frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

MSCI Pressure Mounts on Billionaire-Held Indonesia Shares

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-05/billionaire-stranglehold-on-indonesian-shares-...
1•salkahfi•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A free model to measure digital-first work performance in 3 minutes

https://www.globalworkinnovationreports.com/
1•nboggian•5m ago•0 comments

Xcode 26 system prompts and internal documentation

https://github.com/artemnovichkov/xcode-26-system-prompts
1•ingve•8m ago•0 comments

Ready for another quick game break? Try HTTPS://szthx.xyz

https://szthx.xyz/
1•TrendSpotterPro•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: ChatVault – Search your Claude conversations locally with RAG

https://github.com/rajz3006/ChatVault
1•nekrajes•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: CLI tool to convert Markdown to rich HTML clipboard content

https://github.com/letientai299/md2cb
2•letientai299•13m ago•1 comments

I built Prethub – a collective memory where AI agents share execution experience

https://prethub.com/
1•punyd•13m ago•1 comments

China's population is projected to halve by the end of the century

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render
2•doener•13m ago•0 comments

Teleporting into the future and robbing yourself of retirement projects

https://ghuntley.com/teleport/
1•ghuntley•13m ago•0 comments

Data Center Demand Story Doesn't Add Up

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2026-02-02/odd-lots-the-data-center-demand-story-doesn-t-add...
1•zerosizedweasle•18m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Toku.agency – Where AI agents hire each other for real USD

https://www.toku.agency/
1•lilyevesinclair•18m ago•0 comments

Modernizing Linux swapping: introducing the swap table

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1056405/e728d95dd16f5e1b/
2•chmaynard•19m ago•0 comments

OpenClaw 101 – Guide to OpenClaw AI Assistant

https://openclaw101.online
1•EllaAILab•21m ago•0 comments

Braids and Open Book Decompositions [pdf]

https://www2.math.upenn.edu/grad/dissertations/ElenaPavelescuThesis.pdf
1•marysminefnuf•23m ago•0 comments

CIPS Stack – 5 memory systems that give your AI agents persistent memory

https://cipscorps.io/#
1•Opus_Warrior•25m ago•1 comments

Show HN: A system that monitors portfolio risk and warns when it gets dangerous

1•NoahJiang•29m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Outcrop – Contextual Knowledge Base

https://outcrop.app/
1•imedadel•34m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Pipeline and datasets for data-centric AI on real-world floor plans

https://archilyse.standfest.science
1•standfest•35m ago•0 comments

Sequential Attention Making models leaner and fast without sacrificing accuracy

https://research.google/blog/sequential-attention-making-ai-models-leaner-and-faster-without-sacr...
1•binsquare•36m ago•0 comments

My MBA taught me "Lean", but Reality taught me "Survival"

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/my-mba-taught-me-lean-but-reality-taught-me-survival-3-things-b...
1•rosiehong•38m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Mirror private work contributions to your GitHub profile

https://github.com/yuvrajangadsingh/private-work-contributions-mirror
1•yuvrajangads•39m ago•0 comments

Testing CLIs with Scrut

https://cgamesplay.com/post/2026/testing-clis-with-scrut/
1•CGamesPlay•41m ago•0 comments

Slint 1.15 Released

https://slint.dev/blog/slint-1.15-released
1•jandeboevrie•43m ago•0 comments

BMW's Newest "Innovation" Is a Logo-Shaped Middle Finger to Right to Repair

https://www.ifixit.com/News/115528/bmws-newest-innovation-is-a-logo-shaped-middle-finger-to-right...
5•gnabgib•44m ago•0 comments

Show HN: SwiftFiles – 100% private, browser-based file tools (WASM)

https://www.swiftfiles.org
1•deusrazen•44m ago•0 comments

Trillion-Dollar Tech Wipeout Ensnares All Stocks in AI's Path

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-04/trillion-dollar-tech-wipeout-ensnares-all-stoc...
2•petethomas•46m ago•0 comments

You can just tell codex to port the codex app to Linux (and it works apparently)

https://old.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1qw8oat/you_can_just_tell_codex_to_port_the_codex_app_to/
1•AlexCoventry•48m ago•0 comments

A way to get out of debt

https://www.solosuit.com/pages/unifiedflow
2•Simonga25•50m ago•2 comments

Show HN: ValRequest – Turn Feelings into Words

https://valrequest.net
2•QingWu•51m ago•0 comments

Free online Heic to PNG converter

https://heic2png.net
1•windyan•53m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•9mo ago

Comments

thechao•9mo 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•9mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•9mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•9mo 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•9mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•9mo 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•9mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•9mo 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_•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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/