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Despite rise of AI is there still hope for EE's translators?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/08/being-human-helps-despite-rise-of-ai-is-there-...
1•speckx•1m ago•0 comments

Freeman Dyson's Model of a Cell

https://chillphysicsenjoyer.substack.com/p/freeman-dysons-model-of-a-cell
1•crescit_eundo•1m ago•0 comments

The Highest-Flying Repo Men Are Collecting Spirit Airlines' Jets

https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/spirit-airlines-jets-liquidation-repo-men-5c44a46f
1•jbredeche•2m ago•0 comments

Why MistralAI Grows Faster Than OpenAI/Anthropic

https://productify.substack.com/p/why-mistralai-grows-faster-than-openaianthropic
1•gmays•3m ago•0 comments

Contra Kotler and Friston on 'the body keeps the score'

https://essays.debugyourpain.com/p/contra-kotler-friston-et-al-on-the
1•yichab0d•3m ago•0 comments

Podatek od narzędzi. Dlaczego serwery MCP pożerają Twój budżet na AI

https://jakubpradzynski.substack.com/p/podatek-od-narzedzi-dlaczego-serwery
1•jakubpradzynski•4m ago•0 comments

Rassvet, Russia's Answer to Starlink

https://www.wired.com/story/meet-rassvet-russias-answer-to-starlink/
1•smurda•4m ago•0 comments

Are old Java Developer Journals or Dr. Dobbs mags worth anything?

https://old.reddit.com/r/java/comments/1t3uqc7/are_old_java_developer_journals_or_dr_dobbs_mags/
1•theanonymousone•5m ago•0 comments

Wordle to Become Prime-Time TV Show, with Savannah Guthrie as Host

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/business/media/wordle-nbc-savannah-guthrie.html
1•apparent•5m ago•1 comments

The left-wing case for AI

https://www.seangoedecke.com/the-left-wing-case-for-ai/
1•rhazn•6m ago•0 comments

State of the Map 2027 – Call for Venues

https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2026/05/11/state-of-the-map-2027-call-for-venues-is-now-open/
1•rhazn•6m ago•0 comments

Build a Basic AI Agent from Scratch

https://www.ruxu.dev/articles/ai/build-a-basic-ai-agent/
1•ruxudev•8m ago•0 comments

Microsoft Israel chief leaves amid ethical controversy

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-microsoft-israel-chief-leaves-amid-ethical-controversy-1001542602
1•bhouston•9m ago•0 comments

Porting 3D Movie Maker to Linux

https://benstoneonline.com/posts/porting-3d-movie-maker-to-linux/
1•speckx•10m ago•0 comments

AIQ Rank – a score for how AI-native your workflow is

https://www.aiqrank.com
2•grahac•10m ago•0 comments

Pull Request: Java language implementation of value classes and objects

https://github.com/openjdk/jdk/pull/31120
2•munksbeer•12m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Agents for coding feels like a L2 automation system. Yay/Nay?

1•ak681443•12m ago•0 comments

PaidSync, Run Google/Meta/LinkedIn/TikTok Ads from Claude or ChatGPT

https://paidsync.ai/
1•ahmedashrav•15m ago•0 comments

Mythos 'Discovered' a CVE in Its Training Data – That's Still Worrying

https://rival.security/posts/mythos-discovered-a-cve-already-in-its-training-data---and-thats-sti...
1•theanonymousone•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built a mobile website builder on the Claude Agent SDK

https://sitespin.app/
1•adamhsn•17m ago•0 comments

Redistricting, Democrats are playing as the away team

https://www.natesilver.net/p/on-redistricting-democrats-are-playing
1•7777777phil•18m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Design.md and Skill.md Generator Chrome Extension

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ai-design-taste-designmd/peclkdlolmcclhhgpoehpikgknbmkknc
4•novateg•20m ago•0 comments

How to Leave Instagram

https://www.a-side.social/blog/how-to-leave-instagram/
11•proletarian•20m ago•6 comments

AI's Next Phase Plays into TSMC's Hands

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ais-next-phase-plays-into-tsmcs-hands-3d1f2b60
1•Brajeshwar•21m ago•0 comments

Unauthorized Anthropic stock sales and investment scams

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13704655-unauthorized-anthropic-stock-sales-and-investment...
4•dylanpyle•23m ago•1 comments

Want a better DDD domain model in 5 minutes?

https://www.esdm.io/getting-started/your-first-model-with-ai/
1•goloroden•23m ago•0 comments

Estimating Levenshtein Distance for Large Documents Using Compact Signatures

https://zenodo.org/records/20125438
2•coatespt•24m ago•0 comments

Excavate - Find the "hidden landmines" in your codebase

https://www.npmjs.com/package/excavate
1•Heysonics•25m ago•0 comments

Fostering breakthrough AI innovation through customer-back engineering

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/05/11/1136967/fostering-breakthrough-ai-innovation-through-...
1•joozio•26m ago•0 comments

New Linux kernel vulnerability: Dirty Frag family RxGK variants discovered

https://ikotaslabs.com/news/2026-05-11
2•speckx•27m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•1y ago

Comments

thechao•1y 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•1y ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•1y ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•1y 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•1y 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•1y ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•1y 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•1y 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•1y ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•1y 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•1y ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•1y 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•1y ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•1y 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_•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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/