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Delete Doesn't Mean Deleted. Just Ask OpenAI

https://lindsaygross1.substack.com/p/delete-doesnt-mean-deleted-just-ask
2•rmason•57s ago•0 comments

Agentic Capital Raising What?

https://octum.ai/glossary/agentic-capital-research.html
1•stevejobs1287•1m ago•0 comments

Drudge Report for Institutional Allocators

https://www.sovguild.org/intelligence/
1•stevejobs1287•2m ago•0 comments

A free book on operating AI coding tools (no signup, source on GitHub)

https://dive.vladyslavpodoliako.com/
2•Belkins•3m ago•1 comments

EWD361: Programming as a discipline of mathematical nature [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awYLxNV3zmA
1•akiarie•6m ago•0 comments

Testing Azure free tier with a live Juneteenth trivia competition

https://web.triviablack.com/board/juneteenth2026
2•hercules08•9m ago•0 comments

Daily AI briefing narrated by Seinfeld

https://nanloss.com/briefings/2026-06-18
2•rajap•10m ago•0 comments

Why Futhark?

https://futhark-lang.org/
1•tosh•10m ago•0 comments

Bevy 0.19 Released

https://bevy.org/news/bevy-0-19/
2•GenericCanadian•12m ago•1 comments

A startup claims it broke through a bottleneck that's holding back LLMs

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/19/1139313/a-startup-claims-it-broke-through-a-bottlenec...
1•Brajeshwar•13m ago•0 comments

Protocol spec for row separated key value format

https://github.com/SymbolGroundingFramework/SGF-manifest/tree/main/rskv-spec
1•jstakelum•16m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Managed Agents API for open source agents

https://brainbaselabs.com
2•egrigokhan•17m ago•0 comments

Protecting Yourself from Malicious AUR Packages

https://blog.nimendra.xyz/blog/aur-attack/
1•speckx•18m ago•0 comments

Binface, foxes and raving loonies: the UK's proud history of costumed candidates

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/19/ount-binface-fox-raving-loony-uk-proud-history-c...
1•mellosouls•22m ago•0 comments

Don't Restrict Chinese Biotech

https://economist.com/leaders/2026/06/18/dont-restrict-chinese-biotech
1•andsoitis•24m ago•0 comments

Surprising Economics of Load-Balanced Systems

https://brooker.co.za/blog/2020/08/06/erlang.html
1•KraftyOne•25m ago•0 comments

Chinese AI models have overtaken US rivals in token consumption

https://www.ft.com/content/2567877b-9acc-4cf3-a9e5-5f46c1abd13e
1•jameslk•26m ago•0 comments

Understanding data sovereignty and jurisdictional risk

https://www.hyperact.co.uk/blog/understanding-data-sovereignty
1•imjacobclark•29m ago•0 comments

From a 7 KB file to a 13-year backdoor operation

https://anchor.host/from-a-7-kb-file-to-a-13-year-backdoor-operation/
2•ValentineC•30m ago•0 comments

Using AI to help physicians diagnose rare genetic diseases affecting children

https://openai.com/index/diagnose-rare-childhood-diseases/
2•dmckinno•30m ago•1 comments

The next generation of speculative decoding: DFlash and Spec V2

https://www.lmsys.org/blog/2026-06-15-next-generation-speculative-decoding-dflash-v2/
2•gmays•30m ago•0 comments

Hide Secrets from AI Agents and NPM install using Airgap

https://sauleau.com/notes/airgap-security-for-the-modern-ai-age.html
2•netgusto•31m ago•0 comments

RFC 10008 on the HTTP Query Method

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/uNaYyRDGKjyOn_KDT2JaGLlm9fE/
2•conductor•32m ago•0 comments

Think of the Children: How to Force Real ID for All Internet Traffic (2023)

https://nochan.net/b/Internet-Crap/20230829-Think-Of-The-Children/
2•Bender•36m ago•0 comments

'Light in a bottle' liquid can harvest and store energy from multiple sources

https://www.science.org/content/article/light-bottle-liquid-can-harvest-and-store-energy-multiple...
2•Brajeshwar•36m ago•0 comments

Enshittification Isn't Limited to the Digital World

https://thenoosphere.substack.com/p/enshittification-isnt-limited-to
6•spking•37m ago•2 comments

Show HN: Control a 3D avatar with English instead of buttons

https://programasweights.com/avatar
3•cloudyclouds•42m ago•0 comments

Everyone Has Something

https://seangeiger.substack.com/p/everyone-has-something
1•benjaminmaccini•43m ago•0 comments

The Pain of Caring for a Parent Who Abused You

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/15/magazine/elder-care-parent-abuse.html
2•gmays•43m ago•0 comments

Show HN: https://bill.today –> use a local folder to do your billing

https://bill.today
2•PhilKunz•45m 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.
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/

jcgrillo•1y ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem