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Scaling a Monolith to 1M LOC: 113 Pragmatic Lessons from Tech Lead to CTO

https://www.semicolonandsons.com/articles/scaling-a-monolith-to-1m-loc-113-pragmatic-lessons-from...
1•PaulHoule•42s ago•0 comments

Amazon vs. Perplexity AI: ACLU's Amicus Brief

https://www.aclu.org/cases/amazon-v-perplexity?document=Amicus-Brief-of-ACLU-ACLU-of-Northern-Cal...
1•StatsAreFun•2m ago•0 comments

Beside Myself at BSides OK

https://mpdc.dev/beside-myself-at-bsides-ok/
1•ParanoidRV•7m ago•1 comments

Günther Anders's Bleak Picture of the Tech-Perfected Society

https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/03/100527/
1•StatsAreFun•8m ago•0 comments

Specs over Vibes: Consistent AI Results Ft. Mark Freeman

https://motherduck.com/blog/specs-over-vibes-consistent-ai-results/
1•eigenBasis•13m ago•0 comments

KldloadOS 1.0.4 – Kubernetes on (ZFS and Cilium eBPF and WireGuard) in 15 Mins

https://kldload.com/releases/1.0.4
2•kldload•15m ago•0 comments

Most AI travel apps don't help you travel

https://navoy.io/
1•tnaaron•16m ago•0 comments

I don't want to fill out your contact form (2024)

https://adamjones.me/blog/dont-use-contact-forms/
1•JustSkyfall•21m ago•1 comments

Open Source MCP server that refines prompts from retrieval evidence

https://github.com/farukalpay/prompt-refinery
4•Zelray0•26m ago•0 comments

GitHub Copilot Session Search and Resume CLI

https://jonmagic.com/posts/github-copilot-session-search-and-resume-cli/
1•willf•28m ago•0 comments

B-trees and database indexes (2024)

https://planetscale.com/blog/btrees-and-database-indexes
1•cebert•31m ago•0 comments

DNA forensics is transforming studies of ancient manuscripts

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dna-forensics-is-transforming-studies-of-ancient-m...
1•1659447091•33m ago•0 comments

'"one" | "two" | string' autocomplete TypeScript trick

https://jcbhmr.com/2026/04/07/any-string-autocomplete-ts/
2•jcbhmr•35m ago•0 comments

Ongoing system issues w/ state distributor has Mississippi running out of liquor

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/04/12/mississippi-liquor-sales-breakdown/
1•WarOnPrivacy•41m ago•1 comments

AI Integration Pack: 9 Production Python Modules for Payments, CRM, SMS

https://etilabs.gumroad.com/l/gseyqv
1•DruEdwards•41m ago•0 comments

Surely there must be a way to make container secrets less dangerous?

https://dalmatian.life/2026/04/11/surely-there-must-be-a-way-to-make-container-secrets-less-dange...
1•birdculture•51m ago•0 comments

You can have an RSS dependent website in 2026

https://matduggan.com/you-can-absolutely-have-an-rss-dependent-website-in-2026/
1•OberstKrueger•53m ago•1 comments

The AI Industry's Most Expensive Mistake

https://www.thealgorithmicbridge.com/p/inside-the-ai-industrys-most-expensive
1•gmays•55m ago•0 comments

A Macroeconomic Perspective on Stock Market Valuation Ratios

https://researchdatabase.minneapolisfed.org/concern/publications/5x21tf60n
1•mooreds•1h ago•0 comments

2026 Is the New 2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_is_the_new_2016
3•CHB0403085482•1h ago•0 comments

Why Trump Mishandled Iran

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/08/iran-war-ceasefire-trump-united-states-israel/
4•mooreds•1h ago•1 comments

Any USB drive or cable you plug in might be a silent killer

https://www.askwoody.com/newsletter/free-edition-any-usb-drive-or-cable-you-plug-in-might-be-a-si...
4•devonnull•1h ago•0 comments

Made an eBPF syscall tracer with a live TUI

https://github.com/pandaadir05/snoop
1•pigeon1231•1h ago•1 comments

Old, Discontinued Fiats Are Outselling New Fiats

https://www.jalopnik.com/2144450/old-discontinued-fiat-500x-outselling-new-500e/
2•mooreds•1h ago•1 comments

I solved NP‑complete problems by turning them into planets

https://github.com/TheAnalyticalAbsurdist/vedic-planetary-transformers
1•AbsurdityBureau•1h ago•0 comments

Gliding on Snow: One Man's Dream

https://bd-numerique.museebombardier.com/en/
2•sxzygz•1h ago•0 comments

Give Them Two Choices

https://chadnauseam.com/coding/tips/give-them-two-choices
1•ChadNauseam•1h ago•0 comments

The AI Productivity Paradox: Why the AI Multiplier Is Less Than 2x

https://www.forrestthewoods.com/blog/the-ai-productivity-paradox/
1•forrestthewoods•1h ago•0 comments

Javier Milei's bribery scandal may have derailed Argentina's crypto investment

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/12/crypto-javier-milei-bribery-argentina
4•kasperni•1h ago•0 comments

Language, Curiosity and Life – By Masato Hagiwara

https://masatohagiwara.net/lcl.html
1•jotaefea•1h ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•11mo ago

Comments

thechao•11mo 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•11mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•11mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•11mo 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•11mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•11mo 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•11mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•11mo 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_•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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/