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Airbnb bans making guests do dishes and take out the trash

https://www.theverge.com/tech/1015844/airbnb-chores-house-rules-update
1•babelfish•1m ago•0 comments

Dualtooth – Sync Windows Bluetooth Keys to Linux BlueZ in One Command

https://github.com/edotwedo/Dualtooth
1•thebeautifultre•3m ago•0 comments

Show HN: CertAvert – Free SSL/TLS tools and certificate expiry alerts

https://certavert.com
1•asiliev20•7m ago•0 comments

The Five Senses of Artificial Intelligence

https://project507.substack.com/p/the-five-senses-of-artificial-intelligence
1•massigenta•9m ago•0 comments

Agentitter – a microblogging/social network inside agents

https://agentitter.com/
1•soneca•10m ago•0 comments

CyberArena: Benchmarking AI Agents in Live Symmetric Attack-and-Defense Combat

https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.19005
1•neutrinoliu•10m ago•0 comments

The iPhone Duo

https://daringfireball.net/2026/10/the_iphone_duo
4•johnbehnke•13m ago•1 comments

Loco: The one-person framework for Rust

https://loco.rs/
1•mike1o1•16m ago•0 comments

Κ = 0.003 for integer multiplication crossed

https://github.com/CrocSwap/integer-mult-bounds/pull/4441
1•aleph_minus_one•17m ago•1 comments

Show HN: ZeGrapher v4: modern math plotter

https://zegrapher.com/en/
1•adelks•17m ago•1 comments

Singulion Structure and the Voynich Manuscript

https://journals.openedition.org/digitalmedievalist/2331
1•jhncls•19m ago•0 comments

Apple is finding its voice for what more sophisticated multitouch UX can be

https://royalicing.com/2026/apple-voice-iphone-duo
1•burntcaramel•19m ago•0 comments

Rails Is a JIT Compiler

https://railsatscale.com/2026-10-21-rails-is-a-jit-compiler/
1•hellerve•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Embodsi – Embodied Super Intelligence

https://embodsi.com/
1•laser•23m ago•0 comments

There isn't an easy exploit for this PHP vulnerability

https://eliastaylor.com/noexploit/
2•zkldi•26m ago•1 comments

Anthropic opens research preview of Claude Duet, a agent for professionals

https://www.reuters.com/technology/anthropic-unveils-claude-duet-ai-agent-app-2026-10-21/
1•satirr•27m ago•1 comments

Firefox Auto-Run on Windows

1•BubbleRings•34m ago•0 comments

Why didn't we use Ro­Register­For­Apartment­Shutdown?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20261021-00/?p=112786/
1•ibobev•34m ago•0 comments

Microspeak: Drain the slide, back-up slides

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20261020-00/?p=112784/
1•ibobev•34m ago•0 comments

Advanced Shader Delivery Is Available Now Across Hardware

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/advanced-shader-delivery-is-available-now-across-hardware/
1•ibobev•34m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Are we giving away our civilization?

6•bigwheels•39m ago•4 comments

Robotaxi – Safety

https://www.tesla.com/robotaxi/safety
1•shekhar101•47m ago•0 comments

Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Stay in California Despite Billionaires' Tax Measure

https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-agrees-to-stay-in-california-despite-billionaires-tax...
2•mikelgan•48m ago•1 comments

US Denaturalizes 2 People Who Gained Citizenship Hiding Criminal Activity

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/trump-administration-denaturalizes-two-people-who-gained-us-citize...
4•gnabgib•51m ago•1 comments

Meta's new terms say if its AI makes a mistake, it will be the customer's fault

https://www.cio.com/article/4237395/metas-new-enterprise-contract-says-if-its-ai-makes-a-mistake-...
5•cdrnsf•51m ago•2 comments

Update your Xbox Series S|X Controller through WebUSB

https://dzervas.github.io/xpad-webusb-update/
1•ttouch•55m ago•0 comments

Morph 4K Firmware v4: Simulating the Physics of Retro Video

https://www.pixelfx.co/post/morph-4k-firmware-v4-simulating-the-physics-of-retro-video
1•bpierre•1h ago•0 comments

GameFrame: Agentic Framework for Reverse Engineering Games

https://tanepiper.github.io/game-frame/
3•tanepiper•1h ago•1 comments

Veggie Thursdays and vegan surprises How Ghent became a plant-based paradise

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/oct/21/veggie-thursdays-vegan-surprises-ghent-plant-based-p...
2•rdmuser•1h ago•0 comments

Completing a task does not remove the work of managing it

https://civicpivot.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-work-hidden-inside-just-ask.html
1•civicpivot•1h 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