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Music manuscripts from Cologne now linked to digitized copies

https://rism.info/library_collections/2026/03/19/Music-manuscripts-from-Cologne.html
1•gnabgib•20s ago•0 comments

Where did 400 MiB go?

https://frn.sh/pmem/
1•thunderbong•32s ago•0 comments

Naomi Klein and Karen Hao: The Empire of AI and the Fight for Our Future [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1B__Efqacc
1•ares623•34s ago•0 comments

The Equal Vote Coalition

https://www.equal.vote/
1•pabs3•4m ago•0 comments

App for comparing your kid's development

https://appstoreconnect.apple.com/login?targetUrl=%2Fapps%2F6757778539%2Fdistribution%2Fios%2Fver...
1•jbrozena22•8m ago•1 comments

ArrowJS – The first UI framework for the agentic era

https://arrow-js.com/
1•kothariji•8m ago•2 comments

Show HN: RoverBook – PostHog for AI Agents

https://github.com/rtrvr-ai/rover/tree/main/packages/roverbook
1•quarkcarbon279•10m ago•0 comments

Pharaoh – structural codebase maps for AI coding agents

https://pharaoh.so/
2•dangreer•12m ago•0 comments

Autoresearching Apple's "LLM in a Flash" to run Qwen 397B locally

https://twitter.com/danveloper/status/2034353876753592372
1•gurjeet•12m ago•1 comments

Literary Celebrity, Mussolini Mouthpiece, American Traitor: Who Was Ezra Pound?

https://lithub.com/literary-celebrity-mussolinis-mouthpiece-and-american-traitor-who-was-ezra-pound/
1•petethomas•14m ago•0 comments

Show HN: OMyTree – An open-source, tree-based AI canvas for deep research

https://github.com/isbeingto/oMyTree
1•isbeingto•14m ago•0 comments

Aether: Actor language that compiles to C with zero locks (SPSC only

https://github.com/nicolasmd87/aether
1•nicolasmd87•16m ago•0 comments

Explosion at the Valero Oil Refinery in Texas

https://old.reddit.com/r/TFE/comments/1s208fv/an_explosion_at_the_valero_oil_refinery_of_port/
2•flockonus•20m ago•0 comments

Guideline: Rust Style

https://epage.github.io/dev/rust-style/
1•vinhnx•22m ago•0 comments

Power consumption of Game Boy flash cartridges (2021)

https://gekkio.fi/blog/2021/power-consumption-of-game-boy-flash-cartridges/
3•JNRowe•31m ago•1 comments

Cuba's Fragile Power Grid Finds a Powerful New Partner

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Cubas-Fragile-Power-Grid-Finds-a-Powerful-New-Partner....
4•thelastgallon•31m ago•0 comments

Iran War Live Updates: U.S. and Iran Send Conflicting Signals on Peace Prospects

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/23/world/iran-war-oil-trump
4•mananbasim•39m ago•0 comments

Traders placed $580M in oil bets ahead of Trump's social media post on Iran

https://www.ft.com/content/1171d623-3709-4f6e-8ded-a5df4ec57696
7•TheAlchemist•40m ago•1 comments

My Split Keyboard Journey

https://simondalvai.org/blog/split-keyboard-journey/
1•gsky•40m ago•0 comments

Aptos Atomic Arbitrage Bot

https://github.com/tacogips/aptos-atomic-arb-bot
1•tacogips•44m ago•0 comments

Show HN: QuarterMaster – Generate performance reviews from your GitHub activity

https://github.com/imponenm/QuarterMaster
1•imponenm•45m ago•0 comments

AI coding tools have broad filesystem and network access

1•shadag•47m ago•1 comments

Levels of 5-MeO-DMT

https://heart.qri.org/retreats/2023-canada/andres-gomez-emilsson/levels
2•obiefernandez•50m ago•0 comments

$1,2B path Deck feedback

https://drive.google.com/file/d/159LfgazF1Ziqdt97F7Hh6RhEp2lQE2L0/view?usp=drivesdk
1•Tokelo546•53m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AI Brief Room – Upload docs, get McKinsey-style briefings

https://aibriefroom.com/
1•priitmaxx•54m ago•0 comments

Embracing Bayesian Methods in Clinical Trials

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2847011
1•nextos•54m ago•0 comments

Single ATC controller was managing LaGuardia Airport at time of Air Canada crash [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbm-QJAAzNY
2•notRobot•56m ago•0 comments

In Defense of Algebra

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/04/09/in-defense-of-algebra-paul-lockhart/
1•mitchbob•57m ago•1 comments

A vibe coded app – a companion app for ukulele

https://baijum.github.io/ukulele-companion/
2•baijum•1h ago•1 comments

Jury in landmark Meta, Google trial having difficulty coming to consensus

https://nypost.com/2026/03/23/business/jury-in-landmark-meta-google-addiction-trial-having-diffic...
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•1h ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•10mo ago

Comments

thechao•10mo 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•10mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•10mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•10mo 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•10mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•10mo 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•10mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•10mo 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_•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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•10mo 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/