism-centers
1•hhs•25s ago•0 comments

Mapping and editing learned functional geometry inside a CNN (with controls)

https://github.com/boglim1984/functional-geometry-hebbian-manifold
1•boglim1984•1m ago•1 comments

CFT: "sqawk" 0.8.0 – optimized SQL Awk utility with Rust's sqlparser

https://github.com/jgarzik/sqawk/tree/v0.8.0
1•jgarzik•2m ago•1 comments

The da Vinci Code: Quest to Identify Leonardo da Vinci's DNA

https://www.science.org/content/article/have-scientists-found-leonardo-da-vinci-s-dna
1•bookmtn•2m ago•0 comments

Using the physics of radio waves to empower smarter edge devices

https://pratt.duke.edu/news/using-the-physics-of-radio-waves-to-empower-smarter-edge-devices/
1•hhs•4m ago•0 comments

The Celtic Tiger bridge that wouldn't open because of a lost remote control

https://www.thejournal.ie/sean-ocasey-bridge-remote-1713102-Oct2014/
1•JumpCrisscross•8m ago•0 comments

The Robot Cars Have Come for the Kids

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/us/waymo-kids-los-angeles.html
1•JumpCrisscross•10m ago•0 comments

Iranian Crown Prince in Exile – Interview with Reza Pahlavi (2025) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwWQ3hnJLZQ
1•thomassmith65•11m ago•1 comments

Philosopher of Pride

https://aeon.co/essays/the-hidden-role-of-pride-and-shame-in-the-human-hive
1•benbreen•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Chordle. Learn to identify pitch by playing Wordle with chords

https://codepen.io/tehryanx/full/RNRGGEQ
1•tehryanx•12m ago•0 comments

The Manifold Mind of Saul Bellow

https://www.metropolitanreview.org/p/the-manifold-mind-of-saul-bellow
1•samclemens•13m ago•0 comments

People are abusing Facebook's deceased persons account hacked request form

https://infosec.exchange/@teriradichel/115873364828247139
2•gpi•15m ago•1 comments

[Claude Code Plugin Proposal] Add agent-session-commit to iterate on AGENTS.md

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/pull/17395
1•Olshansky•16m ago•0 comments

Tcl Nxtpaper 70 Pro phone has dedicated reading modes that help reduce strain

https://www.pcmag.com/news/tcl-nxtpaper-70-pro-phone-dials-up-the-specs-we-go-hands-on-at-ces-2026
1•teleforce•17m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Lolodex turns email threads and attachments into clean/searchable notes

https://lolodex.com
1•yungookim•26m ago•0 comments

The Wren Stack

https://speakez.tech/blog/wren-stack/
1•Multicomp•29m ago•1 comments

Rationality, Reward, and Sleep Training

https://dogdogfish.com/blog/2026/01/10/rationality-psychology-sleep-training/
1•matthewsharpe3•32m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: If AI wins, don't AI companies lose?

2•SuboptimalEng•33m ago•4 comments

Meet ski map artist James Niehues, the 'Monet of the mountains'

https://adventure.com/ski-map-artist-james-niehues/
1•gyomu•38m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Symfreq – Analyse symbol frequencies in code (Rust)

https://github.com/vaskort/symfreq
2•vaskort•41m ago•0 comments

The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left

https://www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/nih-resign-protest-four-leaders-cite-interference-censorship/
5•mikhael•45m ago•0 comments

The Many Meanings of "Stack"

https://ezzeriesa.notion.site/The-many-meanings-of-stack-bc768cb186714b579547b7b8681ee32f
2•kurinikku•45m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Understand your Claude Code sessions

https://confabulous.dev
1•jjak82•46m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use to write technical books?

1•JSLegendDev•49m ago•0 comments

The Trust Trap: Why Bad Actors Are Moving from Burner Domains to Big Tech

https://www.urlert.com/blog/trust-trap-bad-actors-big-tech
3•tomerhe•50m ago•0 comments

If users notice your software, you're a loser

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/10/if-users-notice-your-software-youre-already-a-loser/
7•fasterandworse•52m ago•0 comments

Nine (Seemingly Impossible C64 Demo) (2025)

https://www.linusakesson.net/scene/nine/index.php
2•s4i•53m ago•0 comments

Open‑source VANTRUE dashcam stitcher (front and cabin PiP)

https://github.com/SteveClement/vantrue-dashcam-stitcher
1•SteveClement•54m ago•1 comments

The O'Shaughnessy Fellowships and Grants Program

https://forms.osv.llc/fellowships2026
1•cat-whisperer•56m ago•0 comments

Out-of-Context: Constrained Tool Based Exploration of Context

https://www.gojiberries.io/out-of-context-constrained-tool-based-exploration-of-context/
1•neehao•57m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•8mo ago

Comments

thechao•8mo 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•8mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•8mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•8mo 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•8mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•8mo 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•8mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•8mo 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_•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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/