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Automatic Data Enumeration for Fast Collections

https://mcmichen.cc/posts/automatic-data-enumeration/
1•matt_d•48s ago•0 comments

Software Survival 3.0

https://steve-yegge.medium.com/software-survival-3-0-97a2a6255f7b
1•benatkin•51s ago•0 comments

Show HN: 6B fiber deal for AI data centers

https://xthe.com/news/metas-6b-ai-bet/
1•xthe•57s ago•0 comments

Show HN: Ruby gem to create, validate, and package AI agent skills

https://github.com/rubyonai/agent_skills
1•nagstler•4m ago•0 comments

Apple Called Out in New 'Encrypt It Already' Campaign

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/29/apple-eff-encrypt-it-already-campaign/
2•mikece•4m ago•0 comments

OpenAI's Sora app is struggling after its stellar launch

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/29/openais-sora-app-is-struggling-after-its-stellar-launch/
1•gradus_ad•4m ago•0 comments

Apple Drops $2B on Israeli AI Facial Tracking Company

https://gizmodo.com/apple-drops-2-billion-on-israeli-ai-facial-tracking-company-2000715708
5•mikece•5m ago•0 comments

If You Give an AI a Computer

https://www.blake.ist/posts/if-you-give-an-ai-a-computer/
1•erhuve•6m ago•0 comments

A short video from KIMI AI founder, Zhilin Yang

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rithrDqeN8
1•rmason•7m ago•0 comments

Anthropic-Pentagon Clash over Limits on AI Imperils $200M Contract

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-pentagon-clash-over-limits-on-ai-imperils-200-million-contr...
2•RyanShook•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Jack – a simple cross-platform CLI Multi-Tool for dev productivity

1•dimeskigj•8m ago•0 comments

How to Run Local LLMs with Claude Code and OpenAI Codex

https://unsloth.ai/docs/basics/claude-codex
1•ljosifov•9m ago•0 comments

Tim Berners-Lee says he is in a 'battle for the soul' of the internet

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/29/internet-inventor-tim-berners-lee-interview-ba...
2•rmason•9m ago•0 comments

Apple posts record-breaking quarterly earnings

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/01/apple-reports-first-quarter-results/
3•linkage•11m ago•2 comments

The Trump Administration Is Publishing a Stream of Nazi Propaganda

https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/01/social-media-trump-administration-dhs/685659/
14•zerosizedweasle•12m ago•2 comments

Bitcoin 2-Month Low as Gold and Stocks Give Up Gains, Crypto Liquidations $800M

https://decrypt.co/356330/bitcoin-2-month-low-gold-stocks-give-up-gains-crypto-liquidations-800m
1•paulpauper•13m ago•0 comments

PicoIDE An open source IDE/ATAPI drive emulator for vintage computers

https://www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics/picoide
1•helfire•14m ago•0 comments

Man impersonating FBI agent tried to get Luigi Mangione out of jail

https://apnews.com/article/luigi-mangione-jail-release-arrest-brooklyn-dc5ec1c87b636bfe99352ef329...
1•bradleyankrom•14m ago•0 comments

Sly Dunbar, Whose Drumming Brought Complex Beats to Reggae, Dies at 73

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/arts/music/sly-dunbar-dead.html
1•paulpauper•15m ago•0 comments

Is school worse for your kids than social media?

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/01/is-school-worse-for-your-kids-than-soci...
2•paulpauper•16m ago•0 comments

YouTube wiped 4.7B+ views worth of AI brainrot

https://www.androidpolice.com/youtube-is-indeed-getting-rid-of-ai-slop/
2•SunshineTheCat•17m ago•0 comments

Is this dumb? A "mother may I" hook for Claude Code

https://github.com/dts/mother
1•Dstaudigel•18m ago•1 comments

Encrypted Peer-to-Peer Messaging via Decentralized Bluetooth Mesh

https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/blob/main/WHITEPAPER.md
1•us321•19m ago•0 comments

WriteFreely: An open source platform for building a writing space on the web

https://writefreely.org/
1•doener•20m ago•0 comments

Building Less Painful AI Code Production Lines

https://www.mitchschwartz.co/2026/01/designing-less-painful-ai-production.html
1•MitchSchwartz•20m ago•0 comments

The Hidden Costs of Additions to a System

https://leomax.fyi/blog/the-hidden-costs-of-additions-to-a-system/
1•mvestri•21m ago•0 comments

Procial – social instance for more advanced (pro) users, who enjoy Mastodon but

https://procial.tchncs.de/
1•doener•21m ago•0 comments

Explore some of the finest open-source software out there

https://tchncs.de/en/
1•doener•25m ago•0 comments

The Duelling Rhetoric at the AI Frontier

https://deadneurons.substack.com/p/the-duelling-rhetoric-at-the-ai-frontier
1•gmays•26m ago•0 comments

The Arc of the Practical Creator

https://home.moretothat.com/p/the-arc-of-the-practical-creator
1•herbertl•28m 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/