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The heavy reality of Venezuela's oil

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-VENEZUELA/OIL-RESERVES/mypmqearlpr/
1•gmays•5m ago•0 comments

Minnesota Bathrobe Lady Sam Stroozas of MPR News

https://www.mpr.org/stories/2026/02/13/meet-bathrobe-lady-sam-stroozas-mpr-news
1•jmward01•5m ago•1 comments

We are in the "gentleman scientist" era of AI research

https://www.seangoedecke.com/ai-and-informal-science/
1•gfysfm•6m ago•0 comments

I got tired of babysitting Claude,so I built AI agent that run on my laptop 24/7

1•bagula_ai•7m ago•0 comments

Terry Tao – Machine assistance and the future of research mathematics [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJvuaRVc8Bg
1•breve•7m ago•0 comments

Your pet's microchip may now be useless after chip company goes out of business

https://local12.com/news/local/cincinnati-animal-care-shelter-warns-microchips-may-fail-after-maj...
1•cpeterso•9m ago•1 comments

The great software stock meltdown

https://www.ft.com/content/9e5742e4-adae-4178-9951-7372adeb7ffc
1•petethomas•10m ago•0 comments

Intermittent fasting no better than dieting, study finds

https://www.ft.com/content/788e6852-8acc-44df-acbc-ecff3afe6459
3•petethomas•11m ago•0 comments

Is there a true alternative to Discord?

https://medium.com/@mycahp/is-there-a-true-alternative-to-discord-7faf052ef28e
2•hacym•15m ago•0 comments

Intermittent fasting no better than typical weight loss diets, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/feb/16/intermittent-fasting-no-better-than-typical-weigh...
3•uxhacker•15m ago•0 comments

Developers, Factory Workers, and the AI Replacement Myth

https://emma.has-a.blog/articles/developers-factory-workers-ai-replacement-myth.html
1•srijan4•18m ago•1 comments

The Origins of One of the Most Beloved Video Games of All Time

https://lithub.com/the-origins-of-one-of-the-most-beloved-video-games-of-all-time/
2•vinhnx•24m ago•1 comments

Contra "Grandmaster-Level Chess Without Search"

https://cosmo.tardis.ac/files/2024-02-13-searchless.html
1•luu•25m ago•0 comments

Personal Business

https://www.are.na/editorial/personal-business
1•marcorentap•26m ago•0 comments

DHS pushes social media giants to dox anonymous accounts critical of ICE

https://mashable.com/article/ai-hard-drive-hdd-shortages-western-digital-sold-out
4•jmward01•27m ago•4 comments

A Love Letter to Plastic Junk: Nintendo's Weirdest Inventions

https://www.itstheorbit.com/p/nintendos-beautifully-unnecessary
1•myth_drannon•34m ago•0 comments

Standard Notes – End-to-End Encrypted Notes App from Proton

https://standardnotes.com
2•throwoutway•47m ago•2 comments

The Rediscovery of 103 Hokusai Lost Sketches (2021)

https://japan-forward.com/eternal-hokusai-the-rediscovery-of-103-hokusai-lost-sketches/
1•debo_•49m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Katipo is a minimal alternative internet with a Vulkan based browser

https://github.com/mjdave/katipo
3•majicDave•50m ago•2 comments

Palo Alto Networks Expands Identity Security with CyberArk Deal and TASE Listing

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/palo-alto-networks-expands-identity-091230669.html
1•Khaine•50m ago•0 comments

India's pollution is becoming an economic roadblock

https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/02/15/indias-pollution-is-becoming-an-economic-roadblock
1•andsoitis•52m ago•0 comments

Show HN: OpenSlimedit – Cut AI coding token usage by 21-45% with zero config

https://github.com/ASidorenkoCode/openslimedit
2•aSidorenkoCode•54m ago•6 comments

Why do I not use "AI" at OSNews?

https://www.osnews.com/story/144405/why-do-i-not-use-ai-at-osnews/
3•cdvonstinkpot•54m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Image to Photo

https://imagetophoto.com
1•wangmao•56m ago•1 comments

A NEW Windows‑native SSH agent

https://github.com/Sanmilie/PKCS11SSHAgent
1•Sanmilie•59m ago•1 comments

EPA ends credits for automatic start-stop vehicle ignition

https://apnews.com/article/climate-zeldin-automakers-vehicles-consumers-dca74900298e45485987b87c3...
2•geox•1h ago•1 comments

ASUKA.md – The SOUL.md for Eva Asuka

https://asuka.md
1•jetsquirrel•1h ago•1 comments

Live Variables in the Verse Language

https://twitter.com/vukefn/status/2022809591051096233
1•DustinEchoes•1h ago•1 comments

Arm wants a bigger slice of the chip business

https://www.economist.com/business/2026/02/12/arm-wants-a-bigger-slice-of-the-chip-business
16•andsoitis•1h ago•6 comments

Michelangelo Made His First Masterpiece When He Was 12 Years Old

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/01/michelangelo-first-painting-torment-of-saint-anthony/
1•andsoitis•1h 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/