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LLM-as-a-Verifier: A General-Purpose Verification Framework

https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.05391
1•gmays•4m ago•0 comments

Plans for New Zealand's first AI datacentre spark concerns

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/10/new-zealand-first-datacentre-concern-locals-makarew...
3•billybuckwheat•4m ago•0 comments

Japan begins standing up new Intel agency with input from allies

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/07/13/japan/politics/japan-intelligence-agency/
3•keepamovin•9m ago•0 comments

The Luna-cy of getting Lock The Clock done

https://locktheclock.net/time/2026/07/the-luna-cy-of-getting-lock-the-clock-done/
2•toomuchtodo•13m ago•1 comments

New flapping robot swims and flies like a diving bird

https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-flapping-robot-swims-and-flies-like-diving-bird-0709
5•gmays•17m ago•1 comments

Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014

https://zachholman.com/posts/only-90s-developers/
4•downbad_•17m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How useful is Gemini for Google Apps?

3•cobbzilla•18m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Tilion – Stealth Browser Infrastructure for Agents

https://twitter.com/tiliondev/status/2077162199739752933
7•arhamshahrier•20m ago•2 comments

Linear is always a lagging indicator

https://remark.ing/rob/rob.mw/-/Linear-is-always-a
2•koch•21m ago•0 comments

Why devs turn to Buildkite in the AI era

https://www.thestack.technology/buildkite-ai-developer-cicd/
4•juanfatas•22m ago•0 comments

The politics of air conditioning in Switzerland

https://lenews.ch/2026/05/29/the-politics-of-air-conditioning-in-switzerland/
2•bookofjoe•23m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How's the idea of creating LinkedIn styled character profiles

3•anitroves•24m ago•3 comments

Sets of Overlapping Circles

https://unsung.aresluna.org/sets-of-overlapping-circles/
2•frizlab•24m ago•0 comments

Batteries 'cheaper' than gas plants as data centres fuel turbine costs

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-15/csiro-says-batteries-cheaper-than-gas-as-ai-drives-turbine...
3•femto•24m ago•0 comments

Pioneers of Computer Graphics [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeJX1DV0hq0
2•gabrielsroka•24m ago•0 comments

Casio FX870P Emulator

https://github.com/urbancamo/fx870p-emulator
2•austinallegro•25m ago•0 comments

OpenAI's first hardware device will be a HomePod, but don't tell them that

https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/07/14/openais-first-hardware-device-will-be-a-homepod-but-do...
4•frizlab•25m ago•0 comments

QR-Swastika-Avoider

https://crates.io/crates/qr-swastika-avoider
5•gregsadetsky•26m ago•1 comments

Audio Transport: A Generalized Portamento via Optimal Transport

https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.06763
2•E-Reverance•39m ago•1 comments

LeMario: Training a JEPA World Model on Super Mario Bros

https://www.benjamin-bai.com/projects/lemario
3•kevinjosethomas•42m ago•0 comments

The Campaign to Kill American AI Runs Through San Francisco

https://garryslist.org/posts/the-campaign-to-kill-american-ai-runs-through-san-francisco
3•shinryudbz•45m ago•1 comments

The Chuwi MiniBook X N150

https://taoofmac.com/space/reviews/2025/05/15/2230
4•edward•45m ago•0 comments

Buffett omits gift to Bill Gates' foundation after his Epstein ties disclosed

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/14/bill-gates-warren-buffet-donation
10•Teever•47m ago•0 comments

Kara Swisher: Important CEO straits [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d0kyPNFrVE
2•xqcgrek2•48m ago•0 comments

How Are "Disconnected" Young Adults Spending Their Time?

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2026/jul/how-are-disconnected-young-adults-spending-the...
3•toomuchtodo•49m ago•0 comments

What to know about 'explosive diarrhoea' parasite outbreak in US

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c621m66qm76o
3•teleforce•52m ago•0 comments

Who Is America's Homer?

https://www.plough.com/articles/who-is-americas-homer
3•samclemens•54m ago•1 comments

Book Prizes Don't Work How You Think

https://rebeccamakkai.substack.com/p/book-prizes-dont-work-how-you-think
3•samclemens•54m ago•0 comments

Twain Town, USA

https://theamericanscholar.org/twain-town-u-s-a/
2•prismatic•54m ago•0 comments

Blocking internet on phones improves attention, mental health, and well-being

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39967678/
3•gwintrob•55m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•1y ago

Comments

thechao•1y 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•1y ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•1y ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•1y 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•1y 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•1y ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•1y 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•1y 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.
byronknoll•1y 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•1y ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•1y 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•1y ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•1y 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_•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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/

jcgrillo•1y ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem